Be advised the following contains graphic descriptions of the mass shooting at Allen, Texas on May 6th, 2023 and may be triggering.
Back in 1986, a circus came to our small Texas town. Because I had a straight A report card, I was awarded two free tickets. That Friday night was one of the best nights of my life. Now keep in mind, in my life I have been married, won awards, met our current President in 2008, and worked on various policies, campaigns, and enjoyed some fruits of those labors.
But as a 9 year-old in the fourth grade, I enjoyed one of my happiest evenings, to date, and probably from this point forward, not likely to be exceeded easily. It was a three ring circus, complete with animals, a ringmaster, clowns, the works. I indulged in cotton candy with my grandpa, hot dogs, and Icees. I smiled and laughed, and dreamed, and hoped. It is so close in my mind, flirting with my heart, I can almost reach out and touch it. I can almost feel like I am there.
There was no fear, no uprising, no threats of violence. Just hundreds of Texas families enjoying themselves. For obvious reasons, I grew to no longer support animal circuses but still enjoy the art. But on that day, the harsh realities of the business, the terrors of the outside world, were all drowned out by horn music and the call of elephants. As much as the world could be to a 9 year-old, it was perfect.
I point this out because in the course of my research of the 232nd mass shooting in this country in 2023, by May 6th mind you, I watched several interviews. If I may, I would like to share.
One was with an affable middle-aged cowboy named Steven Spainhauer who was suffering from PTSD after what he witnessed. He may have saved some lives with CPR, but that is not what stuck with him. I believe the key passage is when he said, “So I felt for her pulse, pulled her head to the side, and she had no face.” That is as close to word for word as I recall.
Perhaps it is best to let him explain it:
"When I rolled the mother over, he came out. I asked him if he was OK and he said, 'My mom is hurt, my mom is hurt.' So rather than traumatize him, I pulled him around the corner sat him down and he was covered from head to toe...like somebody poured blood on him."
“She had no face.” But you see I know this, and I already knew this, because I had watched unedited videos of the aftermath of the scene. Social media, as it turns out, has no off button. That woman, had her face along with most of her brain, blown out. Instantly. One second she is shopping, maybe checking her phone for movie times, the next is nothing but black.
And so what does Todd do? He tries to remember his happy place, the place forever unscathed by the real world. The place where the smell of popcorn is still in my nostrils and the smile on my grandpa’s face warms my heart. The place where the slightest concern that a bullet would eviscerate my grandpa’s handsome mug never would have crossed my mind. But see that place isn’t really a place at all. It was a time. A time where these things did not happen with “app notification” regularity, did not come across the screen of our televisions as a crawl during a ballgame.
It was 1986. That place is gone. Forever. And you see I know that because I watched a second interview, with an Indian-American gentleman holding his six-year old son. The experience he recounted was harrowing, but that flew under my radar. It flew under my radar in deference to a stare. A stare so disheartening, so tear-inducing, so gut wrenching, I can’t sleep this night.
Yes. You know this stare. We have all studied it, heard about it, but allow me to refresh your memories of what is known as the 1,000 yard stare.
The thousand-yard stare (also referred to as two-thousand-yard stare, combat shock, or shell shock) is a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of combatants who have become emotionally detached from the psychological trauma around them. It is sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.
The thousand-yard stare is likely the same phenomenon as what medical researchers refer to as the combat stress reaction.[1]
This child walked past a scene of unspeakable horror, and at six years old, is never going to be the same. So this sweet little boy will never know the pleasures I did, at 9, because he will never again feel free, and joyful, and unencumbered by the constant thought plaguing him that for some reason, so many wish him dead, and might be willing to make it a reality.
That is the world we live in. But this young child will never get the chance to see a world of joy so pure, to make a connection with his family so unfettered, as to be able to access it in times of sorrow. That’s done now. He himself is not dead.
But, his childhood is effectively over.
And then I look at further scenes. Some five thousand people, conservatively, were escorted past the eviscerated bodies just like this family. Among them, well over 1,000 children. It is entirely possible some of them walked past the splattered brain matter, of a classmate.
Aside from the death, the wastes of love and potential, and sheer tragedy, are the radiating permanent traumas the Republicans worship of the NRA has condemned the survivors to.
But for me to speak about the circus is for me, to come full circle, for in Chandler this very weekend is a beautiful water circus, animal free, one that we have enjoyed in more peaceful times. I was excited. I then saw that this circus would be at an outlet mall, one I knew well, and one that I had reservations about.
Outdoor shopping malls have multiple security weaknesses, and as I have written about in the past, I evaluate every potential event for security, first. Some have called that extreme. But I nevertheless did evaluate the mall, and rejected the opportunity to enjoy a favorite event, so out of concern for the very reason I write about today, we stayed home.
This is not 1986 anymore. The smiles are tinged with nervousness, and the laughs are of the self-conscious variety. One does not spend so much time looking at the show, as the exits. I could have never imagined a world such as this as a child. In a perverse sense, I consider myself among the lucky.
I got to have a moment of joy in my childhood without the fear of impending evisceration hanging over my head.
How fortunate. How blessed I was to be able to live a child’s life, with a child’s innocence, partaking in simple pleasures, experiencing joy.
The right wing has robbed us of our joy. They have allowed the massacre of our families, of our co-workers, they have turned their backs on children, and are now teaching third-graders how to apply tourniquets to victims, you know, in case of a school shooting.
There was no blood on that circus floor in 1986, but this time I had no confidence I would be so lucky again.
I remember the clowns, in the Volkswagen, piled up on top of one another, comically impeding each other’s space, falling over one another and getting a rise out of the crowd.
But that image has now been replaced with a different pile of bodies. My smile is gone. My joy is extinguished.
My Happy Place is gone.
I had to walk away from my computer the moment I wrote, “5 year-old’s brain matter.” My mind could not accept it.
I have to go to sleep at some point, if only after a collapse from exhaustion. At age 46, I might be able to trick my brain, with just the right amount of comfort food mixed with classic retro TV, into slipping the images into the folder marked, “Hollywood Action Film.”
The little boy above can’t. He will never have those images overwritten. He will never laugh at clowns piled up in a skit, after seeing literal pieces of children similarly arranged covered in blood.
I owe him something I will never be able to give him, even though I was not the one that took it from him.
And I am so profoundly sorry, and guilt-ridden, and nauseous, that I am so helpless in the face of the carnage. I wish life was so simple as sending in the clowns, to make that child smile.
But We the People, will have to vote out the clowns, first.
-ROC
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Love,
-ROC