A Trek to True Religion

Another guest post from my friend Robert Moriarty, afoot in Washington with a sense of urgency.

I don’t like the gym, so I try to walk every day. I often walk from L’Enfant to DuPont which takes 50 minutes, 3 miles I estimate. It is an interesting route. Despite being very happy to have male plumbing rather than female, my prostate is not my friend. Last time the doctor snapped off the rubber gloves he said, “Well you don’t have the prostate of a 19 year-old.” “I haven’t passed that way in decades Doc. Put me on the transplant list!” No transplants for prostates, so during my daily hike I usually have to urinate. I have three haunts for this errand, Lucky Bar, The Mayflower and Filene’s Basement. All are about two-thirds of the way on my journey, providing varying degrees of accommodation.

Lucky Bar is the quickest. It's a green Biker bar, a pedallers hangout. Mostly couriers, a scruffy bunch that clogs the sidewalk with bicycles that are either purposely ugly or show a minimalist high-tech display of huge expense. One style would seem to discourage theft, the other to encourage it. Other contradictions exist; they smoke a lot in combination with their exercise lifestyle. Lucky's is sometimes guarded by a doorman. He once asked me for a picture ID. I would have protested that in America we do not have a requirement to carry such identification, but my bladder deprived me of my constitutional rights. On Fridays it is useless, so crowded with drinkers that outside urinators need not apply.

The Mayflower is the classiest. I open my outerwear to display my usual coat and tie as my entry credentials. Often welcomed by the doorman I stride the lobby with as much confidence as Elliot Spitzer. I walk the long corridor peeking into corporate cocktail parties and what appear to be private wedding parties. My body language announces I am likely to dip in for a drink or canapé, but I only veer into the staircase that leads to the men’s room, as well as JFK’s pre-presidential apartment wing, now a non-descript piece of real estate lacking even a concierge. The facilities are top-notch providing hand cream and Kleenex after use of the electronic urinals (those are measurement devices, right?). With every visit I remember my Senior Prom. Like Lucky Bar, the Mayflower men's room is sometimes off limits. When no parties are upstairs they lock it to keep out vagrants and to keep out me.

Filene’s is the most consistently reliable relief station, albeit a long walk through the merchandise. I read that single men shopping are shoplifting suspects. I politely eyeball the goods, but never touch. The gallery of men’s underwear is enormous and begs the question: "Who pays that much for underwear?” The boys from Lucky Bar? Maybe. Elliot Spitzer? Likely. The packaging photography is ambiguously erotic. Is it meant to appeal to men or women? Since Filene’s inventory is a wide mix of overstocks, one comes upon surprising goods. On a tower near the elevator (I take the stairs like all boosters) I found a rack of hats, like British sports car hats mixed with vinyl travel shaving kits, Dopp kits we used to call them. Filene’s promotes such racks with special signs, perhaps “Bill Blass” or “Take 20% off Ticketed Price”. But this rack had the sign: “True Religion”. Relieved after my trip to the second floor, I swept by it barely absorbing what I assumed was an odd, but hip, brand name. I wondered: For the hats or for the shaving kits? Both?

The next day it hit me. Did I walk past the opportunity of a lifetime? Was the sign truthful? Was true religion to be found at Filene’s Basement? Don’t we so often ignore the little voice within us, or in this case, the plain evidence put before us? Is true religion to be found in the hats or the kits? I will make the pilgrimage again.

The Office of Missing Soldiers

This guest post from my friend Robert Moriarty.

I try to get to work on time, a lifelong habit appreciated by no one. I leave home early and if Metro behaves, I walk from Chinatown to L'Enfant to burn up the time and calories while seeking inner peace on this 17-minute downhill walk. For years I have passed Clara Barton's office, The Office of Missing Soldiers. It is an artifact hole-in-the-wall marked with a plaque for this founder of the Red Cross who offered succor to soldiers in that dreadful conflict. It is always locked and neglected, occasionally marked by a Chinese food carry-out menu (Would Clara understand that concept?). Lately I noticed some new signage, Park Service style, something about how Yankee soldiers were short of socks (what about the poor Rebels?).

Today there was a plastic sign like you might see in a small shop window, OPEN on one side CLOSED on the other. Oddly it was flipped to OPEN. I chuckled and walked past. Then I stopped and returned, twisted the ancient doorknob and it yielded. I stepped into The Office of Missing Soldiers and climbed the staircase, longer than a story, less than two. The place was brightly lit with those temporary construction light bulbs in yellow plastic cages. The place was stripped of furniture but there seemed to be period wallpaper, plaster and lathe, balusters and wood work. The floors were obviously old but too dirty to be appreciated. I walked from small mysterious room to room via narrow hallways and found a modern elevator which molested its surroundings as little as you might wish. Then I heard murmuring from a street-fronting room. I gingerly approached. I found in that room the last thing I ever expected to find at 8:00AM January 25, 2011. Perhaps two dozen soldiers, in battle dress, seated on folding chairs, politely listening to a lecture. Did I find the Missing Soldiers?

Fiction, Nonfiction and Journalism

There's fiction, there's nonfiction and there's what you read in the newspaper - or on the internet. Courtesy of Ric Cottom's Your Maryland at WYPR - FM. www.wypr.org