DC PLACES ISSUE Joe Lapp   TURNING OVER THE CORPSE Walking in the woods that day in back of Quarles Street as the pair of osprey swooped and dove overhead, just past the spot where I saw the fox last fall, I paused, and there, between a vined hulk of rusting car and a stagnant pool where cans and plastic bottles clustered, under those trees that sheltered once the old McCormick house, I found a body, maybe four days dead, its head bent to one side, torso spread on the leaf-composed forest floor, now bursting with late spring. “This is strange,” I thought and gazed with wonder more than dread. (Yes, there was a smell, as bodies four days dead will have, but that seemed unimportant at the time.) I stood and looked, and soon began to ponder what had brought this body to the woods, and why it fell just here. I turned to poke around a bit, and found a green beer bottle not much exposed to wear, a pair of glasses and, nearby, a spatula crusted with egg, though I could not tell if these belonged to the deceased. I stooped down then and examined the corpse— a male, and in the prime of life, draped with heavy jeans and a dark t-shirt, stomach to the ground, tattoo on the left bicep that read “Sean.” I could find no other clues, no hints to his identity or cause of death, and left the pockets for police to search. Then the spirit came upon me and I said, “Sean, arise.” But he did not get up. Still, I reached out to touch him where he fell. I turned him over, the stiffened bulk, and found the purple flowers that his fall had crushed. And then, right where hip had met the ground, I saw an orange. Taking it from leaves his weight had squished it into, I rubbed it on my shirt and peeled a half. I wedged a section out and bit, and juice burst in my mouth like wine. A drop ran down my chin, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand.   Joe Lapp grew up in the Kenilworth neighborhood located east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC, and returned to live in the neighborhood four years ago. His parents started an Amish-Mennonite church in Kenilworth in the 1960s. He is writing the story of his family's experience in the community and has recently published a booklet, Kenilworth: A DC Neighborhood by the Anacostia River, featuring neighborhood history.   Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.   To read more by this author: Joe Lapp: The Wartime Issue