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The Looting of Washington City - Part One

By Nick Arvin

The President's House and the Capitol had been afire for some time, and in the residential streets flames were moving rooftop to rooftop under long coursing streams of wind-driven sparks. The night air around Paul pulsed and trembled with noise -- the crackle of flames and buildings in collapse, bells ringing, dogs yowling, a horse screaming, men bellowing, the percussion of musketry. From the Naval Yard rose a steady golden glow that occasionally flashed and leaped and threw long black craggy shadows. A stray goat wandered past Paul. Up the street a roof had collapsed, and perhaps there had been a printing press inside because newspaper pages streamed from the where the roof had been, many in flames, fluttering like bats from a cave at dusk. Occasionally Paul glimpsed furtive figures in the shadows, and he did see distinctly a man crossing the street with a pile of silken clothing hugged to his chest and three fur hats stacked on his head, the raccoon tails hanging down. Shuttered windows made it difficult to guess which houses might still be occupied. Paul turned up one street, and turned again, and circled a couple of times around a row of tall, gabled, darkened houses. When he grew frustrated in his irresolution he ran abruptly to the nearest house.

With his eye to the slats of a shutter he saw a fragment of light, possibly a candle. He moved to the next house. On the front door grimaced the monkey face of a heavy brass knocker, which he pounded, without answer. He went to the back of the house and peered through a crack between the shutters. He saw only darkness. He took a breath, glanced around, pried his fingers into the gap and pulled. An iron latch tore from the wood. One of the shutters escaped his grasp and slapped loudly against the siding. Four small shining panes of glass were revealed.

Hoping for a stone, Paul stooped and felt around in the grasses at his feet. He found only a thick twig which broke in two when he swung it against the glass. He ran to the street and found a rock the size of a man's boot. The sky, he noted, was distinctly lightening. He hobbled around the house with the stone, heaved it through the glass, and scrambled inside.

He needed only minutes to ascertain that he was in an emptied house. The kitchen utensils, the furnishings, even the curtains had been taken. The stairs began with a large, ornately carved pineapple-shaped newel which he ran his fingers over thoughtfully. He stood a moment at a mullioned window and considered the merits of taking an entire window, or the length of the newel post. But it was ridiculous. He felt swindled. He kicked the newel post and ran upstairs and opened windows to admit the dim coppery light of the fires outside. But the upstairs rooms were empty too, except for a few rags and empty hempen sacks in a corner of the hall. Finally in the last dusty room he found a shabby leather trunk. It was unlocked, and inside were strange clothes, in odd shapes and cuts, with various straps. He pulled several out. They were trimmed with silks, stiffened with starch, heavy with small buttons and knotted lacings. Paul held them at arm's length and turned them one way and another. He hesitantly pulled one inside out before it struck him that this was a woman's undergarment. He threw it down, glanced to either side, then laughed and gathered several and pressed them to his face. He emptied the trunk onto the floor, picked out a silk chemise, held it against himself. He laughed again. It had short sleeves and a gathered frill at the neck. It was cut for a figure significantly smaller than his own. He lifted it higher, trying to better position it.

"Hello, boy."

With a sudden and awful feeling of illness, Paul turned. In the doorway stood a British soldier. He wore a red coat and held in one hand a musket and in the other a long knife, and he regarded Paul with an unmoving ugly expression that Paul interpreted as extreme distaste. Paul was still holding the chemise. Somewhere outside a rooster began crowing. It crowed several times. When Paul could not bear the soldier's scrutiny any longer he hurled the chemise onto the floor. "Disgusting!" he cried.

"Find anything to fit?" The soldier laughed. He drew closer and Paul saw pox scars on the man's cheeks, sweat gleaming on his neck, stains on his coat. The soldier wiped his nose in a long stroke along his sleeve. He was one of the ugliest men Paul had ever seen. In addition to the pox scars, he had buck teeth and a bright red ravishment of broken blood vessels across his snout-shaped nose and much of his forehead. Paul was reminded of an albino feral pig he had once seen, caged and displayed outside an inn. The soldier's eyes were blue and small, disappearing like chips of stone pressed deeply into mud. He had a long neck, a prominent Adam's apple, and a thick, strong body that was nonetheless shapeless as a mealsack. "You've been looting," the soldier said.

Paul said, and it seemed ingenious as he said it, "I live here."

The ugly soldier laughed and his Adam's apple fluttered inside his neck like a living thing trapped. "I watched you crawl in," he said. "You live here and no key, is that it?" Paul crossed his arms and sulked. But the soldier shrugged and put his knife into a sheath on his belt. "Ah," he said, "I don't blame you." He picked up the chemise and ran a thumb along the stitching, examining it critically. He sighed. He put the fabric to his face and blew his nose on it. In the distance, something exploded thunderously. The ugly soldier went over to the window and looked out a moment. Paul, standing with his arms crossed, watched from under his brows, his chin nearly on his chest. The ugly soldier sighed again, prodded through the undergarments with the barrel of his musket, said, as if conversationally, "How old are you?"

Paul shifted his feet. "Thirty," he said.

The ugly soldier snorted, shook his head. "Well, that will be fine. That's perfect. Thirty is perfect." He gestured with his hand palm out, as if to receive something. "I would like your assistance. I need the aid of a healthy thirty year-old."

Paul peered at the soldier's little submerged eyes. He asked skeptically, "Aid?"

"I have a plan, and an assistant would be very advantageous. It will also be profitable for you, I believe."

For a moment he looked at Paul, and Paul looked at him, then the soldier turned and went downstairs and out the back door, and after a second Paul followed.