DC By the Book

Excerpt: He heads down M Street. Despite the presence of urban pioneers, like the residents of his own building, it is still a neighborhood of struggles, of broken families in decline, and his appearance--the bare, white legs, his freckled, gaunt cheeks and red locks--is an oddity. A heavy woman with a toddler in hand stops and they both stare at Calvin as he passes. A bald man, wheelchair-bound, watches from a dark window.