Of the moment

A story about a timely matter.

2, October 2024

Jamie Hennick —

Lafayette Square

In front of the White House an old white man towers over an activist, yelling repeatedly that Palestine never existed. “You’re a phony!” he tells the activist and the old man’s wife is hooked on one elbow, shaking her head and spitting out his name – Ron, Ron, Ron – under her breath, as if that would make him stop. The activist sits in a folding chair and is cocooned by a dome of protest signs and he listens while Ron screams. Ron, Ron, Ron– his wife nudges his ribs but he swats her away like a housefly in his orbit. “It was Egypt! And Lebanon! Who oppressed Palestine! Which was just a name! For the record! Not a country!” A horseshoe of passersby accumulates, everyone poised with their cellphones in case this turns viral and the White House, palatially still, is behind them and it’s a very nice day in DC for July – it rained the night before and the air is clear for once from summer’s humid smog and I try to ladle the air into my lungs, as if the air was water and my lungs were jugs and as if I could save it for later.  I am standing near a park sign that tells me this square, Lafayette Square, is the most visited park in the United States. I peel myself away. Nearby two Secret Service officers stand widely, talking about their body cams and footage of an influencer they’d seen and wasn’t she fine? And then two young parents weave gingerly through, cradling their newborn until they’re in front of the wrought-iron fence, moving with such reverence, like the White House is the peak place the baby will ever see, and the baby is facing the White House, but the baby is asleep, and an old woman totters through, chiding them for not having a hat on their baby, and the parents nod but their smiles fade and they hold the baby close again and the old lady floats away like a ghost. A trombone player fills the air with music that flows like a river into the sky, reminding me to look up– not away, just up, and Ron bellows again – “You’re a phony!” – and I wonder if I should help the activist to yell at Ron but the activist, I can hear over the trombone, too: Oppression! Occupation! 1948, dude! A Segway tour clamors through the throng and I dodge their jerky caterpillared motion and I wonder if they wanted to see the White House or if they wanted to ride a Segway and I wonder whether they’re worried about this country, too. “You won’t have to worry about it in four years,” – voting, that is, a certain candidate said on the podium yesterday. And imagine being so mad at a peace activist that your face is contorted in anger for longer than a trombone solo. Ron, Ron, Ron – she just wanted to visit the White House.

Jamie is literary fiction writer and poet based in DC. An alumna of the Southampton Writers’ (2022) and Wesleyan Writers’ Conferences (2008, 2014), and Juniper Institute (2024), Jamie is currently working on a debut collection of short fiction that explores the dimensions of non-romantic intimacies, grief, sisterhood and memory. She earned her MFA at American University, along with the Myra Sklarew Award for remarkable originality in a prose thesis. Her work can be found in The Dickinson Review and The Colorado Review (online).

Art by Arlene Tribbia