2ndShotBlog.com

Just three weeks ago the kid who lived next door was shot and killed. Not in the neighborhood. He was at a nightclub in the next town over. At 1 a.m. there was a fight in the parking lot. One of the guys in the fight went to his car, got a gun, and fired several shots at the man he was fighting. A stray bullet hit the 20 year old kid from next door. He was taken by helicopter to the same hospital trauma center that I was flown to.

He didn’t make it. He died at 4 a.m.

By all accounts, he wasn’t involved in the fight. Just an innocent bystander. I feel terrible. I’ve been composing this blog post in my head ever since. Something else happened this past weekend that made me decide to finally write it. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The kid was a mild irritant. He had an old Buick that he worked on incessantly. Painted metallic blue and silver, with lots of chrome, those hydraulics that would lift it up high off the wheels, and mufflers that made the engine LOUD. He thought he was cool driving that thing around. He looked ridiculous.

I feel terrible in part because I was just as ridiculous and probably far more irritating when I was his age. I had a black Camaro Z28 with a special after market stereo (remember 8 Track?), that I played LOUD. With my black aviator shades (that I wore even at night), I thought I was cool.

But I’ve lived my life. And I’m still alive. He’ll never meet a special girl, fall in love, have that girl gently wean him away from his childish endeavors, have a family and a career, and experience all the ups and downs that come with those.

The family next door immigrated here from Mexico. They’re hard working people. Even now, in the depth of this recession, they all have jobs. They’re up and out early in the morning. When they’re home they’re working on the house and the yard. I looked up their real estate record. They bought the house 12 years ago. They immigrated here and they worked hard and became legal residents. They had their little piece of the American dream. Now they also have a piece of the American nightmare.

This past weekend there was another shooting in downtown Sarasota. Three blocks from where I live. Right on Main St. at 9 p.m. on Saturday night, a half block away from a busy movie theater. There’s a small well-lit park where teenagers hang out. This 18 year old boy was parading around with a large Confederate flag. A black kid accused him of being a racist. An argument ensued. The black kid shot the kid with the flag. The wounded kid was flown to that same trauma center and he’s currently in critical but stable condition.

How ignorant to be parading around with a Confederate flag. Turns out the kid isn’t even a Southerner. He’s only been living here for a few years and is from Pennsylvania. But ignorance doesn’t deserve death. When you shoot somebody at close range, you’re trying to kill him.

When I read the above story in the newspaper, I decided to look up how much violent crime there is in Sarasota. Turns out, there’s a LOT. Take a look at this:

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/sarasota/crime/

I Googled ‘Sarasota Violent Crime’ and came up with a half dozen of these kinds of sites that rate the crime in different cities and towns. They all agree that Sarasota has one of the highest crime rates of anywhere in the US. More than almost anywhere in the first world.

I come back to “Why?” Can anybody tell me? What is it about Sarasota that causes it to have such a high rate of murders, rapes and violent assaults per capita? You can reply via commenting. Just click on the ‘Comment’ text that appears at the top of this post.

I’ve been having a recurring dream.

In the dream, it’s the middle of the night. I’m alone and asleep. Not in my house, though. I’m in a high-rise apartment building. I don’t question this change of residence. I just accept that this is where I live now.

The doorbell rings and wakes me. I’m apprehensive. Who would be at my door at this hour?

I get out of bed, and without turning on a light, I walk out of the bedroom and across the living room toward the front door.

There’s no furniture in the living room. A little bit of blue-ish fluorescent light shines through the windows from the street lamps outside. I can tell that the walls and the ceiling are painted white, and there’s white tile on the floor.

As I approach the front door, which is also white, I can see a bit of yellow incandescent light spilling through the peephole and under the bottom of the door.

I see that the chain lock is unhooked. The steel chain is dangling loose. I quickly grab the chain and slide the end through the chain plate, thinking, “I can’t believe I left that off. I always double-check.”

Then I look through the peephole. Nobody’s there. And I look at the floor. No shadow from someone standing in the hall.

I start to breathe a sigh of relief when I notice that the deadbolt is open. Something is really wrong. I wouldn’t go to bed and leave that unlocked. I turn it and the lock slides into place.

I try the door knob. It turns. That’s unlocked too. I lock it.

I realize that the door was completely unlocked. Anyone could have opened it and let themselves in.

I think, “Did they have enough time to ring the bell and slide inside before I walked into the living room?” The panic I’m feeling wakes me up for real. I sit up in my bed in my little house, my eyes open and my heart pounding.

I know the origin of the dream. My buddy Step came over when I got home from the hospital. He’s a carpenter. He installed peepholes and chain locks on the front and back doors of the house. I make sure that the dead bolts, the knob locks, and the chain locks are all secured at all times. My girlfriend has a key, but she has to wait for me to hobble over and undo the chain lock before she can enter the house.

If you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you that I felt younger than my 54 years. Both in my mind and in my body. I don’t know if I looked younger, but I felt younger. I didn’t think about it, but I was confident. I felt able to take care of myself, able to defend myself.

Today I feel older than my actual age. I’m aware that I’m a gimp. If I was an animal, I wouldn’t last a night in the wild. The injured and the lame are easy prey.

I’m realizing that the kid did more than cause me physical harm and disrupt my business. He changed the way I look at the world. He changed the way I look at myself.