The Green Building

By David Loveland

Getting a date can be tough, but when you work at the sewage treatment plant it can be impossible, particularly in Washington, DC, where your politics and position dictate your status. When Tony starts up a dating service for his fellow workers, in their quest for a date, they are forced to confront their own fears as they begin to experience what life can be like outside the gates of the plant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Loveland
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310989575

Book preview

The Green Building

By David Gray Loveland

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This eBook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared,

provided it appears in its entirety without alteration.

Chapter 1

As you spread the map of the city out before you, the first things that you notice are the rivers: two blue sinuous curves enveloping the city in a watery embrace. The distinctive shapes of the rivers are two of the most prominent natural attributes of the city and contributed to George Washington’s decision to select this location as the site of the nation’s capital. The wide, free spirited Potomac starts in the mountains of West Virginia, while its smaller and shallower counterpart, the Anacostia, begins in Maryland just a few miles outside the beltway encircling the city. They travel their separate ways, oblivious to each other’s existence, until they meet at the confluence just below the Navy Yard, commingling their loads of brown, silt-laden water on their journey to the Chesapeake Bay. Once your eyes move away from the rivers, you begin to focus on the grid of closely spaced black lines, neatly laid out with their horizontal and vertical crossings representing the intersections of this great city. The bold black lines in the center of the map designate the wide avenues that lead to the monuments, the White House, and the Capitol Building. Spreading out from the densely packed streets in the downtown business district is a network of arteries radiating out to the city’s neighborhoods that house the residents that live and work in the nation’s capital.

Following a pattern of development typical in many American cities, the city’s first settlements were along its eastern edge, and as the city prospered, the westward migration continued into the new neighborhoods expanding out to the west of the downtown area. It is here where the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods exist; areas where the green on the map denotes the sprinkling of parks, ball fields, and green space. As you study the map, you imagine the sights and sounds of shops lining thoroughfares bustling with people and activity, and behind these busy main arteries, streets lined with shady trees, well-kept homes and families full of life and hope for the future.

East of the downtown area, the lines on the map reach out to the neighborhoods lining the banks of the Anacostia River. The thin blue line denoting the river’s course makes it hard to imagine a time when the muddy Anacostia was once a bustling river of commerce, carrying large sailing vessels transporting Maryland tobacco to overseas markets. Soil that washed off those tobacco fields found its way into the river causing it to silt in. For the last one hundred years the river has become a muddy, shallow eyesore all but forgotten. It has been a long time since the Anacostia could lay claim to being a river of importance or beauty. The same holds true for the old neighborhood along the riverbanks, which has experienced a similar decline in fortunes. As you travel east towards the river, just a few blocks beyond the new and well-maintained buildings of the downtown area, the polish and gloss of newness is quickly supplanted by various shades of gray and rust – colors that neighborhoods seem to revert to when it has been years since they had the vitality and life needed to sustain them. Vacant lots, where weeds compete for growing space with broken shopping carts, piles of refuse and discarded newspapers, intermingle among old warehouses, apartment buildings, and houses in various stages of neglect. The rundown look of the neighborhood and the apparent lack of wealth are in stark contrast to the efforts that have been made to protect what little there is of value. Steel bars or wire mesh covers every window and door, and the fences are all topped with barbed wire.

Despite the look and feel of decay, there are still signs of life here in one of the city’s forgotten neighborhoods. A number of small shops and corner convenience stores continue to eke out an existence on the main thoroughfares, men gather outside the liquor store clutching bags filled with pint bottles or sixteen ounce cans of malt liquor, a few lone soles wait at the bus stop that has served as a canvas for neighborhood kids practicing the art of spray paint, and tucked away here and there are a few modest houses struggling to survive in this hostile environment.

Cross the bridge and travel east over the Anacostia River and the carefully planned pattern of roads radiating out from the center of the city suddenly gives way to a confusing and haphazardly pieced-together patchwork of streets that is a relic of the early days of settlement before Pierre L’Enfant laid out his plans for the city. Continue straight on underneath the freeway and past the garbage transfer station and the area suddenly loses any resemblance to a neighborhood. The city maps still list this area, referred to as Blue Plains, as a neighborhood; however, to call it that is something of a misnomer, for this section of town long ago ceased to have any of the characteristics that make a neighborhood. Gone are the shops, houses, and families, and the sounds and smells that once filled the air and defined this as a place where people lived. In their place, the city has located its castoffs, those undesirable but essential services such as the impoundment lot for abandoned vehicles, the juvenile correctional facility, and, where the road dead ends near the river, the sewage treatment plant.

Chapter 2

Inside the chain link fence, the sewage treatment plant stretches off into the distant haze. It is a vast complex comprised of acres upon acres of concrete settling ponds, aeration tanks, and filtration lagoons. Gas flares out of the stacks of the methane digesters burning incessantly throughout the day and night, and in the distance are mountains and mountains of steaming brown compost. Flocks of seagulls cry out as they circle overhead waiting for a spot to open up along the edge of the ponds. You look up trying to picture yourself anyplace other than here, but the smells of sewage, chlorine, methane gas and decomposing compost fill your nostrils and never let you imagine for a moment that you are anyplace other than the sewage treatment plant. The birds continue circling overhead, watching and waiting, and as soon as a spot opens up they swoop down to claim it, jostling with each other for a chance to peck at any debris floating in the murky water of the ponds.

A steady procession of dump trucks rumbles down the roads filled to the brim with overflowing loads of dark brown compost. What doesn’t spill over the sides of the trucks onto the roads is taken to the city’s landfill in Lorton, Virginia, where it is used to cover the trash disposed of by the city’s residents. Each time a truck passes it churns up a cloud of thick brown dust that quickly settles back to earth coating everything it lands on.

Through the haze and steam emanating from the vast mountains of decomposing compost, a rundown two-story wooden building is visible, set off by itself some distance from the concrete building that serves as the treatment plant’s main building. The green building, as it was referred to, was put up by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s as a temporary structure to house construction workers brought in for the building of the treatment plant. Over the years the building, while still considered temporary, had taken on a permanence of its own that had outlived countless changes in administration and numerous reorganizations. When first constructed, the building was painted a dark green color. Years of neglect and exposure to the chemicals used in the sewage treatment process caused the paint to fade and peel, revealing large patches of exposed bare wood. Wire mesh, rusted through in some places, covered the windows and doors and three wooden steps led up to the front door, although the middle step was missing and was lying off to the side in the gravel where it had been tossed aside when it broke off a few months ago.

The weathered sign over the front door said Department of Regulatory Affairs Compliance Office. As indicated by the name, this was not the type of government agency that people typically sought out or liked to deal with. Those few citizens who were unfortunate enough to become the object of the department’s attention generally were not inclined to initiate the first contact, but instead preferred to wait for the department to find a reason to communicate with them first. This, along with the location at the sewage treatment plant, meant that few people ever found their way out to these offices.

The unkempt nature of the building and its location in such unpleasant surroundings gave the impression that the building had not been used for some time. There was some truth to this for a year ago when the roof started leaking, the city administration decided that rather than fix the leak it was cheaper to move most of the staff out and transferred them to another building downtown.

Five employees remained behind after the others moved out, hunkering down in the offices on the first floor of the building where the leak had not yet reached. They continued to work here while they awaited word from the city that additional space had opened up to relocate them downtown, or the green building’s eventual collapse, whichever came first. For these five employees, for forty hours a week the building, despite its limitations, served as an office and refuge from the outside world. Five employees working in a rundown building that personified the unfulfilled dreams and aspirations of these employees left behind.

Chapter 3

The car skidded into the gravel parking lot and Woody waited for the cloud of dust to catch up and pass the car. He cranked up the air conditioning and leaned his face in close to the vent to get one last cool breeze before opening the door. Joe Woody was a short, chubby guy who sweat profusely with the least bit of exertion or whenever there was any humidity in the air, and today was one of those hot sticky days that Washingtonians come to expect during the summer. He hurried across the lot and when he reached the front steps slowed down and adjusted his stride. He jumped awkwardly over the missing step and hit his shin on the top step.

Goddamn dump, he muttered aloud as he opened the door. He walked quickly down the dingy hallway as his eyes adjusted to the harsh brightness given off by the overhead fluorescent lights, which only served to heighten the drabness of the green colored walls and the ground in dirt outlining the edges of the old, yellowed linoleum floor tiles. Am I too late to get in? he asked, as he poked his head in the doorway to the room where the others were gathered.

You can get in on the next hand, Dink replied without looking up.

Four men sat around the conference table, heads bent in concentration, peering intently at their cards. A fly, drawn to the circle of men, seemed intent on taking advantage of their singular focus on the cards before them.

Sam flicked his arm and the fly lazily lifted off looking for its next landing spot. Woody, did you bring that fly in with you? Sam asked, without taking his eyes off his cards.

Gimme a break. There are a gazillion flies buzzing around outside the front door and you are worried about the one that may have followed me inside.

Just trying to keep the place tidy, Sam replied.

Well, if you are so worried about keeping the place tidy, why don’t you fix that missing front step? I’m sick and tired of jumping over it every time.

"I’ve given up waiting for the Department to send someone out to fix that broken step. It will