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During another interview he said, “You don’t know me; you think you know me.” I politely reminded him, “Mr. Barry, you forget I know the men you drink with.”
There may never be another local beat like the Barry beat; so I’m glad I got my chance to cover such a charismatic larger-than-life figure who provided the kind of career about which most local reporters can only dream of.
women, though, he tried a flirty look or a one-liner, and would throw you off guard with an off-color comment to test you. You had to let him know you were not amused or phased.
And then there were the unscripted encounters, moments when neither the hunter nor the prey knew they would run into each other. In a town as small as
D.C., you were bound to run into Barry in unexpected places.
On one such occasion, I was with a group of journalists who met to have an early dinner at a Southwest waterfront restaurant before proceeding to an opening night performance at Arena Stage. We looked out on the sunny deck and who was already there with an attractive woman and his security detail? Yes, “Hizzoner.” He tried to play it off by coming to the table to chit-chat as the security officers whisked her behind him. Too late; caught.
I dutifully called his press secretary and inquired where the mayor was that evening according to his official schedule. She responded that he was at the Kennedy Center with his wife. “Really? Well, who was that I saw him with at Le’Rivage when I looked down at my watch at 7:30?” I asked. No answer. Then, “I’ll get back to you.” A mutual friend, who was visiting from out of town, told me later that Barry had been upset when they ran into each other later that evening. “That damn Adrienne, she saw me and she’s going to write a story,” he said.
But I didn’t. After discussing it with my editors, we finally agreed
that I did not have enough facts to
build a story. It was a gossip item at best. (For starters, this was before cell phones and Instagram. In addition, I did not recognize the woman, or know how long they’d been at the restaurant before he got her out of there). Not surprisingly, after that
hissing machines attached to his body. Nonetheless, he finally made a comment about how good I was looking that day. “This is how I know you’re really sick,” I
said to him. “It took you 30 minutes to ‘hit’ on me.” And, we laughed.
incident, the mayor changed his approach to me and became more forthright.
In my last radio interview with him, Barry thanked me for not “beating up” on him. I reminded him, “Oh, I’ve cut you some slack before.” He just chuckled, “yea.”
During his brief hiatus from political office, I went to visit him at Howard University Hospital. He had all manner of tubes and