A Lone Shot
Drew discovered this shot-out window while we were walking home last night. You can see where the bullet charred the curtain after it smashed the through the glass.
During the day the view of this window is blocked by a couple of junkies who squat near the doorway with their backpacks and petty arguments. It’s like this doorway is their office space. They show up shortly after rush hour and they leave as soon as the sun goes down. I’m not sure where they go, but during the day the corner is theirs.
After we snapped our pictures, I remembered hearing one single gunshot a few nights before. It stuck in my mind because it was a lone shot and usually we hear the crackling of several in a row. It was after midnight. Drew was drifting off to sleep and I was thinking about one of my fruitless writing projects while I followed the paint creases along the ceiling with my eyes, as if the lines would actually lead somewhere, when I heard the sound.
I asked Drew if he heard the shot, he mumbled, “Is that what it was?” Then he rolled over on his side and went back to sleep.
“It sounded like it was on 24th Street,” I said.
I was off by a few feet. As we left the shattered window, I boasted to Drew about how good I’ve become at gauging the location of gunshots from the sound.
He agreed and said, “We’re like a couple of bats.”
He’s right. In a way we’re all like bats–blindly foraging for something in our limited worlds. The sounds, like the lone shot, are only relevant if they lead somewhere useful, if they gain us loot or warn us of danger.