She Was Probably Safer In Church
I led her straight into danger, instead.
“I’m so sorry for being a brat, Mommy. I never want there to be a situation where I’m fighting with you because I’m mad at something else and then… I don’t know... somethinghappensandyoudie…”
I rope my arms around her and dig my face into her hair. Last thing I want to do is leave my icky tear juice all over her Sunday best.
Always with the half-comforting reassurance, she says, “I know Mija, I know. Just remember that I believe when it’s our time to go, it’s our time. I’m not scared for when that happens. All that matters is that we treat each other well and be grateful for our precious time together.”
Wise mommy wisdom, indeed.
We’re standing outside, near the corner of the block, next to a building that inconspicuously hosts a Church in the basement, but community spaces with a coffee shop on the ground level. She heads into the coffee shop toward the Church, and I to my trusty gold Nissan that never breaks down or causes problems, parked alongside the curb.
As I start up my car and prepare to turn right about ten feet ahead, a teenaged girl on her bike is in front of me also preparing to turn right. I depress the brake… and nothing happens. I’m not accelerating, only creeping, but the dang car won’t come to a stop.
Boop!
Poor girl just got a 1 mile-per-hour wakeup.
I put it back in park and run out of my car to greet her. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, sweetheart. Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Can I do anything for you?” And what a sweetheart she indeed was, saying, “Oh no it’s fine! I saw ya coming, figured it wouldn’t be too bad of an impact. So, nope. I’m okay!”
And thank God we were, because we were clear-headed and unscathed for the chaos that was about to erupt, which we shouldn’t have even been there for, if we had both turned right.
A gray apartment building with three levels with three patios each stands across the street where my new friend and I, and a few other pedestrians, are gathered in front of the coffee shop. There’s a woman on the patio in the center looking out into the street in our direction.
A handsome dark man, probably late 20’s, dressed in a shiny blue track suit embroidered with some blingy bedazzled cursive, darts out from around the same corner that we were trying to turn onto, holding a matching metallic blue egg-shaped contraption about the size of a mango. Maybe a Christmas ornament?
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The man stops feet from us, turns to the woman across the street on the patio, winds up for a throw, and chucks that shiny egg across the street and straight into her patio door, directly into her unit.
The pass is good!
But, it wasn’t good.
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See, I thought, they must know each other and they’re playing stupid games. But just a second after landing the throw, the whole unit detonates in a blast that shakes the block. The guts of her home expel across the very small lawn and street in front. Her unit billows smoke. We can see a red sofa ignite inside. The poor woman’s patio collapses to the lawn below while she is still on it.
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Two blocks away, we hear another explosion, and we distantly see the innards of another building spew onto the main street. Now we know there are at least two people doing this, whatever this is. Bewildered and frozen, me and my new cyclist friend make eye contact as if to say, “Coffee shop? Now?” Which we’re still standing outside of, knowing that directly back through the building there’s another exit to a street that isn’t so “main”.
Bad idea- the face of the coffee shop explodes all over us as soon as we start toward it. The handsome egg-chucker was responsible for this blast, as well. They were probably 10 seconds apart. He’s on a mission to blow up some other spots, I can tell, so he’s speedwalking directly toward us, about to swing us apart like saloon doors as he passes.
I step out of the way and say, “Ohp! Sorry bud,” and pat his back as he passes me. Maybe he didn’t see me see him perpetrate. Perhaps the fawn response will charm him into not targeting me specifically. But even better, he didn’t acknowledge me at all.
My cyclist friend and I finally make our way around the corner of the coffee shop, now that the perpetrator is headed elsewhere. Another building across the street to the left explodes right after we make our right turn. Could three people be doing this?
The business adjacent to that one is harboring two older men with shotguns peering out the window, ready to pull the trigger should they see malicious bedazzled men in track suits walk past them.
I pull out my phone to text 911 because I don’t want to speak out loud and draw the attention of a guy number three, if there is one.
Text does not comply.
You mean “1911”? Do you mean “9119”? Do you mean “Will”?
oh my god autocorrect. You are gonna make me blow my cover. Frickin text the police, phone!
We turn two block corners to get to the back entrance of the coffee shop where more people are gathered, including my parents’ middle-aged churchgoing friend that I know of but whose name I don’t recall, who says, “Where’s your mother?”
Shoot. “Is she not out here?”
“She might still be in the Church. Check her location.” The trusty app that tells me where my family is indicates that she is, indeed, still deep in the annals of the building, and none of those folks probably know what’s happening above-ground.
I bid farewell to my cyclist friend and give her a hug. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again under different circumstances, like not in a car or on a bike, or in the middle of a bombing attack.
Quick recap of my observations while I make my way through the intact back entrance of the coffee shop and look for the way downstairs:
These two (or three) guys are dressed nice-ish, like they have some money, like they’re only doing this to be punks. They’re not running, not hiding themselves, not rushing to be anywhere. This seems to be an easy-target kind of attack, not well-thought out so as to hurt as many people as possible. I doubt they’re looking to die, themselves. I sense a machismo-style love of blowing stuff up, akin to setting off fireworks or feeling the vroom vroom of a noisy sportscar.
Predictable, yet unpredictable.
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The stairs to the basement leveled out into a hallway painted hospital-white and seemed to stretch for a mile. But just a few feet to my left, I spot the entrance to the beautiful Sanctuary, and see the peek of a burgundy carpet and polished wooden wall panels.
I see the pews endearingly arranged to fit the awkward space, the dim, enchanting lighting comprised primarily of candles, the smell of the incense seeping out into the hallway. Truly it was a slice of serenity. An abrupt contrast to the hospital-white hallway just outside the doorframe, and a painful dichotomy to the chaos above.
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There’s 20 people in here- some kneeling, some sitting, blissfully unaware of the chaos. I feel guilty interrupting, but, you know, if someone were to toss an explosive into this enclosed space, there would be no chance for any of them. So, duty calls.
There’s my beautiful mother kneeling thoughtfully in prayer looking perfectly tranquil. I am an intruder disrupting her moment with God. I sneak over to her and say in not-quite-a-whisper, “Mommy you guys all need to get out of here. There’s some sort of attack going on upstairs, across a couple blocks.”
My voice was hushed, but people understood the urgency. It was a slog to empty the Sanctuary because no one was alarmed.
Maybe it’s a religious mindset I don’t understand, the whole, “Well, when it’s my time, it’s my time, so I’m not gonna worry about dying…” because I subscribe to the mindset of, “…but you can hurry your butt up out of danger, right? You can make it not so easy for the D word to snatch ya?”
I mean, come on, people. I said emergency! Or implied one, at least.
There were two options to exit the sanctuary and basement. Turn right out of the sanctuary, go back up the stairs to the main level, and exit into the alley, or to turn left down the looong hallway that had a series of accessibility ramps at the end, which I was told, ascend to an adjoining elementary school about three blocks away.
A gentleman in a wheelchair sighed about how his next fifteen minutes were about to go- he had no choice but to take the long hallway. On second thought, I can’t believe no one offered to go with him and do the pushing.
Sensing his frustration, I told him, “How about this. Let me get these guys upstairs, and I’ll run over to the school and meet you from that direction.”
Okay, sure. Sigh.
So sorry, pal. Mommy’s in danger. I hope you understand.
The congregation begins to shuffle up the stairs, but in hindsight, the hallway would have most likely been the option that would avoid danger accruing in the alley or near the exit. I can’t shake the feeling as we climb upwards that I was leading them directly into jeopardy.
The crowd is making their way up the stairs when I notice… gasp.
A different handsome dark boy in a blingy blue tracksuit has just weaseled his way into our group. A possible guy #3? The outerwear matches the others. Where did he even come from? Did he follow me? Was he down here, already?
And he’s standing right next to my mother.
Of course.
I have two options. Be silent and watch his hands, maybe toss him backwards down the stairs if he tries to pull anything, or, call him out and hope people will subdue him without questioning my instructions if he makes any sudden movements.
Chances are, the people around me will not just grab a guy without understanding why. Either way, I don’t know where he’s keeping his explosives if he is carrying any, what it takes to set them off, whether or not he has a deathwish, and what his endgame ultimately is.
Mom will know the wise thing to do. I try to get her attention.
Pssst. *pointpointpointpoint*
“This guy!” I mouth to her in silence, still pointing, widening my eyeballs until they’re almost popping out of my head.
She squinches her eyes and mouths back, “…What!??” with a little shake of her head for emphasis.
WAY TO BE SUBTLE, MOM.
He saw you. He saw us.
And now he knows he’s found out, so he doesn’t hesitate to whip out a blue ornamental egg just like the men upstairs did less than ten minutes ago, and he does so while looking me dead in the eye. Do I see a smile cracking?
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Without thinking, I snatch it out of his hands. Ha! Now what, jerk?
My mother, who still has no idea what’s happening, scolds me for being rude.
Mommy, if only you knew the danger you are currently in. Not that I know what to do with this egg now that I have it.
But, punks who want to cause chaos don’t put all their eggs in one basket. He procures from his blingy jacket TWO MORE blue eggs. And then smiles at me menacingly as he rubs them together like jelly on the paddles of a defibrillator. Me with my egg, him with his two.
We glare. Seconds tick. Neither of us flinch. No one understands what’s happening but the two of us. Everyone else is still casually making their way upstairs unconcerned that we’ve stopped.
And my mother, to whom I just expressed this exact fear ten minutes ago, is now feet from certain harm no matter how this plays out.
Put into this position by me.
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Stalemate.
