Listen, officer … I didn’t see shit.
I didn’t see the shooter, or the guy outside he supposedly shot, or the girl standing nearby who said he was hit. I didn’t see how that street light got on top of that car. To be honest with you, I’m not even sure how she managed it.
Flomm entertainment, meet Flomm writer. It’s our first night out. Last Friday.
Alley says she’s here from Chicago, plans to get into architecture. Mentions the importance of designing a space for its real world use. I think about that time I visited a Chipotle in the northeast, and ranted, over my burrito, about what seemed like common sense to me – the condiment counter should be facing the other direction and the front door should be a few more feet to the right. It was the moment when I first considered getting into UI design. I wonder if she’d had a similar moment, except with a conclusion about architecture.
Owner welcomes, gets me a drink. There’s new people in here, but that’s to be expected on the weekend. Friend who works here says there’s already been five fights tonight. Music sucks. This same guy has been trying to play just one song all evening, and someone keeps changing it partway through. Same with anything I try to put on. One of the owners is in and out, looking after a friend of his who has clearly had enough to drink. Dance floor keeps going silent. We’re leaning in close to talk over the music, but every time it stops we’re still shouting and it’s kind of awkward-funny.
I come back from the restroom, the music has stopped again. There’s a sound. Loud.
Gunshots – a lot of them – and the first thought on my mind is the thing that happened in Paris earlier the same day. I wonder whether or not the person firing is a civilian or if the whole world is just burning right now, and if it’s somebody we can collectively take down. Or if we’re just fucked.
Perhaps a testament to my whiteness.
I heard gunfire around my neighborhood growing up, but it was never this close. And I was too young to really conceive of the danger. There were only a couple of times I remember being told to get in the back of the house and stay away from the windows, and as kids we were more amused than we were frightened by the excitement. We asked ourselves what our favorite TV badasses would do.
But Xena the Warrior Princess probably never had a 9mm fired at her. I realize that I am not about to be a hero.
My fellow flommist and I just watched as all the hardest looking men in this room completely booked it out the side and back doors. The whole place cleared out in seconds. We’re pressed up against a wall waiting for our ride to pull around and rescue us. A mysterious puddle near the doorway seems to capture our attention.
Worker friend steps back in with a quickened stride, turns just long enough for me to catch a glance at his face. He looks like he’s crying, but I can’t tell if he’s sad or just incredibly angry. He yells some curse phrase not unlike the ones I’ve been whispering to myself this whole time, emphatically kicks over a barstool then walks back out. One moment later, a girl walks in, on her phone, frantic. “What’s the address of this place? Can someone please tell me the address? I need an ambulance. Please, can someone please give me the address?!” I start to pull it up on my phone but she’s already run back outside.
It wasn’t terrorists or cops or mind-controlled government agents sent to destroy us. No one seemed to even know who he was. It was Aaron McGruder might have called a nigga moment. Someone was just in the wrong place, said the wrong thing, looked at the wrong woman, and that was it.
Lead salad.
We’re speeding away, and all I can think about is how panicked I am not, right now. Sure, I’m shaking and I feel a bit like we all just narrowly escaped death, but to be honest, I was just a little more nervous about the state of the restroom a moment ago. My fight-or-flight response seems to be wired wrong. My reaction to mild discomfort is so extreme, that there’s no physical way I could experience the same emotion proportionally to an actual crisis. Being able to tell myself that this is an appropriate time to freak out mostly just comes as an immense relief. How can I be just slightly less afraid of bullets than public speaking? And how can I live in such fear of totally harmless things, knowing that any moment, something sudden and ridiculous, like some random asshole with a gun, could take me out?
I’m still debating what all of this means, when we pass something strange. A car and a light post have connected in a most impossible way. Not just bent but, removed from its original place in the ground – now completely horizontal on top of the vehicle. “We have to turn around. We have to make sure they’re okay.”
Our driver tells us to wait in the car. We watch intently as he walks up to the wreck, proceeds to pull out an entire family: A mother and three small boys. Uninjured, but clearly shaken. He takes off his jacket and puts it around the baby, and I can’t think of a moment when I’ve ever been more attracted to someone. Alley calls 911, gives mom a hug. I take off my hoodie and wrap it around the four year old. He’s barefoot and in his PJs. The kids were in bed when dad got arrested and mom decided to take a drive down to SoCal at two in the morning. An ambulance passes by, headed for the bar down the street.
The cops are taking forever to show up, so we load all the babies into our car with the heat running for the length of the wait. I sit with them and ask the two older ones about their favorite superheroes – a subject they seem pretty excited to talk with me about. I ask the boy if he likes my hoodie. He says the arms are too big, but yes. I say, “You can totally keep it, but here’s the deal – I’m a superhero, and I get all my powers from this hoodie, so if you keep it, you have to agree to fight crime.” At first, we’re unclear about the meaning of the word crime. I rephrase, “You gotta fight bad guys. Do you think you can handle that?”
“I fight bad guys” he says, “I cut their penises off! I punch their balls and cut their faces!!!”
“Whoa. A little violent there.”
The eldest one shrugs, “Yeah. He’s like that.”
Mom thanks us for stopping, says she’s glad there’s still good people. I wish there was more I could do. I tell her my family has been through things like this and I’m so sorry it’s happening.
On the drive home, Alley waxes poetic about how we escaped the previous scenario with our lives, and were able to pay it forward by helping someone else in need. The way she phrases it makes our night sound so much more serendipitous than terrifying, and I don’t know if I exactly agree – but I’ll admit there was something kind of tacitly beautiful mixed up in it somewhere.
—bwargh von modnar
Flommist Bwargh von Modnar is. Copyright © 2015 Bwargh von Modnar. Pictured: Two interpretations of Marcella by Max Pechstein and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1910.
read alley’s version —
juxtaposition, okay • • •
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