March 21, 2005
[black and white towns] 7:31 PM
Determined to be asleep the sun-rise, I was laying in bed in the darkness thinking, trying to lull myself to sleep. My mind is more often than not entertaining and nuerotic, but sometimes it's mundance enough to lapse me into a coma, and I was well on my way until the three shots. The three gun shots.
Now, TV and film have warped what you think a gunshot will sound like, but I'm fairly certain that's what I heard. Three in rapid succession — if it was a car backfiring, well then it was the most calculated broken down hoopty ever.
The problem with my building is that it has a courtyard, and as such sound travels very oddly. Sometimes I can't tell if what's happening is in my complex, on the street infront of me, or the street behind me. At times I can ever hear things I'm pretty sure are happening on Sunset, so I have no real way to be sure. Thankfully I resisted my impulse to put shoes on and take a look around outside.
Okay, so I put my shoes on, but I didn't go outside.
My second day of living in my current apartment, there was a drug bust the floor above me. Apartment 420 if you can actually believe it. I told my parents about the 7am raid, and my mother quickly became Mother. "I thought we moved you to a good part of town!"
Like most parents (and people in America), my parents believe firmly in "good parts" and "bad parts" of town. While this assumption can generally be supported by statistics and overall scary demographics, my parents seem to hold to these truths as absolutes. Nothing bad will happen where they live, and if I walk around New York alone at night, I'm guaranteed to be mugged, killed, and possibly even raped. I'll say, "raped?" and they might go, "It's New York, they'll probably rape your corpse!"
I heard some sirens, and the static and chatter of the police channel shortly after the shootings. I asked around, and while other people heard the shots no one knew anything.
It surprises me that people can still hold on to the idea of black and white towns, the good cities, the bad, when America is really grey. The moment something horrific happens in their suburban heaven their world is thrown upside down.
Doesn't the news tell us that some of the most horrific acts occur in the "safety" of suburbia? The good men and women from over the fence have snapped, and there's up-to-the-minute coverage.
How people can be legitimately shocked when things like this happen are beyond me.
Three gunshots in close proximity to me in the middle of the night didn't freak me out. What did freak me out a little bit the next morning, was how easily I went to sleep after I heard them.
"It's New York, they'll probably rape your corpse," just may be the best thing I have *ever* read. You need to print bumper stickers or something...
Posted by: P/O at March 23, 2005 9:51 AM
