Robert Frost once wrote that good fences make good neighbors—but if you ask Jim and Christine Payne, adjacent windows make for even better ones. Ever since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became their next-door neighbor in Georgetown, the couple have been using some pretty creative window dressing to send not-so-subtle messages to the Trump administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
First was a copy of the book We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. In response to Kennedy’s scientifically-unsupported claims that autism is a preventable disease caused by “environmental toxins”—including Tylenol—the Paynes displayed six copies in their window, along with a sign announcing a live book signing by author Eric Garcia. “Twenty people showed up,” says Jim, not without pride.
The couple’s 39-year-old son, Alexander, is autistic. As Jim remembers it, “After the Kennedys moved in, he went right over there and introduced himself to Kick (Kennedy’s eldest daughter, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy) saying, ‘Hi, I’m Alex and I have autism.’ ”
More recently, the Paynes’ 18-inch-deep window featured Halloween-themed décor: a skeleton sitting in a chair, holding a sign reading, “Wish I had taken my vaccine!” Next to its feet was a small bottle of Tylenol.
A professional interior decorator who once dressed the front windows of Georgetown’s Christ Child Opportunity Shop, Christine doesn’t mind working on a smaller scale. In fact, her husband says, “Christine got really into it.”
Does Kennedy feel the same? Contacted by Washingtonian, HHS press secretary Emily G. Hilliard offered a written statement: “Secretary Kennedy is focused on doing his job, improving the health and well-being of the American people.”
The Paynes’ house, otherwise known as “The Napoleon House” thanks to a 500-pound bust of the French general that resides on the couple’s front lawn, has become a regular stop for neighbors and tourists alike. Not quite the attraction of, say, the Macy’s Christmas window displays, but, according to Christine, people do make pilgrimages to see it. “Somehow it fulfills people,” she says, mentioning a man who makes the daily walk from his home at the Watergate. “Why do we do it? It’s about kindness, community, and fun.” (When weather permits, the Paynes provide cookies for passersby on Sundays at 7 PM).
Kennedy isn’t the only member of the Trump regime to experience neighborly displays of resistance. When then-Republican Ohio Senator and now-Vice President JD Vance became Trump’s running mate last year, people chalked pro-Kamala Harris messages on the Jersey barriers put up for security reasons around a park that adjoined Vance’s home in Alexandria. More recently, protesters wrote chalk messages on a sidewalk near the Arlington home of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, challenging Trump’s immigration policies and declaring that Miller is “destroying democracy.” (Miller has since moved his family into military housing, and the Arlington house was put up for sale).
For her Thanksgiving window, Christine also might be taking aim at the Trump administration’s hardline immigration stance. Although still under construction, she says the window’s focal point will be a poster board sign reading, “Let’s Learn From The Piscataway Tribe. They WELCOMED Immigrants To Georgetown 1765.”
Despite the neighborly trolling, Jim says, he doesn’t “want Kennedy to think I have a campaign against him.” As it turns out, Jim is actually cousin of Kennedy’s, through the Shriver side of the family. “He calls me Cuz,” Jim says. And even though they disagree with his politics, the couple says that Kennedy has been a wonderful neighbor, particularly in one way. “I’ve lived in Georgetown off and on for 50 years,” Jim says, “and I’ve never had better parking.”
