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Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Bang! Bang!
Since coming home from the beach, I have been greeted by this and that friend and neighbor, treated to news of 38th Street...the house across the street is finished and ready for it's new owners who will move in shortly, the yellow apartments - partly boarded up- have been quiet.
The street looks beautiful because this is the height of crepe myrtle season. Every street in Kensington, Park Place, Colonial Place, Ghent is lined with great, waving plumes of red, pink, dusty rose, lavendar, maroon, deep purple flowers. Every sidewalk looks like the proverbial red carpet as drifts of flowers sift slowly down to hide the concrete. Beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful. A paradise of flowers and lovely old houses, quiet streets, hushed traffic whispering by in the sleepy August heat. Could anything be better? Who could wish for more?
Well, I could. Where's the entertainment to which I became addicted over the winter? How about that riot waiting to happen across the street? Is it gone forever? Am I destined to deep, heat-related southern calm for the rest of my days? Of course I'm thankful to have all the crime gone, etc, but....
Last night I laid upstairs in my fabulous cloud-like bed, just getting sleepy, the TV turned to the same channel I leave on every night, Porque Choppe cozily asleep tucked under my arm.
Suddenly I was right smack in the middle of Baghdad. BANGBANGBANGBANG!!!! How to describe the noise so you know what I mean...um, it was like two things at once; a) a giant shaking vast sheets of metal so that the metal popped and whopped and banged and snapped the air, and b)some immense armament going off about 30 times/minute right outside my front windows.
AHA!!! This sounded like the 38th Street I have come to know and love. I bounced out of bed, ran to my office and settled into a chair upstairs and ringside. Below, the street was full of yelling, confused people clearly rousted out of bed and home by the hellish eruption. All stared fearfuly toward the corner by the post office.
Since I couldn't ask questions from upstairs in my house, I hurried, Porque busily at my side, down to a rocking chair on the porch. Ambulances began to arrive, shouldering spectators aside. Soon the corner closed to traffic and police spread throughout the block pushing back rubberneckers and asking questions. Meanwhile, more ambulances showed up. The ready-loaded ambulances sped off and even more ambulances arrived. Gosh. Enough ambulances to service a battlefield.
It was all hectic and crazy for a while but pretty soon the hot, sleepy southern night again closed over 38th Street. Neighbors yawned and went back to bed. Porkee and I, too, turned out the porch light and went indoors. I didn't see police making any arrests, so presumably the shooter is still around to liven things up some other night. This place has everything! By day, beautiful, safe and quiet...by night, loud, dangerous and ugly. The ideal retirement venue.
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