Jackpot
Bike courier, dope peddler, and full-time hedonist—Featherhead had it made. Until his roommate threatened the president.
Cover Story
Hey, Washington, remember me? It's your fine-feathered friend, your long-lost prodigal. I've been meaning to write, but it took more than a year to get my hands on a working typewriter, and then another month to buy a print wheel and ribbon. I make only 17 cents an hour here at the federal prison camp near Cumberland, Md.
I miss you, Washington. I miss Rollerblading in Rock Creek Park, I miss riding through the workday crowd on 18th Street downtown, and I miss drinking shots of tequila during happy hour at Mister Day's. I even miss the sound of traffic there—I would love to hear a horn blown in anger.
Once I thought the world was mine and set to music. I had a lover then, too. You should have seen her in cutoff jeans and cowboy boots. But I woke up one Sunday morning and found that everything, including her, was gone.
Perhaps I should just do my time quietly, but considering that I am in a federal prison 184 miles from Washington, there is nothing anyone can do or say to injure me further. In that sense I am free, and my desire to communicate exceeds my reticence about being honest about how I ended up here.
My nightmare began back in 1995, on a deliciously cool summer Sunday morning just before dawn at my house in Mount Pleasant, about the time I would usually hear the animals starting to squabble just down the hill at the National Zoo. But I heard a different beast that morning: the United States government—the Secret Service, poking its black, snakelike flashlights through my iron-gated front door. I gulped a breath and went downstairs to meet them.... Continued 
Issue of Mar. 21 - 27, 1997
News and Features
- Jackpot
Cover Story - Ducks Limited
The City - Dead Ringer
The City - Rent-Free D.C.
The City - Building History
The City - Banner Bout
The City - Duty Is in the Eye of the Beholder
The Mail - Wave Wack
The Mail - Winners and Boozers
The Mail - Casting Appall Over the Neighborhood
The Mail - Appall Bearers
The Mail - Slap Happy
The Mail - Neighbor Labor
The Mail - Protest Contest
The Mail
Columns
- Street Fighting Man
Cheap Seats - CityDesk
City Desk - Stallings' Mayoral Coup
Loose Lips - The Fruits of His Labors
Paper Trail
Eats
- The Terror of Tiny Town
Young & Hungry
Movies
- Industrial Chic
Film Review - Crash
Film Review - Lapped-It-Uppery
Film Review - A Blizzard of Boz
Videocrity
Music
- The Rock*A*Teens
Music Review - Dragon Attack: A Tribute to Queen
Music Review - Toon Tunes
Music Review - Home and Away
Music Review
Theater
- Little Women, Big Men
Theater Review - I Wanna Be Your Dog
Theater Review
Arts and Events
- Really Rosie
Artifacts - S.P.A.A.M.'s
Artifacts - Against Forgetting
Artifacts - Darkness Readable
Books - Katharine Graham's Tell-Most-All Autobiography
Books
City Lights
This week's best in Arts and Entertainment.
- Ian Shaw Quartet
City Lights - Jason Bonham
City Lights - Congregation
City Lights - La Traviata
City Lights - India: Fifty Years Later
City Lights - Festival Taiwan
City Lights - Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse
City Lights - .38 Special
City Lights - D.L. Hughley
City Lights - Hands of D.C.
City Lights - Sky Blues
City Lights - Kim Deal
City Lights - Push Kings
City Lights - Randy Brecker
City Lights - Dirty Three
City Lights - Education Reform in the District of Columbia: Lessons From Other Cities
City Lights - Luscious Jackson
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