A Pilgrim’s Digression

Monday mornings I always feel as if someone has wrapped me in gauze and thrust me out into a gray, bleary world to stumble my way to work. My mouth is dry so that I only squeak hello to the few regulars I see on my daily commute. Everyone I see is morose and tired. As I exit the train at Union Station, the hoard waiting to enter the train nearly shove me back inside as they push to enter; I wonder if they even see me. I feel like a ghost. Outside the station, there is a sort of high squeal coming from somewhere; I look around for the source, as I walk across the roundabout towards what I think is my bus at the far end. The whining is from an electric-powered bus. Pigeons flap up from the sidewalk in a noisy whir. A man approaches … “Hey man, you got a transfer?” I shake my head no. Washington Metrobuses only have their destination on the front and on one side near the front door. Unless you are in front of the bus, or directly beside it, you cannot tell where it is heading. I walk all the way around the half-circular bus pick-up/drop-off only to discover that the bus is the X8, not the N22. I walk all the way back around to where the buses initially stop to drop off passengers, and I wait. Time passes. I feel asleep standing up, suffused in grayness; gray buildings, gray sky, gray pavement, gray faces passing, gray pigeons. My legs ache from standing, and I become conscious of being really, really hungry. I skipped dinner last night. I read somewhere that people who experience some measure of starvation live longer than fat, happy people. And so doctors now advise skipping a meal. “Maybe I just need some orange juice to get my blood sugar up,” I think. Or coffee. Yes, coffee. The N22 pulls in and unloads. The driver, a small woman little bigger than a child, gets out and lights a cigarette; she stands glumly by the door as passengers board. “Good morning,” I croak hoarsely, showing her my transfer. The corners of her mouth tighten a little. The bus stinks as if it had been inhabited by beggars all weekend. The smell is a combination of sweat and damp wool and cigarette. Additionally, the heater is on, so the bus is stuffy and the fetid odor of humanity circulates freely. I fall into a seat and take out my book to pass the time, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War by Paul Fussell. At some point the driver gets back aboard, and the bus begins to move, around Columbus Fountain and then up First Street. Constitution Avenue is almost completely blocked off with construction along the Dirkson and Hart SOB side of the street. Further up First street, at the Library of Congress, construction on the Capitol Visitor’s Center has also narrowed the street, so the whole area is potentially one great traffic jam. This morning, the bus sits through three changes of light at Constitution avenue before making it across the intersection. Some passengers get off here, though it is probably not their normal stop. A couple drivers in vehicles beside the bus decide to perform illegal u-turns in full view of the Capitol Police monitoring and directing traffic, and they head back down First street apparently frustrated with trying to squeeze through the bottleneck. Finally, the bus makes it across the intersection. Enormous flatbeds and great cranes stand blinking along the right hand side of First street, further constricting traffic flow, apparently waiting to enter the construction zone. Police by the dozen mill about, or guard the entrance, inspecting vehicles carefully before letting them pass through the gate in the high wall erected to restrict the construction area. “The green zone,” I think. “That’s what they call it in Baghdad.” Further up, at East Capitol Street, pickups unload workmen, all Hispanic. Each man carries a small, red Igloo cooler such as my grandfather used to carry to work each day.

Off at C st. SE and Independence. A strong, cool wind is blowing, belying the humidity that will seep up from the asphalt as the day wears on. I walk down Pennsylvania Ave. SE to Starbucks. A trap door opens in the sidewalk, leading into the cellar of one of the restaurants along Pennsylvania; someone below is tossing up bags of garbage to another man who tosses it into a garbage scow parked along the street. The stink is awful. I pass and am greeted by the smell of baking donuts. Two Capitol Hill police officers are just ahead of me; they turn into the donut shop. Why do they wear handcuffs on the back of their belt, in the small of their back? Seems like the cuffs would be more at hand in a pocket or on the side of their belts. Just another sign and symbol of their power. One of the men is paunchy, probably from all the donuts he has eaten every morning of his working life. A beggar sits on the ground beside the door of Starbucks. “Hey buddy, can you …” or maybe it was “Do you have ..” I don’t know. I go in and cannot even remember what he said to me five seconds afterwards. The music this morning is something light and jazzy, like the browns and yellows and beiges of the coffee shop itself. Starbucks is quiet this time of morning, not even seven A.M., except for the foamy whoosh of the cappucino machine. The clerks are all foreign, Pacific or Caribbean Islanders, I think, though I am probably dead wrong. I tend to think all oddly named, dark-skinned foreigners are Pacific Islanders. I have this secret desire to live in Fiji. Sometimes the clerks don’t understand me, though I speak plainly and loudly. One time I asked for a tall “Gold Coast” and they gave me a grande Mocha. I always order a “tall” not because I am cheap, but because I am embarrassed to say “grande” in America. “Venti” is even worse; I’d really feel like a fool. “Tall Sumatra,” I say. The girl gets my order right this time, though I always have my doubts. She always looks at me a moment too long, and so I usually end up repeating my order just to be sure. I take my coffee to the self-service bar and pour in the cream. I am reminded from what I just read in my book that all of these items, coffee, cream, and even the sugar I don’t use, but which is plentiful, were all rationed in 1942. I just bought a cup of powerful coffee and fortified it with real cream. Perhaps the coffee was even from Sumatra, as its name would suggest, though names of products probably are deceiving. Every item in this shop would have been a luxury, from the tuna sandwiches in the cooler to the coffee makers themselves (household appliances were also in severely short supply because the metals in them were so valuable to the war effort). In a real war, food, any food, is a luxury to be savored when had. In a fake war like this one, U.S. marshals eat a bounty of donuts for breakfast and civil servants enjoy Starbucks coffee. Out of Starbucks again. “Hey Mister, can you help me get some breakfast?” And down the street I go. Two blue vans with the words “United States Marshalls” on the sides, followed by a non-descript, gray official car, scream up Pennsylvania towards the Capitol, sirens blaring. Every morning, these same two vehicles drive madly up the street in this same blaring manner a little before seven A.M. The first time I heard them, I looked around, concerned I was in the middle of a terrorist attack. Now I sometimes don’t even remember that it happened. Where are they going? They make a u-turn at the intersection with Independence and C street and head back down Pennsylvania, stopping in front of the donut shop. I didn’t know they could use their sirens to go to the donut shop. Maybe the donut shop is under seige, hostages held and donuts barbarously eaten by terrorists. I cross the street to work.

This is my Monday morning.