5:30 p.m., near the Vatican embassy.  John Wojnowski, who has been protesting across the street from the Vatican embassy every day since late 1997, early 1998, is up the street a block or so from his usual spot, accompanied by a tall photographer who is smoking a cigar.

John holds his sign—POPE HIDES PEDOPHILES—and begins to tell his life story, which is very sad, and just after the point where hs is 15 years old in a small village in Italy and the priest molests him, a reporter from the Washington Post turns up.

“Where were you today?” the reporter asks John.

“I was here,” he says.

“Why weren’t you here at noon when the Pope came by?” she asks.

“I had no plans to be here,” John says. “I come on my time. I have other things to do.  Go to the library.”

The reporter looks flummoxed. “You’re a hero,” she says.  “People told me you’re a hero. I’m on deadline. I wrote the story how you weren’t here, now you’re here.”

“My only access to the Internet is at the library.  I have my routine,” John says.

“Do you have a cell number?” asks the reporter.

“I do but it’s private,” John says.

The reporter looks even more flummoxed and tries another tack. “What do you think of the pope’s visit?” she asks.

“It’s an opportunity for reporters to see me,” John says.

Other pedestrians walk by holding up their thumbs in support, and John thanks them, then starts to tell his story again, starting from where he is a 20-year-old refugee working as a dishwasher in Canada, and suddenly remembers being abused. Meanwhile, the photographer hands out business cards to the reporters and to John. “I do freelance work,” the photographer says, still smoking his cigar.

A police officer drives by on an ATV on the sidewalk and says, “How you doing John?” and in response John holds up his other sign, which reads: My Life Was Ruined By A Catholic Priest.

A pedestrian walks by and says, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m proud,” John says. “Never been prouder.”

—Arin Greenwood

Around 4:45 yesterday afernoon on Mass Ave, at the blockade across the street from the Naval Observatory, the massive crowd is on the south side of the street, but there are five or six people on the north side who can’t go anywhere (says the police) until the Pope’s come and gone. Meanwhile, there is a cavalcade of motorcycles hanging around by the blockade, not going anywhere.

One woman, wearing a bright (bright!) yellow sweater, a green Lilly Pulitzer skirt, and black patent leather flats, is there with her son, who is carrying a Vatican flag. The woman holds a handwritten sign: Danti Auguri Papa. She says it means “Happy Birthday Pope.” She also says she and her son have been waiting, at thisgate, since 3 p.m. “My brother’s a priest,” she says. The blond teacher standing nearby says she just turned up a few minutes ago because she felt like she should; she teaches at a Catholic school and lives just up the street, for Pete’s sake, plus she saw John Paul II in 1979, so she sort of has to come watch the Pope now.

A man in a brown shirt, with a tan woman carrying a Dooney & Burke purse, makes fun of the people across the street, since this side of the street is so clearly superior. “They’re not from Washington,” he says. “Are you from Washington?”

Around five more people start to turn up, blocked by the fence and the police. Most of these people have baby carriages or briefcases. They live nearby and somehow failed to properly time their commute, like the woman in the striped skirt with the black heels and the posh British accent, who, frustrated that she can’t get home, starts to shout at the police, “I have a plane to catch!”

The blond teacher smirks, says that everyone on this street’s been warned that the street would be closed. “I don’t feel sorry for her,” she says.

“Another reason this spot is good?” says the man in the brown shirt. “It’s the narrower point of the road.”

Someone suggests to the woman in the striped skirt that she hike past the barricade in the woods if she’s in such a hurry. “In these shoes?” she says.

At around a quarter past five, a helicopter flies overhead, then the procession starts, and the woman in the yellow sweater holds out her happy birthday sign and everyone else pulls out a camera. First come the motorcycles, then the police, then a limo—flying a Vatican flag. You can just catch a glimpse of a bald-ish man in a white robe through the back window. Then it’s the rest of the cars, the buses, the ambulance, and it’s done. Seconds later, the fence is down and everyone is gone. The woman in the yellow sweater, walking up toward Georgetown, seems happy. The pope, she thinks, saw her sign.

—Arin Greenwood