Old Crow

There are random days when the hours in the office run long (1). But when my wife takes one of her six or so trips back to Oregon each year to see the grandchildren, I don't have a lot of motivation to go home to an empty house, so will work until seven or eight in the evening while she is gone. The sights at night in the city are a lot different than a quiet evening in our neighborhood after I turn off the one boulevard that feeds the Annapolis Neck Peninsula. Even though it is Washington, D.C., big city, things are pretty quiet around the National Mall after normal work hours, especially in winter. The way the Whitten Building is lit at night gives it a bit of an eerie look - something like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. But as I walk east on Jefferson Avenue towards the Smithsonian Castle, and then turn onto the Mall towards the Metro entrance, the view north up 12th Street looks totally different - like a long canyon off in the distance, lit by street and traffic lights, people busy doing their after-hours living, silent, life that doesn't hold still.
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The Washington D.C. Metro system is remarkable - you can go down into the ground, and then sometime later come up in some other place a long ways from where you were. I have only driven into downtown D.C. a handful of times in four years - why drive when you can ride anywhere all day for $7. The Metro is also amazing because people from all walks of life ride it together. It is the great mixer for society - suit-and-tie kinds like me, maintenance workers, college students with their text books, nervous-looking tourists worried they will miss their stop, government workers of all kinds and colors, loud kids riding to their high schools or returning with supervising teachers from a field trip, young moms with little ones in strollers, uniformed enlisted and officers from every service branch, and the occasional panhandler, evangelist, or homeless person sleeping in a corner seat. In the middle of the day you can catch a train just-in-time, or just miss the one you need and end up waiting 15 minutes for the next one and so for sure be late for your next appointment. You can also not pay attention to what you are doing, and hop on the wrong line and end up going where you didn't intend - but always count on eventually getting to where you want to be.
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It was one of those latish evenings when I arrived at the Landover station (2) and emerged to a chorus of thousands and thousands of crows perched in the trees around the parking lot. I should have known something was awry when I first parked there in the morning - the parking lot was more white-wash colored than dark pavement - the white lines blurred by Jackson Pollock-like paint blotches randomly patterned over an asphalt canvas. Even now, more than a month later, the branches of trees which have not yet leafed look like birch - white arms tangled together, reaching to the sky.

It was a scene right out of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds - potential for urban terror in the Maryland suburbs - a long ways from Bonita Bay on the northern California coast where nature ran amuck (3). The birds in the trees were squawking at the intruding commuters below. Every once in awhile a couple of dozen or so took flights briefly, and then either landed where they just were, or in other trees a short distance away. What were those cinematic evil-reputationed pluckers of Suzanne Pleshette's eyeballs going to do while I walked through the parking lot? I walked calmly to my car, and then slowly drove away to the exit gate and out onto the street, all the while looking into the rear view mirror - were Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren sitting in the back seat?
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(1) One Friday afternoon, after I hung up the phone from talking with someone, the message waiting light was flashing - the Administrator of my agency wanted me to give him a call. The first thing he said when I returned the call was, "...don't you know you should never answer the phone after 2:00 on a Friday?" All of a sudden I had a briefing paper that needed to be written by COB - close of business - which means before going home.

(2) Parking at Metro stations is an art. I normally use New Carrollton Station, but if I am going to arrive after 8:00 AM, I know that it is unlikely that I will find a parking place in the eight story parking structure. From experience, I have learned to continue driving west on Route 50 to the East-West Highway exit and then on surface roads to the Landover Station where a parking spot is sure to be found. Alternatively, if arriving around 10:00 AM at any Metro station parking lot, you can park in the reserved spots that are held otherwise between 2:00 and 10:00 AM - it is amazing how many people don't read the fine print on those reserved parking signs and don't park there, even though they are fair game.

(3) I remember first seeing this movie as a kid on television - a creepy black and white story where natural peril lurks waiting around the corner of every scene. It is one of those movies that affects children for a lifetime because there is no resolution in the end, leaving you wondering even as an adult, waiting for the terror to begin all over again.