anxiety

i was walking up the street, home from work, on the phone with my cousin, who was describing a crazy scene on fond du lac and sherman, a mess of cops and firetrucks, oh look, over there, a car on fire, where is it? it’s at the fucking pump… i’m like WHOA. how crazy, imagining the exact location of the gas station and i walk right up on my own, the raggedy looking one i never go to that’s like a block from my house…right across the street from where the guy got killed… i see a cop car and a fire truck at my own station, and i say something like, oh my god. what the FUCK. and look! yellow tape! i’m like, omg, this shit is crazy, etc. etc. i said lemme cross the street–remember my voyeuristic tendencies? well today, i needed more distance. as i passed the yellow tape, i figured out the whole gas station was closed off. later, when the girls and i went walkin, i noticed they were taking walk-up customers (who probably supply 75% of their business anyway. they’re the fucked up kind of gas station that you have to yell through the glass to get service) and that the ground was all wet–maybe there was a gasoline spill. who knows. i walked the last two blocks and kept talking on my phone. on the way, i had to walk through a small pack of lil negroes, most of whom looked at me while i half-looked at them and sauntered past with the sun in my eyes. there are a couple of groups of dudes that hang out over here. there are the scrubby looking dudes (these i passed)–they strike me as a little more hardened and low income than the other boys who mingle near my windows. those boys like to smoke a little weed and sometimes they mingle with the/some ruffians, but they mostly goof around and talk about shit that could be a mix of high school and street. the thug dudes look like they are just waking up when i get home from work. there’s sleep in their eyes and nothing in their hearts. there’s something about those dudes that make me feel like anybody might start bucking at any minute. like, lay the fuck low if a nigga is caught looking at one of em sideways. anyway, i looked at them quickly enough to know it wasn’t my window boys (most of whom are clean–like ironed pants and crispy shirts, clean kicks, fresh cuts…) (did i just claim those BUSTAS?) but they are irrelevant…i think. i wasn’t thinking about them much, or the cats i had to walk through who were so rudely blocking the sidewalk and an open air kind of alley way leading to the main street, i was just trying to get in the house and concentrating on what i was talking about on the phone. after talking about the bullshit that is my hood and the fire at the gas station on her end, i realized that my heart was beating really fucking hard and my hands felt shaky. i put my left hand to my bosom and felt the wild beats. i said all breathlessly to my cuz, DUDE, my fucking heart is beating cRaZy–wtF? this feels like some anxiety shit! i didn’t notice anything odd, i mean, i didn’t notice my heart beating like that til i was on the corner right in front of my block.

it gave me pause?

what’s with the heart man?

the last few days have been wild. emotionally. in addition to fervently counting days and moons, paranoid about an upcoming trip, monday morning, i awoke to shots fired. i had my kid, a lanky 9yr old lying next to me, fast asleep, and over the loud din of a cheap fan, the shots rang out a LITTLE too close for comfort. it took at least three tugs and loudly whispered commands to get her to the floor at the foot of the bed and damn if she didn’t wake right up and start asking a thousand questions. i told her, somebody shooting! be quiet! she asked, where? who is it? did you see them? my god. saggitarius. we huddled on the floor for a couple of minutes until my bladder stepped in. i said, shoot! (NO pun intended) i gotta pee! i quickly went, mini me followed suit, and then i decided, we risk our lives and go back to bed. all was quiet, these shots were not accompanied by any of the loud laughter, whispering, singing, yelling, crying, music bumping, tires screeching, or name-calling that i was used to hearing at night on this block. it was totally quiet. we lay in bed quietly. for all of 5 seconds the block stayed quiet and then the sirens began, chicago cops and university of chicago cops (who always strike me as being late to the scene) and a firetruck and an ambulance. once i saw the flashing lights through the millimeter of night that i allow in under my ceiling to floor projects-thick shade, i got out of bed, creeping to the edge of the window to peek out and exclaiming to the kid, i told you! somebody must have gotten shot! (inside–oh my god i hate this fucking block we have to MOVE) when i looked out, i was stunned to see so many cops walking around the yard right across the street from my place. they seemed to head up the walkway of the next building in my apt. complex and just stop. they were looking down. (inside–oh my god they must have a body) there’s 6 cops in front of the door, 4 on the street, 3 exiting vehicles, 1 putting yellow tape up. someone rolls a stretcher over, and again, they roll to a point before the entrance and stop. i can’t see the body, but the stretcher confirms it, i grab my digicam and begin snapping multiple bad shots. i’m shooting through the screen (why must that word keep showing it’s face here?) and talking to my daughter about murder and crime scene investigations. she’s listening intently, asking questions, speculating, and lying on her belly, on the floor in front of the window, peeking through the millimeter…suddenly, about 4 cops bend down and lift. a. body. off. the. ground. i am in shock. no i’m not. i’m buggin. i can’t believe what i am seeing. what have i done in my adult life that led me to this place? who am i? i have failed to protect my child–from MURDER. my daughter and i are watching a homicide scene out of my bedroom window. i have a master’s degree. who is that man? where is the blood? why are the medics moving so slowly? are those two looking for shells? i didn’t know the red tape was for blocking the area where the body was. i stare and i talk and i hem and i haw and i muse and reflect until the cops begin to leave. i lie in bed and tell her to go to sleep (as if that’s normal). i can’t sleep. my mind will no longer keep still. nothing will lull me back to sleep. he had a white tee on. his face seemed distorted, turned to the side. lifeless. they put him in the ambulance but they didn’t pull off. the ambulance sat for a long time (about 30 minutes) and when they left, they didn’t turn their sirens on. the next time i got up to check, they were just gone. mulling my life, and deciding to keep living, i got up, smoked some weed, took a shower, got dressed, and decide to go downtown early enough to beat the dmv crowd. i needed to get a duplicate license because i’d lost mine a couple of weeks ago. i check the weather, there’s some percent chance of rain or storms, but it’s sunny — oddly, after showering, i looked out my window, and the crime scene was totally clear, yellow and red tape taken down and everything. a 20-something pretty black girl was jogging right along the fence to the crime scene. she wore a periwinkle sports bra and short black shorts. when she jogged, her ponytail bounced. what the hell? anyway, i step outside and the sky is looking oddly greenish gray. the air is thick and humid, though not nearly hot as days past. just a bland kind of stifling air… it no longer looked like the sunny morning the chick just jogged through, in fact, it looked like dusk… strangely, the day seemed to go in reverse. and fast. i went right back into the house. i got back in bed and fell asleep just as a storm began to stew. the winds got hard and the rain came, this time when i looked out my window, all was black. and would you believe i heard more sirens…? (this is where the anxiety began probably…shit.) yes, a firetruck comes up to a screeching halt, right in front of my building AGAIN! and then, there’s a ch. 7 news van with a camera guy getting out of the vehicle. two firefighters exit the truck and enter the building where the man was shot. they come back out to the truck, pick up a large extinguisher, and head back into the house. in twos! wth is this? i know not, i snap some more photos. it looks like a tornado is coming. the wind is going psycho and the sky is a bright dark blue and it seems the orange street lights have come back on. again, i think of the pretty black girl. how is it that an hour ago, out this very same window, the sun shone, a couple of hours after the dark dawn when someone was murdered here? i am perplexed by this day. the ch. 7 guy is back in his van’s driver seat, and he is moving something around in his hand, and for 5 long seconds, i become convinced that he has a 9 in his hand and is trying to point it at me. i’m insane now. i have the camera in my hand and am brazenly shooting him and the van. i think for a moment, he has also taken pictures of me taking pictures of him. eventually everyone leaves, the storm subsides, the sun returns, i smoke a tad more, and leave for work. the day sucks. i go home, make dinner, talk to the kid, crack jokes, clean up, bark orders, make my plate, sit down to–what is that NOISE? sounds like more SIRENS. but these are diff–are those the TORNADO sirens? ohhhH lorD. (sssss)… I turn my underutilized TV on and TORNADO WARNING is crossing across the screen and the weird little weather maps with the clockwise-turning thing line which, in some way, represents time…time is going quickly, there have been funnel sightings just north of downtown. i live just south of downtown, the winds were movin up to 65 mph, and the beast was heading our way. the kid and her guest continued laying out on the living room floor on a blanket and all the couch pillows. at least 100 degrees in my apartment, i go into crisis mode and start building a tornado shelter. oh–did i mention the problem with getting caught in a shootout or a tornado in my apartment? it’s mainly because i live on the corner of a busy intersection and i have floor to ceiling windows. total bullshit, a tornado comes my way, i’m outta there. yet, i plan to save the girls. so i clear out space in my large, centrally located storage closet, after closing and locking all windows and drawing the shades down. (self-conscious now–is this too long a blog entry?)

…long story short. i haven’t been right since monday. the tornadoes passed us by, opting instead to play in lake michigan, and to even make one final appearance (just the psycho storms and lightning, no twisters…) after midnight, while i tried to tune out from this life. i hadn’t been that down about MY (i would italicize and not ALL CAPS that, but i haven’t messed with the html code here yet. bear with.) life… i mean, my day was rotten at work, i’d already woken up to some bullshit, and now i come home and wonder if this will be hurricane katrina-chi-town version… come to think of it, HK put the fear of god in me and the belief in atheism too… (i mean, god? really?)/(i mean, really god? well damn.) but it mainly put the knowledge in me that 1. we are walking among animals and 2. the earth is about to have it’s way with us. it’s been the other way around for far too long. i’ve managed to live this long, and i have so far to go, but all these things fucking with my stats. 1 in 4 black woman have aids. excuse me? i mean, is my reality, i’m lucky i don’t have aids? i’m lucky i have a job? i’m lucky i only have one kid?

this has to pause somewhere. (this entry…and also this way of existing…) obama can’t stop global warming. and i can’t stop my heart from beating like that. i guess in my quest to know everything, the universe showed me what anxiety feels like. (ok. i’m straight. no more please.) hell. just show me the money. i’ve gotta get the hell off of this BLOCK.