In the twilight of the American Century, the American Season, they drove down Pennsylvania Avenue, traveled out through the slums, past the gas-storage depots, over a branch of the Potomac, into the wilderness of southeast Washington, the gray row houses and the empty lots, the dinosaur bones and the Indian graves, until they spied the elms above the walls, came to the red-brick gate, and said, This is the place.
They turned through the gate, headed up the long asphalt drive, the grounds sprawled out on either side in the haze of a gloom, and parked up outside the main buildings. They got out of the car, walked into the Center building, found the office of the Superintendent, gave their titles and names to the white-coated attendant at reception, stated their business, and made their request. The attendant consulted a card file, then gave them directions and pointed the way.
They walked back out of the Center building, across the asphalt and onto the lawn, the huge expanse of lawn, where men drifted about or sat upon benches, dumbly staring into space, among the tall clumps of boxwood, but where one man sits alone, dwarfed beneath the elms, reclining on a long camp chair, an empty chair to his right, another toppled on his left, this broad-shouldered man with a tangled gray beard and close-shaven head, his face seamed and yellow, cheeks high and hollow, with age and with weather, the ages of the world, the weather of the times, a figure exiled in a landscape the color of lead, the color of smoke, this old, dry man in dressing gown, striped pajamas, beneath his blanket, old army blanket he clutches, holds a teddy bear close, tight to his chest, aware of their advance, he senses their approach, turns his head, looks their way and waits, he waits.
At the declining of the day, in these final, violet hours, she smiled, she says, Police Investigator Sweeney?
Yes, speaking, he says, said again.
She nodded, she says, It is finished, it is done.