The man was tall, broad, and bald, with a prophet’s fierce spark in his eyes. He wore a long thick filthy coat that flapped as he strode up the sidewalk. “There’s gonna be a fiiiiiire,” he shouted. “There’s gonna be a big damn fiiiiiiiiire.” People ignored him. They looked at their phones. They walked with the usual big-city purpose. In the distance, a siren started to wail, and a grin split the man’s face. He knew it. He’d called it. Somewhere, there was a fiiiiire. A big damn fire.
I was back in D.C., remembering what I hadn’t missed: the theatrically ill. The dispossessed, the homeless, the shambling souls hunched over a cart liberated from a grocery store, pushing it around until dark came and they could find an alcove to hide in. When I used to live here, it seemed worse — my old neighborhood, Adams Morgan, had spare-changers spaced every twelve feet, as if by city ordinance. If you were inclined to give to the first, your heart was less permeable to their cries by the end of the block. By the end of a week, less so. By the end of the month, you stopped your ears. Welcome to D.C.! We’ll teach you not to care.
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