A Night Out in Shaw, Washington DC

Ever the intrepid adventurer, I journeyed out to Shaw last Friday night in search of a good time and perhaps a bit of novelty. A friend of a friend was throwing a party there, and when an invitation was sent my way, I found the change of scenery too much of a lure to pass up.

I've never been to Shaw. It's much more of a "borderline" area in terms of safety than my neighborhood up Connecticut Avenue-- despite being a far cry from dangerous Southeast, it still has a ways to go in terms of gentrification. But with a growing sense of Washington being "my city," and without my mother to worriedly voice concern, I ventured forth without fear.

Shaw is a centrally located and historic neighborhood in DC. The original population emerged from freed slave encampments on the city's rural outskirts and derives its name from Civil War Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Prior to Harlem's hayday in New York City, Shaw was considered a center of African American intellectual and cultural life.

Exiting the metro at Shaw, nearby Adams Morgan seemed a world away. At only 10:30 pm on a Friday night, the streets of the latter would be bustling with eager bar hoppers just beginning to feel a buzz from their first drinks of the evening. In Shaw, they were empty with exception to a few lone and suspect looking stragglers. I was traveling with two others, which gave me a perhaps fabricated sense of security.

Arriving at the party, the three of us found ourselves in a somewhat dilapidated structure amidst a somewhat questionable crowd. Ushering us inside was a blond haired young women inexplicably dressed in an eggplant sari trimmed with gold thread. The first of many odd sights that evening.

The ethnic disparity created by the girl's outfit was soon explained-- the event was masquerade themed, a detail which only gave more color to the evening. The party-goers were a strange mix, to say the least: displaced and newly poor Yale graduates working for the government, unemployed ex-campaign staffers drowning their sorrows in warm Corona, and a few unsteady and obviously drug-addled party girls wearing very little. All were cavorting about with paper masks and plastic cups, mingling in a mass which spanned lord knows how many socioeconomic brackets. In a way, it was a beautiful example of young, liberal Washington. In others, it was hot, sticky and a bit too sloppy to seem like anything but a mess.

A few young men stepped to me, cooing Obama-isms of hope and change. In no other place in the world would this constitute flirting. Upon expressing my disinterest in them (in the men, not the President), each moved along to another target. All the while, a particularly dizzy young woman in a tight blue dress fell backward into me over and over, never once apologizing or even expressing awareness of her battle with gravity. My friends and I began to speculate what could possibly be the matter with her-- booze, drugs or otherwise.

In the midst of all this, we struck up a conversation with another young professional who bore a striking resemblence to Michelle Obama. She had a different face (she was a bit prettier than our Michelle), but it was as though she had decided to masquerade that night as FLOTUS. Same haircut, same vibrant smile and a purple wrap dress curiously in line with the first lady's fashion sensibilities. Despite her somewhat surreal appearance, she seemed to be the lone normal individual in the entire house. We stayed with her the whole night, referring to her as "Michelle" until someone discovered her name. The four of us circled our wagons, if you will, and watched the evening's events unfold around us.

The strangest occurrence of the evening happened in the party's final moments, when a young and apparently bra-less woman forced herself onto the couch we had camped ourselves upon. She had been running around with the unstable girl in the blue dress, and the two had quite noticeably just returned from the outside porch, seemingly agitated and rubbing their noses. One can only speculate what they were doing. The girl, who was wearing a white cotton dress with loose straps, nearly exposed herself to us several times.

She continued to engage us in a strange conversation in which she claimed to be "the daughter of the ambassador from Trinidad and Tobago," "a chef working under Chef Geoff," and currently working on "a book, and also a movie." I suppose we looked incredulous, so she added, "I'm actually very important, and I get to do a lot of things most people don't." All of this was said with a straight face, without any hint of irony. We took her last statement as our cue to leave.

Our walk back to the metro was also strange-- never in my life have I seen so many cockroaches scurry across a sidewalk. The sight of them skirting in and out of the street light was an unpleasant one, and stepping on an unfortunate stray brought squeals from male and female parties alike. The critters gave us our final send off from Shaw, and we descended down the metro elevator with a shared sense of bemusement.

So ended my night in Shaw. Whether or not I'll be back, I do not know. But I can say without doubt that my time there was memorable and has been catalogued as yet another shade in the palete of Washingtonian experience.