91. Apple Pie and Greek Tragedy

For those of you who think I’m only hanging out in marble government buildings all the time, not true. On my first night I explored an area that I could only call the Haight/Ashbury of Washington. It was the “alternative” to the downtown National Mall. It was “H” street. No marble here, but graffiti murals that blended the “Day of the Dead” with Don Quixote. It was a time machine in many different ways.

In that spirit, my goal was to return to Ancient Greece. In a city adorned with Greek columns as the status of government authority I might as well pay homage to the source. The Greek tragedy of “Ajax” by Sophocles is playing at the Atlas Theater on H Street, an experiential lab theater. A very curious juxtaposition comes forward. If New York is known for Broadway, then Washington, D.C. is famously known for K Street, a main thoroughfare of lobbyists, law firms, advocacy groups . . . big money, really Big Money, the mother’s milk of our government. But H Street is only three letters removed from K, and it has a totally different energy. If K Street is populated by suits, then H Street has soul. Here is an aging downtown, food row of ethnic restaurants from Asian to Mid Eastern to Mexican, and also an apparently Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church with a blend of lion statuary and Christian cross. During the riots after Martin Luther King’s death, the street was burned down, but that was nearly sixty years ago.

I don’t do drugs, but getting there was a real “trip.” For directions from Union Station the Atlas Theater recommended taking the DC Streetcar, a free electric trolly. But almost no one at Union Station knew of its existence or where to find it. And I can’t believe anything is “free” in DC. Finally navigating multiple levels from street level to food courts to Amtrak and Marc trains, I was directed up to the highest level of a public garage and bus depot where Greyhounds appeared. One man with more than he could carry was waiting for his bus to Mississippi. One of the last times I was on a Greyhound bus was fifty five years ago when my father dropped me off in Sacramento for a one-way trip to mid state New York. It was during the Vietnam War. And I was leaving for my alternate service as a conscientious objector. Even then, Greyhound Bus stations were, let’s say, dingy and unappealing. 

Tonight, working my way through the shadows of this public garage I felt that I could run into Deep Throat from the Watergate era. Although I’m walking slower than others, I keep my pace. Don’t want to appear vulnerable. I emerge out of the dark into the night of H Street and sure enough on a mid island strip is the DC Streetcar. Once inside, there are no announcements of stops, so I have no idea when to get off, but it’s free. Someone is selling toilet paper and diapers inside. They’re not free. It seems to be a moving black market of necessities. This is not K Street. 

Another passenger tells me when to get off for the Atlas Theater. But I’m early by almost two hours. Hmmm, what to do next.

A side ally brick wall exhibits a Don Quixote mural with a skeletal figure out of Mexico’s Day of the Dead. But no Katrina. Around the corner the lights are on, hmmm . . a Pie Shop. That sounds safe as a home for the next hour. It’s a soft landing in a funky space with checkerboard floor, a small rotating disco ball scattering light patterns, and corner stage the size of a twin bed for striving musicians or comedians. 

They had a wide menu of sweet and savory pies. Several young men came in and ordered the steak and mushroom pie, but I already had my steak fix from a Chipotle bowl earlier in the day. The sweet pie menu ranged from Samoan coconut with Oreos that looked like a huge Girl Scout cookie to more traditional pies. I asked for a recommendation, and behind the counter a gentle soul named Daniel said "Apple Crumble." I went with Americana. Apple pie while waiting for a Greek tragedy seemed appropriate. The walls had large pictures of rebel artists but I only recognized a few such as Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix and Willie Nelson. I wasn’t “cool enough” to know the others. 

From upstairs came other sounds like hard rock music since there was a musical venue above the bakery. Was the Pie Shop like a "speak easy” that led to another world? Was this Alice in Wonderland without the Jefferson Airplane? Was Leonard Cohen going to walk in and take the stage? Should I have tried the Samoan Pie instead? Younger people came and went. It was a friendly, vibrant place, gentle and safe . . . and very funky. I finished my coffee. It’s time for Sophocles at the Atlas next door.

The Atlas lobby had contemporary lines inside with its own bar for pre-show conversation. The person next to me ordered a lime margarita, just served out of a can into plastic, filled with ice. Fourteen dollars! That was more than pie and coffee.  After hearing that I smoothly said, "just water please, no ice." That was free, like the trolly. I went to take my seat in the theater. It was small, intimate, with only five rows of guests. The structure was what they call a Black Box theater. A rectangular cube shaped room, all black, no stage per se, that can be configured into whatever the imagination wants. Tonight it was the aftermath of the Trojan Wars. Achilles is dead. Ajax is next.

In Ancient Greek, Ajax is “AIAS.” I won’t belabor the details. Suffice it to say that Greece was not just the birthplace of western democracy. That arose because of the emergence of a sense of self, a consciousness of the Individual to take agency and direction for his own life. This is a painful transition. Still is today. Because once you are free of the gods to make your own decisions, you may be self destructive. But that is the path. At some point in growing up you have to let the child fall down and get hurt in order to know itself. Sophocles was one of the first creatives to mirror back to people the necessity of making your own choices, but also the risks and consequences. 

In this drama, after Achilles the Hero is killed, Ajax thinks he is the next martial role model and deserves Achilles armor. But Ajax is wrong. Instead of that honor being given to him as a warrior, the Greek generals give it to Odysseus, an intelligent and thinking prototype that is imbued not just with warrior passion but with thought and reflection, some self awareness. Ajax devolves into a vortex of fury ending in suicide. The decision to kill one’s self was not how the gods intended us to exercise our newly formed powers of individuality.

The drama was staged as part Greek Trojan War and part Iraq-Afghanistan War. Ancient and modern. Both tragic. The stylized violence and over inflamed passions were too much for me, but that was the point. Sophocles’ tragedy set in Asia Minor had been reinterpreted and pushed further back into Afghanistan. Does Ajax deserve a proper burial for his betrayal of self? Or is it the hallmark of a modern struggle? The Furies had been unleashed. And Odysseus had not even begun his journey home. The play ends, and now I need to wander home through the dark of H Street.

Before I left I knew I had an hour traveling back by streetcar, then Metro, then bus, then by foot into the night. So never pass up a good restroom. Inside a young male staff member was repairing a vacuum cleaner. We spoke. He was from El Salvador. Came with his mother twenty years ago. Lives in Delaware, but drove two hours here to fill in for someone who called in sick. He also, like Daniel with the pies, was a gentle kind soul. He didn't become a citizen yet because he hasn’t, as he said, “really looked into it.” But he hopes to some day. At the present, life seems too demanding. 

In parting he appreciated the little Spanish that I offered. "Much Gusto.” In his own way he was the modern Odysseus, a wandering nomad through various lands. Has he arrived home? I don’t know. But he will. It was a tender human exchange, one on one, before I left H Street and entered the caverns of Union Station. The Greek narratives are so archetypal. We live them out daily. Without even knowing it.

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