Wild Things

2011-03-02 - Fear of Wild Things


Two nights ago, Mark and I sit, on our respective cushioned chairs. The dog lies still at my lap’s side. The Good wife just finished. I am not a TV addict, but I like having a schedule and a favorite show is sometimes the best way I know of to decompress and let the last bit of life run out of me for the day.

Then, the news. Breaking news. Isn’t all news breaking. Breaking and entering. Breaking someone’s hearts. Breaking into the peace of my evening. Broken pieces of life scattered around.

It seems that when the first headlines involve a crime, the first mention is always Over the Rhine. My husband and I exchanged dubious glances. The oh no, here we go again. The newscaster mentions “Lang Street”, a literal desert, as the police call it, in the middle of downtown.

Here is the breakdown: A woman walking on Lang Street around 7:45 p.m. found Massey, slumped over a fire hydrant. He'd been shot several times. He was taken to University Hospital, where he died. Ploice continued to ask for information.

Mark had his iTouch nearby and proceeded to look up Lang, as neither of us knew where it was. And found that it was only eight blocks, as the crow flies, from somewhere we would like to call home. But Liberty defines a separate part of OTR, one not quite ready for civiliazation at nighttime.

As it would turn out later, the victim had a long history of violating others and while no one should be left alone to die, one can understand how he came to be violated himself.

Then, followed by this unsettling piece of new breaking news. 25 year old Patrick Massey was shot to death on Lang Street in Over-the-Rhine around 7:45 p.m. A second victim was found about 20 minutes later, at the intersection of 14th and Walnut Streets.

33 year old Michael Bohannon was shot in the chest on 13th Street around 8:20 p.m. Tuesday. Bohannon ran to 14th and Walnut Streets for help.

You can almost hear another heart break.

I suspect when people hear this news, they then look my way with a confusing glance. My husband and I are white, upper class, educated, common sense sort of people. The type of people others turn to for advice. What on earth would prompt this move?

So, the fears sit, in the back of my mind. Late night, Mark on call at the hospital, my adorable, but not particularly ferocious dog at my side. Will someone break in. Should we install security cameras? How careful do we need to be? I often walked the dog on starry winter nights. Would we be pursued in a random act of violence? The question remains, how random is random.

An African American in OTR once told me, most of the violence is young male, black on black crime, and typically involves drugs. Statistics back this up, every evening on the news.

But a young 18 year old, sitting in a restaurant at Tuckers, in the heart of the neighborhood, was shot and wound up paralyzed. She was black. The owner of the restaurant, white, was also shot, but she is recovering albeit slowly. Where is the outrage? Will it only come when someone considered an outsider to the community, strolls along, walking the extra block from Findlay to the car, or to just enjoy the architecture of OTR, happens in the middle of a stray bullet.

Do we just assume, that the those inclined to harm others will continue to kill themselves off?

They have nothing left to lose.

The Peace of Wild Things
BY WENDELL BERRY
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendall Berry writes of the peace of wild things. Where will I go to lie down with the drake. Where would that oasis be, in the middle of OTR? The wild things are those who do not hold respect for life, they do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I will think of them as drakes and fear them not. I will see them as great herons watch them take flight. Be a witness, not an agitator.

Where will the still water be? What runs still in a nighttime filled with drugs and violence and cars that drive slowly and rats that scurry. I will listen for the distant trumpet blowing from inside Music Hall. I will rest in the grace of the music, waiting for day to enlighten hearts.