Lost In D.C. - But He Feels A Song Coming On

“Good King Wenceslas looked out

On the feast of Stephen

When the snow lay round about

Deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon at night

Though the frost was cruel

When a poor man came in sight

Gathering winter’s fuel.”

We are lost in the bureaucratic jungle.

It is midnight, a week before Christmas of last year, and we are somewhere east of the Capitol in the thicket of buildings that jumble up next to it, the bureau of this and the department of that.

On a weekend, especially near a holiday when the area is devoid of workers, it is empty indeed - except for the lost of humanity, the homeless and the drugged. And, this night, two Texas tourists.

My wife and I are dressed to the nines, in suit and silk, on our way back to our hotel after attending a play at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre. We are on foot, in our good shoes, stiff and proper ones. We stand out like manicured sore thumbs.

We had waited in the lobby of the theater for a time, thinking that a taxi would show up when the patrons were let out. None did.

“Let’s call a cab,” said my wife, Kay.

“It doesn’t look that far on the map,” I said. “I think we can walk it.”

So we walked. We are still walking.

Distances are deceptive. We are on the east side of the Capitol. Our hotel is to the south of it. Surely we can just scoot around to it.

But that well-lit dome is bigger than I think, which means it’s farther away than I think. We walk and we walk, and the dome stays in the same place.

Finally we come to what looks like a busy intersection. Kay wants to hail a cab, if we can. I am convinced that we are only a few blocks away, but our map is a tiny giveaway one, and the street lights aren’t helping much, and the traffic doesn’t include any cabs, or at least available ones.

Somebody comes up from the shadows.

“Sir, please, can you spare a dollar?”

The woman is starvation-thin, twisty with nervousness, shaky. She needs food. Worse, she needs food for her veins. I give her a dollar. She takes it and stumbles away.

“Hither page and stand by me

If thou knows’t it, telling,

Yonder peasant who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?

Sire, he lives a good league hence,

Underneath the mountain

Right against the forest fence,

By St. Agnes’ fountain.”

The play had been wonderful: “A Child’s Christmas in Wales and Other Lands.”

The little theater is a beautiful tribute to the Renaissance. The dark wood swirls all about, in balconies and pewlike seats. The stage comes out in almost arm’s reach of the audience.

The play was a sentimental visit with the friendly ghosts of Christmases past, featuring snippets of things, a segment from “A Christmas Carol,” the famous “Yes, Virginia” letter from the editor of the New York Sun in 1897 and, of course, a loving and lively rendition of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” An old-fashioned British family gathered in the parlor to remember and celebrate. Poems and stories were read. Carols and songs were sung, including “Good King Wenceslas.” The audience joined in.

It was all the purest kind of magic, an evocation of the best of childhood, and a generally jolly time.

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine

Bring me pine logs hither,

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither.

Page and Monarch, forth they went,

Forth they went together,

Through the rude wind’s loud lament

And the bitter weather.”

Washington has an edge to it, a sometimes jagged edge. I think of it as the most American of cities, the worst and the best of who we are.

No American city is more beautiful. The French helped us with that, the wide boulevards and the classical architecture, the statues and monuments and fountained plazas. Washington is the child of Paris.

And at every warm grate are small huddles of men and a few women, wrapped in their sleeping bags, dozing or staring. People walk around them.

Earlier in the evening, we had gone to Union Station, a central part of the grand revival of Washington. It’s a wonderful place to see, especially at Christmas. Outside, the building is spruced up with giant wreaths and a jillion lights. The grand echoing foyer is just inside, and behind it are hundreds of shops. That evening they were all bustling.

A female security guard stopped me (I am so obviously a tourist) and advised me to put my wallet in my front pocket. “I wouldn’t tell ya that if I didn’t love ya,” she says in a familiar lilt, and I was reminded that I am still in the South. I was also reminded of the hard edge.

I saw more than a few of the mentally disengaged wandering the busy halls of Union Station. They were tuned in to a private music. Some of them were singing it.

Kay and I leave the intersection after 20 minutes of no cabs. The cool night is getting cold. We pass midnight.

“Sire, the night is darker now

And the wind blows stronger;

Fails my heart, I know not how

I can go no longer.”

In our walking we pass some people who seem like they belong here. We show them our map, point out where we think our hotel is on the map (I have failed to write down the address of the hotel; what a dummy) and they point us in what looks like a logical direction. We are encouraged, and we continue.

The contrasts are everywhere in this city. We had flown in this morning on a cheap dawn flight, rested in the hotel, spent the evening at Union Station, then the play, then now.

The next day, Sunday, we started out with services at the National Cathedral. We spent all afternoon in the Holocaust Memorial Museum. When the early night came, we walked across the Mall to the Ellipse to see the National Christmas Tree and hear the children’s choirs. The choirs were from the suburban schools of Maryland and Virginia, and each kid seemed to be represented by at least one grandmother and several other supporters, so the area was full and festive. The National Christmas Tree is surrounded by smaller trees representing each state and territory, all of which add up to a glittering forest.

We walked by the White House and looked enviously through the bars at a party under way. The windows were blazing with light. Out in front, the grandstands were being erected for the inauguration later in January, Clinton’s second term.

Christmas is easy to find and hard to hang on to. We had come away from the play so full of good cheer, and now it had worn away in the darkness of the long walk. The next day we were uplifted by the cathedral services, devastated by the museum’s clear depiction of evil, and then came the Christmas tree and the children and the White House gala. Days of contrast in the city of contrasts.

We have walked another mile or two, at least, and our feet are pinched shut and the map is becoming less convincing and we are losing our last bit of encouragement.

“Mark my footsteps, good my page,

Tread thou in them boldly,

Thou shalt find the winter’s rage,

Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

We are standing at another intersection, this one empty. We have gone through an area of small houses and closed shops, and now we are back in an area of apartments.

A car drives up and stops, an old car, something that an unsuccessful criminal might drive. The man inside rolls down his window and summons us over with a wave.

“Listen,” he says, “I was one of the people who gave you directions awhile back, and I think I might have misled you. I’ve been worried about it. I think you’re a lot further from your hotel than I thought. Why don’t you let me drive you there?”

Kay is reluctant. My feet are killing me. I hop in the back. She is either going to be left behind, or she is going with this guy. She gets in on the passenger side, in the front.

The guy says he knows just where the hotel is. Says he used to work around here before he got laid off. Wanted to do his good deed for Christmas by coming back to get us. We tell him how grateful we are.

He’s obviously educated, but I’m not entirely reassured by that. I am beginning to detect a bit of weirdness. No. 1, he’s going in the wrong direction entirely. I still have an eye on the Capitol dome, and it is receding. It should be growing. And No. 2, he has this huge shovel in the back seat. I had to scoot it over to get in. I mean huge.

Kay has looked back at me and seen the shovel, and I know what she’s thinking. We are going to be murdered and chopped up into itty-bitty pieces and buried next to a statue of Chester A. Arthur. With that shovel.

“In his master’s steps he trod,

Where the snow lay dented.

Heat was in the very sod,

Where the Saint had printed.”

“Excuse me,” I say, “but I think we might be going in the wrong direction.”

He doesn’t say anything. He pulls over. He looks at the map, which I provide, reaching over the back seat. I can’t see this guy very well, even when the interior light of the car comes on. I didn’t catch his name. How am I going to identify him in a lineup? If we are lucky enough to get to a lineup?

“Damn!” he says. “Dammit!”

I think his Christmas cheer is wearing thin. Ours has worn through. In a rage, he wheels around on the boulevard and heads back in the direction we came from.

We are dead quiet. We give him time for his frustration to ease. We hope it is easing.

Maybe he realizes that he is scaring us. He tries to be reassuring with small talk. We talk about the job market, the weather, the city. Kay is all the way over by the door, holding onto the handle, ready to jump when I give the signal.

He calms some. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says. “Now I know where we are.”

I start to recognize some streets from the map. Then I can see it, the Holiday Inn.

“There we are,” I say. “That’s it. That’s it.”

I hop out of the car almost before we come to a stop. Kay is out before I am. We want away from that shovel.

“Thank you,” I say, coming around to the driver’s side. We talk through his open window. I am genuinely grateful as all my misplaced fear deflates in me. I shake his hand. It’s a friendly, normal hand. A very good deed has been done for us, and I am touched, but I want out of there, too.

“Merry Christmas,” I say to him.

“And to you both as well,” he says.

We’re off. We rush across the street to the lobby of the hotel. As we wait in the lobby for the elevator, we can see him driving away. In a minute, the elevator takes us away as well.

We’re in our room at last, and the door is locked behind us. For a little while, we can shut out the city of contrasts.

“Therefore, Christian men, be sure

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO The purpose of this story is not to discourage you from going to Washington, D.C. This is a glorious city, especially for families, and it is an ideal place to celebrate the holidays. Washington is, however, a big city with big problems, and you need to be careful. Don’t do what we did. Don’t wander off the beaten path into unfamiliar neighborhoods. Don’t get into a car with a stranger. Go to a well-traveled area, find a restaurant or other safe haven, and call a cab. Then wait for it. The Washington Convention and Visitors Association sponsors Winterfest, a promotion that features reduced hotel rates and special events. Call (800) 422-8644 for details, or visit the Web site at www.washington.org. A spokesman for the visitors association said people should have no trouble finding a hotel room during the holidays. Some sample rates: Best Western New Hampshire Suites, $70 double, (800) 762-3777. Embassy Row Hilton, $85 double, (800) 424-2400. Holiday Inn Capitol, $79 double, (800) 465-4329. Willard Intercontinental, $199 double, (800) 327-0200.