City Life

There are a few sounds and images that try as I may I've never been able to forget. Two stand out explicitly. The first is of a human body charred beyond recognition that they showed during an anti-drug and alcohol presentation in ninth grade health class. Seeing bodies and car accidents never kept me from making bad decisions, but nevertheless the image sticks. The other is a sound from a documentary on September 11th filmed by two Frenchmen in NYC to make a movie on the FDNY. Wrong place, wrong time for those folks -- but they were in the towers and there is a moment on film when they realize that the sporadic crashing sounds outside are not debris, but people. It is horrific. Unfortunately today I think that I've added to that list.

Went into the city to run a few errands and hit up mass this afternoon and on my way home decided to catch up on a few overdue phonecalls. For one, Best Friend just returned from a four-day jaunt to Scotland with Mr. Media. She had a brief layover here (where we proceeded to down $80 in margaritas before she returned westward) but I haven't been on the phone with her since Thursday, which believe it or not is a bit of a stretch for us.

So we're chatting and as I approach my apartment from the metro I mention to her that I can see lots of police cars in the street near my building. Its happened before that someone has called the fire department or something, but this much police activity anywhere near I live is unusual. As I cross the street onto my block, where cop cars have barred any vehicular comings/goings I notice a group of officers holding a tarp up and it hits me that the unthinkable is unfolding in front of me. Someone has jumped. A glance upwards offers a broken window and ripped awning, my heart sinks. I don't know anything about what happened beyond the fact that when people commit suicide, its mighty difficult to break a window -- and I don't want to know. All I do know is that I am extremely thankful to have been elsewhere when it happened and that I didn't see anything graphic afterwards. But I can't stop thinking about it. What happened? Was it an accident? Did they have a family? Will there be bloodstains on the sidewalk the next time I leave my apartment to run that route? What would I have done if it did happen in front of me?

The whole thing makes me feel not only nauseous but sad. And its so strange because everyone thats passed through here thus far expects exactly this, because things like this happen in places that share title space with Law and Order or CSI. But these things don't happen where I'm from. They've never happened in a place where I live before, and I guess at the end of the day I just didn't expect (what I feel like is) my first real dosage of city life to be so morbid. Its a ugly feeling.

Also, on a totally less graphic side note, many thanks to Kansas for effing my entire bracket. Just read a story that of 6M March Madness brackets build in 2011, only 2 (TWO!) people have placed the final-four correctly. Twenty bucks says they're both VSU alumni or students.