Nettie and I drove down to Baltimore on Sunday en route to . . . . well, time will tell toward what she’s driving. She’s about to start college in Washington, D.C., and it’s a peculiar time, to say the least, to be headed down the Jersey Turnpike toward your future in the nation’s capital, what with gangs of masked men in bulletproof vests who may or may not be ICE throwing Uber Eats drivers into unmarked cars and armored vehicles from the West Virginia National Guard parked on the National Mall.
Arriving as a newcomer to Washington right now is like stepping through the parted canvas entrance curtains of the carnival big top for a very strange pantomime show, and you’re forced to participate. The clowns with their striped pants hiked up to their armpits and their orange wigs take you by the elbow, and the next thing you know you’re riding high atop a camel or elephant, confused but afraid to show your confusion on your face because the rest of the audience is watching.
It took seven hours to get from East Hampton down to Baltimore, our waystation en route to the capital. That was a bit longer than anticipated, though we did get sidetracked in Queens when we stopped for gas and decided to take advantage of a very neato vending machine that, for $8, provides the use of a pressure-wash-and-wax wand and a big, tethered scrub brush that jets out soap to lather and buff the car with. It’s best to roll up at college in a clean car.
We also had an unforgettably strange interlude in the Thomas Edison rest stop outside Woodbridge, N.J., where we pulled off the turnpike to find pandemonium in the parking lot — too few parking spaces, much honking and flipping of the bird, sun-drunk vacationers spilling out like popcorn exploding from a popper, and a heat index that could melt tires to tarmac. We were climbing out of our own trusty Honda in search of an icy beverage when we saw the cutest little mouse, a house mouse with a twitchy pink nose, drinking from a paper cup in the parking spot next to ours. Inside, near the Chick-Fil-A, a man was shouting really, really loudly about Russia.
My friend Sarah lives in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore and it’s a revelation to stroll around the city on an August evening and slowly become aware of the lack of cars on the streets, as compared with the current state of traffic and road rage we’ve become acclimated to on the byways of the South Fork. The ruins of the 19th and 20th-century industrial economy have left America with some fine, stately, empty cities — so strangely empty. The silence of a quiet Baltimore block is broken from time to time by the sound of a dog barking or a couple fighting at high decibels — there seems to be an unusual amount of arguing (I was reminded of Divine screaming at someone in a John Waters movie) in the alleys of Baltimore — but mostly we luxuriated in a surprising and unaccustomed calm and quiet. Delicious calm and quiet. A highball glass of (heavily iced) iced tea with a sprig of mint to stir it with.
Coming back from a dinner of tibs and doro wat at the Dukem Ethiopian restaurant on Sunday night, we wandered in the empty lobby of the magnificent Belvedere Hotel (c. 1903). No guests were in sight, only a uniformed guard who let us into the hallway that leads to the Owl Bar to look at a small exhibit documenting the grand hotel’s glory years, when everyone from Barbara Stanwick to Roy Clark to Theodore Roosevelt slept there. We passed only a few Baltimorians on the street; they were sitting on stoops and nodded good evening as we passed. Inside Sarah’s house, which is three stories tall and made of brick, all was silence.
Onward to the capital in the morning.
Nettie’s new home, Potomac House at George Washington University, is an hour south of Baltimore and four blocks from the National Mall. For some reason, “Gee Dub” arranged for kids arriving early — for athletics or leadership programs — to check in at the rear of a mailroom-and-services building adjacent to the dorm, at a folding table, beside a loading ramp, next to colossal bins for sorting garbage. (“Welcome to Washington! Here’s our aromatic industrial-size trash compactor!” Nettie’s mother worked hard to suppress any audible expression of her inner monologue, managing to keep her commentary to herself. The dorm room itself is quite nice.) Behind this same building, next to a small parking plaza, a group of men and women in camouflage loitered about. It was unclear if they were guardsmen or just R.O.T.C.
Strange days. We did see two National Guard members inside a nearby Maman coffee shop, buying, like us, delicious chocolate sandwich cookies. Members of the National Guard were crawling all over the place, invited as peacekeepers to tame a lawless and violent population, but, from what we saw, mainly wandering around just as confused as the rest of us, perhaps slightly embarrassed. No one seemed thrilled or, you know, relieved or something that they had come. The populace of D.C., going about their daily business in their sensible office attire — picking up after sheepdogs, chasing children on tricycles, eating sandwiches while walking — look around in all directions, taking in the unfolding scene of surreality. One or two darted glances of unmasked displeasure in the direction of the “peacekeepers” but most maintaining poker faces.
The air is strange because the presence of the military, it turns out, forces a certain self-consciousness or self-awareness on the populace. We’re all part of the pantomime performance, everyone subtly checking out everyone else’s reactions.
We were crossing the Mall and watched — among a scattered crowd discreetly following his movements from all vantage points — as a lone man in a black suit approached an armored vehicle from the National Guard parked on the grass near the Ellipse. The man in the black suit made a show of shaking the hand of each uniformed guardsman, and then handed his cellphone to one of them for a group picture with the front fence of the White House behind him in the distance. Everyone tracked his movements with their eyes but we kept our faces blank.