We live in a world of “already, but not yet.”
When I was in seventh grade, there was a bomb discovered in the school bathroom. Right after Columbine, there were a lot of lockdown drills and this one was for real. Sometimes I think about the kid that put it there. I assume he is still in jail, and, in this weird way, it seems strange that the rest of us went on living our lives–fighting in Iraq, going to graduate school, buying things of Craigslist–while he sits in jail.
A few weeks before my wedding, there was a shooting in the Omaha mall in the store where my mom had been countless times in her determined quest to find a perfect mother-of-the-bride dress. It was strange to hear CNN describe the scene of the murders–the atrium, the grand piano, the escalators–and see it all in my memory. Not the way you read about a pond in a book and picture the pond you grew up fishing on. But, like, really there.
Today I went to lunch at Division and Fulton Street, the official center of Grand Rapids. It’s a half-mile down the street from where I live and I must confess that I drove. I was running late for my lunch date with Sally because we had driven down US-131 to pick up an IKEA chair we found on Craigslist. After lunch–where Sally told me about a shooting at the fireworks show we had watched a few nights before–I drove down I-196 to a job interview. When I got home, Mike and I had dinner on our new screened-in porch, coaxing our cat from the kitchen and into the sunlight. He was suspect because he could hear traffic and is afraid of the car noises.
So we noticed the helicopter noises immediately, expecting them to send the cat running. But they didn’t. It was the high-pitched sirens that pressed his ears back in distaste. And the sirens kept coming. And coming. And they were close. Close enough that I went inside to Google what was going on. I read a headline on the local news channel’s website that a man was on the run after killing seven people in two homes. The headline said there may have been a ‘credible sighting.’ Not what I was looking for.
Then Michael taught me how to look up real news up checking Twitter for hashtags of ‘siren’ and ‘Grand Rapids,’ but there was nothing. I even wondered for a moment if my brother was okay, then realized it would be silly to call him up every time I heard sirens. The police station and firehouse are a five-minute walk away.
Later that night, I got a text from a friend I’d seen earlier in the day about the murderer and realized I’d forgotten to lock the doors. I sent Mike to the deadbolts as I pulled up the local news channel site again and discovered what the earlier sirens were for.
The ‘credible sighting’ was indeed real, and the police chased the suspect through town. (If you ever want to see me get fired up, ask me how I feel about police chases or tangled clothing hangers.) They chased him through downtown and he fired shots randomly at Division and Fulton, hitting a pedestrian, and I thought of the salmon asparagus omelette I’d eaten while I overlooked that intersection. He flew down US-131 into oncoming traffic and I thought about how that must have been especially troublesome because of that lane closure I experienced earlier that morning. The suspect abandoned his vehicle and ran into a home, holding a few people hostage.
I don’t think I would have even clicked on that news story if it were some city I didn’t know. If I’m being perfectly honest. But, today, it’s my home city, my lunch date, my Craigslist errand.
Tonight, my heart is hurting. For the boy in junior high who is still in prison while I interview for jobs. For the pedestrian at the busy intersection. For the children that were killed and won’t get to sit on a screened-in porch on a sunny summer evening, laughing at the scared-ey cat in the doorway.
And for the suspect, who shot himself in the head as I typed this blog post.
Today, there was too much “not yet.”
Posted by: collettostories
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