By Brian Cognato> University of Maryland

“Let’s tailgate!” my friend Sean, to whom this article owes its title, said, the first time we discussed the upcoming Inauguration. He wanted to raise a cold one to the departing partier-in-chief, who had proved a college career full of tomfoolery was no impediment to success; I wanted to welcome the new guy to town with a drink. If we weren’t almost guaranteed to get tasered trying, we so would have done it.

But as I elbowed my way through the crowds and stiffened myself against the cold downtown on January 20, tailgating couldn’t have been any farther from my mind. I was an uncredentialed “citizen” journalist, denied access to anything but the heaps of people piled behind huge crowd control fences (and really fucking cold by the way) and I needed a story. The closest I had come was talking to a girl who had seen Will.i.am–“Not just anybody wears chinchilla,” she assured me—and I was getting desperate.

Then, it appeared. I saw the smoke first, wafting heavenward like a sacrifice to the day, and completely out of place. I hadn’t expected to see any smoke today, at least not any that wasn’t quickly surrounded by taser-happy security guards and servicemen. Under the smoke, a brand new, shiny red grill. And behind the grill, a man serving hamburgers as wide across as softballs, nearly inch thick, with cheese thick like canvas and flopping over the burger’s edges. There were wings and hot dogs, soda and beer. Presiding over it all: Marty Thomas, the tailgater-in-chief.

To be sure, this wasn’t a classic tailgate—hamburgers $5, cheesburgers $6, a $20 cover if you wanted beer. It was run by the Penn Quarter Sports Tavern (formerly Top Shelf), the tailgate nestled into a corner between the bar and some of those imposing fences on Indiana Ave. and Seventh Street near the Mall. But amid the Obama hats, shirts, posters, air fresheners (“You can smell the change!”), hot sauce and giant foam fingers, a little capitalism was excusable. And the burgers were good.

“I’ve seen inaugurations, I’ve seen presidential funerals,” Thomas, a native of Alexandria, Va., told me, “I’ve never seen this.” The place was packed, and Thomas kept up a steady stream of burgers for the masses, chatting up each customer as they came by.

Where ya from man? Italy? Hey, we got a guy from Italy here! You come just for this? That’s great. Hey, you getting’ cheese? Formaggio? Have a good one!

Well here you go little girl. You having fun today? You’re welcome!

Where ya from? A local? You ever come in? Well how come I’ve never seen you?

They’d been preparing for this for ten days, and Thomas would be grilling from 10:15am until 9pm unless the meat ran out first, and it looked like it might. He and the Tavern had been talking about doing this for a year and had bought the grill specifically for this occasion. Thomas thought it had already paid for itself. “What’d ya think?” he said, grinning wide and looking me in the eye, “There’s a couple million people out here!”

My fellow tailgaiters milled around easily, college kids mixing with families, blacks and whites, even Canadians, joking in line and trying to soak some heat off the grill. Nearby the Tavern was, of course, selling t-shirts, “Obama-Biden Welcome Keggar!” and mock Obama kickball jerseys. The staff all wore Sports Tavern gear, on the back a quote: “’I want to kiss you.’ – a drunk Joe Namath to Suzy Kolber on live television.” Thomas occasionally called out for updates. “Some one tell me what’s going on? Who’s our President? Is Bush gone yet?” I asked him his advice for the new guy in town. “Come through man, we’re all pulling for you. All of America is.”

As day turned into night and sequined snowcaps gave way to black ties and ball gowns, I ducked into a Metro and rejoined the throng. Warmed by my proximity to what seemed like half of the city’s 2 million visitors, I took off my coat, and a familiar smell escaped from somewhere inside: char-grilled hope.