It figures.
P. is off doing interview rounds in NYC and DC yesterday and today, so it's been just me and the Daisy since we got back from the wedding. A little space is always nice, and Daisy and I were snuggling on the couch last night eating Pizza Rolls and watching that peculiar Kid Nation show. We live in a building abutting some train tracks (we didn't know they were there when we moved in -- it's a long story, but trust me) so we've become used to the background noise of living in a somewhat industrial corner of town. No one really ventures over the train tracks -- I mean, there are no bars there -- but they're right there.
I tend to automatically classify the noises we hear as either being people-related, which means they're coming from the bars out front, or train-related, which means they're coming from the back of the building. While we were camping out on the couch, Daisy and I, I heard four quick popping noises. I thought, "Oh, that sounds like a gun...it's just like home! Isn't that funny!" It was close enough that it sounded like it was in the parking lot, so I figured someone was having car trouble. I checked the clock -- which I always do, when I hear weird noises, in case the police come and interview me -- and it was 8:29, which seemed a little early for gunfire. I went back to my show and savored my little reminder of what Chicago sounded like.
About ten minutes later, I hear the short squawk of a siren that sounds like neither police nor fire. Well, fine. I get up and look out the window into the parking lot, as that's where the police usually set up to command on bar nights. Nobody there. Not in the front, not in the back. Whatever. If anything goes on, it goes on in the front anyways. Hey, there's just train tracks back there.
So, of course, what's on the news today? Some guy getting shot in both the legs out on the train tracks. At 8:30. It sounded close because it WAS close, just on the wrong side of the building than I thought.
TEN YEARS I live in Chicago, and never have a single problem. I live next to drug dealers and gang members in Hyde Park and drunken molesters downtown. I come down to Knoxville and some guy is getting his legs blown off in my backyard.
I have a hard time explaining this to people, because apparently to everyone else it sounds silly. But I have never felt as safe down here as I did in the city and I probably never will. The crazy people here...are CRAZY. We have bums that come and sit in the lobby of our building, or on the front steps, and stare at you. They don't ask for anything, they just stare at you. I'm alone during the day, and we're supposed to kick them out when we see them, but you're not getting me to confront some stranger about sitting on the couch and then just waltz back up to my empty apartment that he now knows the location of.
At least in Chicago I felt my criminals were predictable. Naive, I know. But true. There is an unpredictable element here that I don't understand and am not familiar with, whether we are living downtown, like now, or living out in the boondocks, like we were last year. Maybe I haven't ever had the opportunity of enough time to get familiar with the area, but I felt better staggering home down 60th drunk at 2am. Even my mom asks me to call her when I walk the dog at night, and she never did that in Chicago.
I know that random crime happens, in every area. There can always be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in any part of town. But that's literally my backyard! I took the dog around the track side of the building two hours later because I didn't want to go down the street and have the crazy guy with the safety helmet and the little flag on his bike follow me like he always does. What if someone had been pissed off two hours later instead?
Sometimes people ask if P. were home more, if I would feel differently about things. I like to think not. I had no problem living on my own, ever. And when I'm inside the loft with the door locked, it's fine. It's what's outside that's weird, and that will be there whether he's around or not.
So why do I feel so irrational and ignorant for being upset about this?
I tend to automatically classify the noises we hear as either being people-related, which means they're coming from the bars out front, or train-related, which means they're coming from the back of the building. While we were camping out on the couch, Daisy and I, I heard four quick popping noises. I thought, "Oh, that sounds like a gun...it's just like home! Isn't that funny!" It was close enough that it sounded like it was in the parking lot, so I figured someone was having car trouble. I checked the clock -- which I always do, when I hear weird noises, in case the police come and interview me -- and it was 8:29, which seemed a little early for gunfire. I went back to my show and savored my little reminder of what Chicago sounded like.
About ten minutes later, I hear the short squawk of a siren that sounds like neither police nor fire. Well, fine. I get up and look out the window into the parking lot, as that's where the police usually set up to command on bar nights. Nobody there. Not in the front, not in the back. Whatever. If anything goes on, it goes on in the front anyways. Hey, there's just train tracks back there.
So, of course, what's on the news today? Some guy getting shot in both the legs out on the train tracks. At 8:30. It sounded close because it WAS close, just on the wrong side of the building than I thought.
TEN YEARS I live in Chicago, and never have a single problem. I live next to drug dealers and gang members in Hyde Park and drunken molesters downtown. I come down to Knoxville and some guy is getting his legs blown off in my backyard.
I have a hard time explaining this to people, because apparently to everyone else it sounds silly. But I have never felt as safe down here as I did in the city and I probably never will. The crazy people here...are CRAZY. We have bums that come and sit in the lobby of our building, or on the front steps, and stare at you. They don't ask for anything, they just stare at you. I'm alone during the day, and we're supposed to kick them out when we see them, but you're not getting me to confront some stranger about sitting on the couch and then just waltz back up to my empty apartment that he now knows the location of.
At least in Chicago I felt my criminals were predictable. Naive, I know. But true. There is an unpredictable element here that I don't understand and am not familiar with, whether we are living downtown, like now, or living out in the boondocks, like we were last year. Maybe I haven't ever had the opportunity of enough time to get familiar with the area, but I felt better staggering home down 60th drunk at 2am. Even my mom asks me to call her when I walk the dog at night, and she never did that in Chicago.
I know that random crime happens, in every area. There can always be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in any part of town. But that's literally my backyard! I took the dog around the track side of the building two hours later because I didn't want to go down the street and have the crazy guy with the safety helmet and the little flag on his bike follow me like he always does. What if someone had been pissed off two hours later instead?
Sometimes people ask if P. were home more, if I would feel differently about things. I like to think not. I had no problem living on my own, ever. And when I'm inside the loft with the door locked, it's fine. It's what's outside that's weird, and that will be there whether he's around or not.
So why do I feel so irrational and ignorant for being upset about this?