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{breaking news} eric hawthorn The bullet looks rather gentle, considering what it’s about to do. Its tip has a laid-back bluntness to it. It’s so shiny it looks less like a lethal object than a sort of vanity mirror for its target to use while he combs his hair. Should time allow. But the boy this bullet approaches doesn’t seem inclined to check his reflection, and the way the bullet points at the boy’s forehead is all business. The boy stares past it, though, his eyebrows slightly lifted in confusion. He’s wearing baggy pants. His friend sits on the stoop of a porch, a slice of pizza dangling from his mouth. Pizza boy and baggy pants are both staring toward the street, not seeming to notice the throng of bullets floating above the sidewalk, a swarm of gleaming lead. The bullets hover before the boy in baggy pants. They hover over the sidewalk, next to a parked car, over the street, everywhere. There’s an uzi, pointing. A bullet is crawling from the barrel of the uzi, which is held by a man whose mouth is open in a yell. This gunman sits in a black Cadillac in the middle of the street. The car’s engine is running, but the car remains still. The slow-motion drive-by shooting happens at Seventh and Clearfield. People from all over the neighborhood have come to watch. “What a damn shame,” they mumble, gazing at the bullets in the air. But no one tries to play hero, to rescue the boy in baggy pants from the bullet mere inches from his face. Bullets are dangling everywhere. However slowly, those things are moving. And who wants to get in the way of a moving bullet. There’s heavy footsteps and sobbing. “Not my baby!” shrieks a woman, already veiled and dressed in black. “Why, Lord? Why?” She lunges forward, a hand out for the bullet nearing her son’s face. Others grab and hold her back, saying, “We know, we know.” The veiled woman wails into her hands as a white van with antennas roars up the street. On the side of the van is written: “…For the Real Deal, Turn to Channel 4 News.” The van stops and out dashes a man wearing a black turtleneck and gray blazer. Approaching, he smoothes the creases from his jacket. A make-up girl trots next to him, brushing something powdery on his face. The man in the turtleneck goes to the weeping mother, who’s using her veil to dab tears from her eyes. He sticks the microphone in her face: “Peter Shepherd, Channel 4. Can you tell us what you’re feeling right now, as this heinous tragedy unfolds?” A pony-tailed cameraman scuttles in closer with his heavy camera. Weeping mother: “Who’d do this to my baby?” a bony hand to her forehead. “Lajon never hurt nobody!” Her tears soak the foam ball on the microphone. Peter Shepherd, Channel 4, nods vigorously. He goes to the boy in baggy pants, ducking around the hovering bullets like he’s working his way through an attic stringy with cobwebs. The boy in baggy pants has a bullet pressing into his forehead. The boy’s sweat drips over the bullet and onto the sidewalk. The skin is pulling in beneath the tip of the bullet, but his forehead is easygoing and in no hurry to make a mess of itself. The Channel 4 make-up lady limbos under a few hanging bullets and brushes something powdery on the boy’s face, careful not to get any of it on the bullet pressing into his forehead. She sprays water on the bullet, making it shinier for the camera. Peter Shepherd, Channel 4, smothers the boy with his microphone: “Son, could you tell us your thoughts on this unfolding tragedy?” Boy in baggy pants: … (Eyes still on the street, mouth frozen half-open.) Peter Shepherd: “How dead do you think you’ll be when this bullet hits you?” Baggy Pants: … Peter Shepherd: “Why are you being murdered? Do you deal drugs?” Baggy Pants: … (Mouth still open, a moth flies in.) A man with a scraggly beard runs in, waving a revolver in the air. “What the fuck’s goin’ on? Who the fuck did this to my brother?” Everyone looks at the sidewalk. “Someone’s gonna be got for this,” mutters the scraggly beard. Peter Shepherd from Channel 4 presses a finger to his earpiece and nods his head. “That’s right, Tom,” facing the camera, “it appears this situation has become even more grave.” Scraggly beard points his revolver at the uzi-wielding man in the Cadillac, at a close enough range to make a spectacular mess of this man’s head. “It seems a relative of the boy being murdered has come to exact revenge on the gunman in the car.” “Don’t do it, baby!” pleads weeping mother. Peter Shepherd stabs his microphone into the scraggly beard: “Sir, can you tell us what you’re feeling at this moment?” Scraggly beard, looking determined: “I’m-a kill this muthafucka.” Peter Shepherd, facing the camera: “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. He is going to kill this motherfucker.” A proper Ivy League pronunciation of both “mother” and “fucker.” Scraggly beard squeezes the trigger of his gun. The blast peals over the street. Scraggly’s shoulders, jerked back from the gun’s kick, freeze. Something shiny peaks out of the gun. Peter Shepherd from Channel 4 breathes deeply. He switches on his somber face: “Tom, this is truly a sad day for the residents of this neighborhood, who are seeing one of their own callously gunned down in what may be a gang-related murder.” A bullet has hit a street sign in front of the boy in baggy pants. Pieces of paint and metal are floating upwards. Another bullet has insinuated itself into the boy’s neck, and the skin of his neck billows out like a Jell-O mold. The bullet that was tickling the boy’s forehead has disappeared into a neat little hole, but the rest of the boy’s face hasn’t caught on to what’s happening. “As you can see behind me—” Peter Shepherd gestures and the camera pans across the neighbors assembled on the sidewalk “—the feeling here is one of utter shock.” A couple boys jostle and laugh in front of the crowd, vying for camera time. “It is hoped that in the coming days, the people of this neighborhood will unify and send a message to those—like the men in this Cadillac, who declined an interview with me—who perpetuate violence on these—” His lips keep moving, but no words come out. “Peter? Peter, we seem to be having problems with our audio feed right now.” An artificially tanned news anchor half-smiles behind his desk. “We’ll check back with Peter in a few moments, once we’ve resolved these technical difficulties.” In the box over Tom’s shoulder, Peter Shepherd nods and postures in his turtleneck. Behind him, the weeping mother kneels on the sidewalk. The boy in baggy pants is starting to fall backwards. The anchor raises his voice and eyebrows, segueing: “We now turn to a possible hit-and-run-in-progress on Green Avenue. Jenn Meyers is live from the scene. Jenn?” “Thanks, Tom. We say possible hit-and-run because at this point it’s too soon to determine if the driver of the white SUV suspected in this accident is actually attempting to flee the scene.” The reporter points to an SUV about half a block away. The vehicle is nearly still but has not pulled to the side of the street. A number of police cars are behind the SUV, also nearly still, in pursuit. Next to the reporter, an old woman is flying backward toward the sidewalk, the contents of her shopping bag suspended in the air. Her body lies supine about a foot above the street, and her head is about to crack on the curb. The reporter sticks her microphone in the face of the flying old woman and asks questions. The interview is fairly unrevealing. Channel 4 cuts back to the boy in baggy pants. He, too, has almost landed on the sidewalk. Peter Shepherd, the reporter standing next to him, is careful not to get any blood on his turtleneck. A local ballistics expert has arrived to describe the trajectory of the bullet passing through the boy’s head. Mr. Ballistics discusses the cranial damage a 9mm bullet causes. With a lecturer’s pointer, he indicates the part of the boy’s head that will eventually be an exit wound. There’s a slight bump there, something pushing outward. Mr. Ballistics says it’s funny how the first bullet to hit the boy in baggy pants—before the one that got him in the neck—that first bullet’s going to be a kill shot. The reporter holds his microphone and nods his head. It was an impressively direct shot, explains the ballistics guy, and the boy probably isn’t feeling much pain. |
