What You Doin? Gettin Shot At

Last week, on the B6 heading up Glenwood to Flatbush Junction, I looked up from the new Lil’ Wayne and Birdman album because I felt the bus turning before it was supposed to and, sure enough, those were sirens at the Junction. I say sure enough because an innocent bystander was shot two weeks ago outside the Rockaway Parkway L station, and because once I hit the second bodega and picked up my New York Times, before I realized I had lost the Arts Section and thus the crossword puzzle but didn’t really care because it was Monday, I read a metro brief about a shooting around the corner from me. Saturday. I was in Virginia.

Virginia freaks me out. So do shootings. As I crossed the street near the taped-off grocery store I heard a guy say “Somebody got popped. I think he was in a wheelchair.” I couldn’t help but wonder if Mercury were still in retrograde.

Later in the day, after detailing the three incidents to my coworkers, one of them asked me, “is it always this bad?” I couldn’t really say. I told her that on the New Year and the fourth people shoot their guns into the sky, and I was going to mention the soldier home for Christmas from Iraq shot in a club a few blocks from my house. I also thought about mentioning the exploded car around the corner, the police chases over the garage, and the dead body on the neighbor’s fence, but I didn’t think it prudent.

The fifty shot Dialou rehashing should come as no surprise to anyone from Brooklyn or to anyone whose head isn’t buried in sand for that matter. And there might just be sand soon, because this place in turning into the Wild Wild West. Gun violence is a party and everybody’s invited. Soldiers and SWAT units with automatic weapons don’t help anything, they only encourage the idea that more bullets means more good.

Lil’ Wayne’s got guns. Why do I trust him more than NYPD?