It’s Sunday afternoon, a cup of green tea is cooling down beside me. Music from my roommate’s studio is coming up from underneath the floorboards; I don’t know if it’s something he made or something he likes. The quiet repetition is kind of meditative.
I just gave Sean a ride to his downtown office, where he had to pick up some work to do from home later today, and then dropped him off at The Clubhouse (I will explain that at another time, if he lets me). On my way back to my house, I drove past what looked to be a fairly substantial drug raid. Police officers in plain clothes–some with bulletproof vests reading POLICE over them–had about 6-9 suspects handcuffed and were running in and out of the house. The neighbors were taking pictures on digital cameras from their porches.
As I turned my attention from the raid back to the street, I realized I was about to drive over a pool of red wetness–it had to be blood. I drove over, checking my rear view mirror for a confirmation but couldn’t make it out as I moved farther away.
When I pulled in front of my house a couple minutes later–the raid was around the block–the neighbors two doors down were out on the front porch as always. The teenage boys were fixing their car in the driveway and waved to me. The nice African man who bought the crumbling house across the street at auction was back at his endless repairs, power sanding the clapboard under some windows. The Burmese kids were playing in their fenced-in front yard; the TV came through the windows of my tenant’s house as I walked to my door.
Everything was as it always was, the soft feeling of Sunday morning left undisturbed by the chaos down the street.
Steve, Micaela, and Kevin were downstairs smoking cigarettes in Steve and Sara’s kitchen, taking a break from the music-making. I told them about the raid and the blood, and they nodded. The things you get used to.
courtney - You rock, dammit.
whitney - you make me blush!