A DAY IN THE HOOD

by Andrew Williams

Four people died in my neighborhood last week in the span of sixteen

hours. It wasn't natural causes. It was sniper fire--a sharpshooter

drive-by shooting spree, followed that evening by a media feeding spree.

Most of the action happened while I was en route to or from work, but on

my home I decided to stop off at the deli for a couple bottles of wine.

And that's when I saw it: a forest of satellite poles, stations from DC

and Baltimore and (undoubtedly) all over the country and world. I saw

reporters doing walk-arounds, waiting for their on-air cues, killing time.

Four people died in my neighborhood last week. Some were in the prime of

life, some were winding down, some were in between. There was (and is) no

apparent pattern: the gunperson, it seems, was an equal opportunity

killer, bent on inducing terror. S/he has succeeded.

I walked through the forest of transmitter poles to the deli, observing as

I went. Except for the camera and police presence, the traffic and

pedestrial levels were about normal for that time of day at that

intersection. Nobody--except the cops and maybe some of the media--was

wearing armor. People seemed friendlier toward each other, as they often

do for a brief interregnum in the wake of catastrophe. I heard one young

voice yell from a passing car, "Don't shoot me!" Was it mockery? Fear? Or

an uneasy mix?

This was not an everyday event in Aspen Hill. The last such was the

so-called Aspen Hill Killer, who murdered one woman and almost two, but

for the timely intervention of an off-duty cop. That was over a year ago,

and the killer is now in prison for life. It hasn't been mouse-quiet since

then, but no drive-bys--until last week.

As I walked home from the deli, I spotted an abandoned copy of *Charlie

and the Chocolate Factory.* Having not read Roald Dahl's classic story in

at least twenty years, I picked it up and enjoyed it as I walked. I

stopped for a moment when the author introduced Mike Teavee because, as

befitted his character, he was described watching a film of a gangster

massacre. On TV.

I joked to people earlier that day, "Don't these guys know that drive-bys

are a West Coast thing?" But it was obvious to me that neither coast has a

patent on hunting humans, for whatever purpose--to spread terror, to

promote gun legislation, or any of the other theories that have substance.

(If Kathleen Kennedy Townsend doesn't run with this against Bob Ehrlich,

she's a fool.) What this was to me was a wake-up call to rejoin the human

race, to be a little kinder to strangers, to tell your people if you love

them or are in love with them. This was the day I stopped saying "the

'hood" and started saying "my 'hood."