Early this month, Stacy Abney finished paying another in
      his long, loopy string of debts to society. This one cost
      him 6 months and 19 days, during which time he celebrated his 82nd birthday in the unlikeliest of places: the
      Department of Corrections' Youth Center No. 1 in Lorton. Gramps visits the Planet of the Punks. That gross
      mismatch of person and.place seems the ultimate ad-
      mission on the part of the criminal justice system that it
      doesn't quite know what to do with-much less what to make of-Stacy Abney.
  By his own count, in the past 18 years Abney has been arrest-
ed 57 times. Records show he subsequently was hauled into court
on at least 13 occasions, and convicted on about half those charges.
He is uncertain how long he has cumulatively been behind bars.
"But it's a gang of time," Stacy mutters. "It's around six or seven
years.
  The dates change. The crime and the crime scene never do.
One misdemeanor appears over and over and over on Abney's rap
sheet: "Unlawful entry, U.S. Capitol." Unlawful entry is legal pato¡s for trespassing, which in the case of Stacy Abney translates to refusing to leave the premises he has occupied, except for jail time,
for nearly two decades.
  Only the president of the United States can boast of having a
more prestigious home address than Stacy Abney. The downside
for the president is that every four years he has to beg 250 million
landl8rds to renew his lease. Stacy doesn't ask anybody for any-
thing, ettcept maybe a little change.

  Stacy Abney's life of crime can be best expressed as an apho-
rism: The man's home is his hassle. For 18 years he has been liWlg
in the c rriageway underneath the main steps on the east side df
the Capitol building. He doesn't smoke, doesn't drink and has delib-
erately distilled his existence to a few hunks of cardboard, a blanket
and a couple of small boxes neatly filled with spare clothes. He is as
consistent in his own way as the law of gravity; a human subway
train that makes only two stops: jail and Capitol Hill.
   "Stacy has a particular, I guess, mental bent, and nobody's ever
gonna change his mind," explains J.G. Lewis, one marcher in the parade of public defenders who have drawn Abney's cases. "You could probably cut his arms and legs off and he would still be back there."
  Stacy Abne isn't just another homeless person; he is a home-
less protester. He wants redress from his government. Think of
him as a round-shouldered, 6-foot-2-inch, 175-pound eternal flame
of discontent. Burning, burning, burning. Through rain, sleet, snow and pigeon droppings. Through five presidencies. Through rising hemlines and the fall of communism. Through the entire run of "Cheers." Through three James Bonds and three Redskins Super
Bowl victories. Burning, burning, burning.
  His consecutive streak puts Cal Ripken's to shame. On June
15, 1975, Abney left home in East Texas and boarded a Trailways
bus bound for Washington. OnJune 17 he began a one-man, round-
the-clock, round-the-calendar vigil, starting in Lafayette Square and quickly relocating to the Capitol steps. It took him 16 days to get his first arrest under his belt. The target of his protest was, and re-  
mains. the Department of Veterans
Affairs, which Abney claims owes him
more generous benefits than it has
coughed up - assosted ailments'he
says he suffered h World War II.
In 1946, the VA granted h£n a mod-
est serviceconnected physical disabili-
ty auowance. For years afterward, Ab-
ney complained to VA representatives,
politicians and servicemen's organiza-
tions in Texas~before heading north to
stir things up Tbe fed-tl government
rates him 2O percent good for
$162 a month. AbnŠy, h•wever,
doesn't see a dime. VA rules require
that checks be deposited promptly to
continue one's eligibility, Abney techni-
cally  forfeited a~ tieni-¤ts when he
stopped cashing his checks in a huff
some seven years ago.' Abney is con-
Wred his body's wracked with 100
percent-level pain, all of it war-related.
He's all "buggered up," he says. Aches
from head to toe. Chest pa—ls. Ball<y
knees. Weak heart. Gout. High blood
pressure. Yet he could never experi-
ence enough discomfort or enough dis-
couragement to make him give up and
head home.
 '? ain't scared of a jailhouse," Stacy
says, sitting in his familiar spot about
10 steps up the Capitol staircase, a few
feet all the conga line of visitors that
snakes into the building morning tll
night.
 'If I was scared of a jailhouse and po-
leece, I never would've left [home].
But I never would've believed they was
this rotten. Golly gee, Good God Al-
mighty. I figured it for five or six
weeks at the most, then I'd be back
home."
 Oops! He miscalculated. Bad. He has
never made it back to Texas for so
much as a holiday visit. Been on the job
nonstop, seven days a week, all these
years.
 "I"he guy is a serial sleeper on the
steps," says Jonathan Shapiro, a Justice
Department attorney now based in Los
Angeles who chall<ed up an Abney con-
Mction in 1991.'1 don't know what
else you can do. You can't lock him up
forever. It's a public place and it's the
Capitol. He's got the same rights to
as anybody else. But he doesn't
   more rights.... Believe me, the
Capitol Police don't want to arrest this
guy and we don't want to prosecute
him. But he's the one who holds the
key to the jailhouse and he keeps lock-
in' himself up.'"'
 No band of-mimes lives underneath
the Eiffel Tower, no unemployed coal -
miner crashes on the couch at Buck- '
;ingham Palace. The Stacy Abney saga 
is quintessentially American: constitu-
.tional law with sitcom potential. There
:is an aura of Maybeny g”ofiness about
:the arrangement. There is also an
:overlay of dead-serious questions re-
 garding individual vs. collective
security.
On normal days at the Capitol, when
 the primary task f”i thepolice consiJts
of keeping hordes of tourists from
trampling the flower beds, Abney pre-
sents no problem. Difficulties arise
'when the graunds go on security alert,
as happens for inaugurations, State of
the Union messages and short-term
crises such as the Persian Gulf War.
.The Capitol is then like a tavern clos-
:ing up for the night and Stacy Abney
rthe one customer who ignores last call.
 By now the scenario plays out like a
dogeared script. Two Capitol police is-
sue him precisely three warnings that
he must vamoose or face arrest. Stacy
:politely declines to budge. Stacy then
,gets carted off to D.C. Jail for booking
:and, when the U.S. attoiney deems fit,
prosecution.
 Two Abney cases-known around
;the courthouse as Abney I and Abney
:Ii-resulted in Court of Appeals deci-
s!ons that have set baselines for ac-
iceptabie conduct at public forums such

as the Capitol and Supreme Court.
;'There's case law regarding Mr. Ab-
:ney that we review as part of our train-
Sng," says Sgt. Dan Nichols, Capitol Po-
spokesman.
: One ruling affirmed that sleeping on
federal property can be considered a
form of free speech guaranteed by the
Constitution; it is unrealistic, the court
reasoned, to expect someone to conduct
a 24-hour Mgil without napping. In addi-
'tion, Abney is the prototype for what
has come to be laxxyn as the 'lone dem-
onstrator." Two or more protesters can
be legally construed as constituting a
demonstration and, thereby, held to a
stricter behavioral standard. Lone dem-
onstratofs are unique creatures, their
every action and utterance accorded the
full flak jacket protedion of the First
Amendment. In short, if yotl're protest-
ing and want to push the envelope of
both the law and the authorities' pa-
tience. flv solo.
 Few,   any, protesters have flown
solo longer than Stacy Abney. And he
does it the old-fashioned way. No bull-
horns. No handbills. No chaining him-
self to the bumper of Speaker Foley's
Car. Just an old-timer sitting on the
Capitol steps, using the Sunday news-
paper as a seat cushion and holding a
large, hand-printed sign. Its message
makes clear that spelling and punctua-
tion are not his strong points, no big
Surprise cpnsibering he has a fifth-
grade education and weak eyesight:
''ONE OF THE BLACK DOG SLAVE
LOS MY HEALTH IN WW II BAD
HEART HI BLOD PH GOUT AND
MOR I CAN NOT GET ME G.I.
PIGHT AR S.S. AR FOOD STAMPS
BECAUS I AM A NEGORE I CAN
NOT HELP FORM THE USA AT
ALI, IN 1992."
 The sign apprm…mates the way Sta-
cy speaks when he gets revved up
about the VA and his health. His voice
loses volume, but gairp momentum.
Bridges connecting thoughts get
washed out. Tallllng with Stacy Abney
can be a bit like asking how to get from
Capitol Hill to the White House and re-
ceiving directions via Lincoln, Neb.
 Inquire sbout the significance of
"black dog= which frequently crops up
in his conversation and court testimo-
ny, and he'll arrive at an answer-sort
of-after 20 minutes of verbal detours
and dead ends. He begins with his role
in pre-D-day preparations, turns left at
the Potsdam-Conference, makes a
quick side trip to Harlem . . .
 His listener wonders aloud wttere
the black dog fits into all this. "Hold
your fire," Stacy. caution5, chuckling.
'Xeep your powder dry.
 His monologue eventually comes to
a halt somewhere near the end of
World War II. Franklin Roosevelt is of-
fering emergency munitions to Stalin.
The Russian dictator accepts, but-
Stacy is quoting him now-not before
upbraiding the president on America's
treatment of m£lorities: " 'I'Il take [the-
arms] under one condition. You leave
your black dogs home. War is not for
slaves. War's for free people fighting to
save their own country. Slaves got no
country.
 From where in the well of memory
does he dredge up that anecdote! Does
it ring true!'? can assure you that Sta-
lin never said anything like this," says
Robert C. Tucker, emeritus professor
of politics at Princeton, who has devot-
ed more than 20 years to writing a
three-volume biography of Stalin.
 The black dog may lack a historical
pedigree, but don't be too quick to dis-
miss it as static given off by a cross-
wired mind.