Pum...pum...pum!
I peak out the window of my darkened room & see a light go on across the way. A dark face cautiously peeks out from the curtain to check the cause of the noise. Que la chi.... You hear gunshots, turn on the light, stick your face in the window, & make yourself a target? What the hell kind of instinct is that?
Now I can't sleep. I've got to lay awake & listen for any sounds...like people running, more gunshots, or maybe a siren. 5 Minutes...10 minutes...20 minutes later...and nothing. No siren.
This is too stupid. I try to go back to sleep. Yeah, like that's going to happen.
...30 Minutes...40 minutes...tossing & turning.
I can't stand it anymore. I give up, & climb out of bed. You can't fall back asleep when you're adrenalin is racing.
The shots weren't even that close. Could've been blocks away & in god knows which direction.
"Well, it's been at least a month since I've heard any, so I guess tonight was due."
I stumble into the cocina. I look at the frig & remember something.
No soy borracho. I don't drink, unless I'm at a pachanga & some compa insists I have to have a ron y coca because his 2nd son was just born, or his daughter is a quinceañera, or there was a baptism, or it's Lunes.
I open the jet black frig & the bright, white, & tiny world inside it is revealed. The rest of the room fades away to darkness. I see the homemade rompope. Mexican eggnog. Doña Maritza brought it over in way of thanks for the frustrated hours I spent filling out her son's INS forms. Hopefully not in vain. This time.
Hmmm...¿Por qué no? Un vasito nada mas. Acaso no me mata.
I'm sipping as the computer fires up & does its own little retinue of sounds. Its whiz-bang of protests at being stirred from sleep is the loudest sound in the barrio now. The rompope is cool & sweet. I'm thinking about when I lived in Mexico & never heard a single shot. At night. I'm thinking about Northern rural Guatemala when there was a carbine on every corner. I'm thinking about what Markos experienced as a kid in El Salvador. I'm thinking about what kids all over the world experience in war zones & zones of urban conflict. I'm thinking I'm pretty privileged compared to them.
I'm thinking the gunfire here is an exception, & not the rule. Yet. I'm thinking that if jobs don't start appearing it's going to become a rule. Un desmadre bien hecho.
I got to rule that out of my mind.
I log onto Dailykos. There's no MB. Well, mostly there's no MB. He's still here peripherally...just out of sight...around the corner...in & out of comment recs.
Peripheral...kind of like the shots that woke me up...& made me start thinking. But he's a much better kind of wake up call. I hope America gets that kind of wake up call, & not the one I've had in the wee hours of the night.
Cuz' we're sure going one direction or the other. De eso cabe duda.