Vic Socotra

17 September 2009

The Impound Lot

Blue Plains Drive tees out at the Boss Shepherd Parkway, which is a grand name for a concrete two-lane that ends in Jersey barriers at the DC Impound Lot.

I slowed for the left turn as we passed DC Village on the left, and the gigantic banana palm trees waved listlessly in the humid breeze in the National Botanical Garden warehouse complex to the right.

“DC is exactly like the human alimentary system,” said Maddie thoughtfully.

“You mean it produces crap?” said the Colonel, peering alertly out of the window of the Bluesmobile.

“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “Think about it. If you tipped it upright on the south anchor stone at Jones Point, you would have the Potomac flowing into the mouth, just like it provides all the fresh water, and then the guts of it in the middle, where the sausage and pork get digested. Then it all winds up here, right at the bottom.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That is why the sewage treatment plant is across the road. Nothing in this hemisphere flows north.”

“Vic, that is such bullshit. In Northern Ohio, the Sandusky River feeds north into Lake Erie. The Red River in Minnesota flows over three hundred miles into Canada”

“I meant downhill,” I said, defensively, waiting for a tow-truck hauling a late-model black Escalade to roar past before turning left.

“Well, that I agree with. It doesn’t get any more downhill than here. This is the end of the line. So why is the Impound Lot important to finding your precious saboteurs?”

I was on firmer ground on this one. “The impound lot is on what used to be the grounds of the DC Asylum for the Aged and Infirm. Back in Colonial times this was part of a plantation that was owned by William Marbury, the guy who took on James Madison in Marbury versus Madison.”

“Ah,” said the Colonel. “That was the first time the Supreme Court declared something unconstitutional, and that is the same body that said it was OK to fry the Nazis.”

“And I am not looking for the Germans. I am trying to figure out why someone in a position of responsibility wants to know about bodies that have been buried since 1942.”

There is an entrance to the Impound Lot to the left but the Boss’s Parkway continues on along the west perimeter of the lot. There was a sea of cars behind the wire. Some new, some old. Some had been there so long that bushes and small trees had grown up through them.

“The fine for towing and storage is pretty steep,” said Mattie. “It doesn’t take much for a the penalty to be worth more than some of the cars. It’s a hundred bucks for the tow and twenty bucks a day for them to park it. A lot of people just assume their cars were stolen.”

“I’d hate to take a cab here, hoping to find the car.”

I got to the end of the fence and sure enough the concrete blocks effectively prevented further progress onto the rutted road around the lot. I stopped, backed up, and drove slowly back toward the gate.

“The deal with the lot is that District Boundary Stone SE 8 is at the back of the lot, just outside the fence. The drawings of the Asylum mark the cemetery with the number of feet from the stone. The working assumption is that they mean the District Stone, and not just a stone marker.”

“Can we get to the stone from inside the lot?”

“No, and considering the value of what the city has appropriated in there they don’t appreciate tourists. We need to get outside the wire and onto the Maryland side.”

I accelerated past the entrance where two large men with Glocks on their hips stood near the guard shack.

“I hope we can find the Stone. I heard this one got beat up pretty bad. The original stone was put here by Ellicott and Banaeker in 1792. It got moved in 1958, when they were tearing down the Asylum to build DC Village, and then it got lost.”

“Or was stolen,” said the Colonel. “Who steals a four hundred pound chunk of limestone?”

“You would be surprised. This is Anacostia. Anyway, the Daughter’s of the American Revolution replaced the stone with replica after the new shelter was completed, and=2 0included the trademark steel cage that they places around the other 38 stones in the boundary they were trying to protect. That got stolen for scrap, and by the 1970s large land-fill operation covered it with eight feet of soil and gravel. It was not found again until the Clinton Administration, and some hardy individuals decided the best way to protect it was to bury it again, but at the bottom of a concrete drain pipe. Supposedly all you can see is the top of the thing.”

“So what are the odds that the land-fill didn’t take out the cemetery, too?”

“Don’t know. But I do know that the District wants to rip down DC Village and put a new Bus Depot here, and if the cemetery is still here, it could be a problem. They want to20spend almost $500 million on the project, and I imagine disturbing the last resting place of a bunch of poor black people and six Nazis would be inconvenient, don’t you think?”

“Might hold up the project for years. They stopped the new Wilson Bridge construction in Alexandria over the graves of two Union soldiers. That was multi-billion dollar project.”

“They say you can get to the stone if you follow the paved path that leads from D.C. Village Lane toward Oxon Run and then follow the fence along the Maryland border southwest until you get to the impound lot. Bring a flashlight. They tell you to bring a flashlight.”

I turned right again onto Blue Plains, and followed it to DC Village Lane that runs outside the fence to the family shelter. Sure enough, there was a ribbon of asphalt about the size of a bike path, and I pointed the police car down the middle of it, tall grass brushing the doors. The path curved gently into a meadow, bisected by the fence that marks the very edge of the District of Columbia and the start of the State of Maryland.

There was an opening in the fence, and just across the line was a white sedan with a bold M painted on the door parked sideways across the path. Two men opened the doors and began to get out.

“Well lookee there,” said Maddie. “The Metro People are here to greet us.”

I wheeled the blue car to the right and swung it around in the tall grass. “Maybe we can try this from another direction,” I said, and hit the gas.

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