Deja You?

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

That's us.  That's the sick game we choose to continue to play with our country and the lives of those in it.  Gun Sight Roulette.

Will it be in another school?  At a much anticipated movie?  A concert where all are gathered to enjoy?  We never know, until the wheel stops, and then we do.

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Less than one week ago, I started a piece with the very same words above.  Cut and paste - no changes needed.  Last Monday morning, I was writing about Gilroy, about three innocent lives stolen while out enjoying themselves.  For Christ's sake, the 6 year old was in a bounce house.

Yesterday, I wrote about El Paso, about how the Gun Sight Roulette wheel had stopped on their town - one of the safest in this country - taking 20 lives with it.  A cowardly white supremacist had traveled 9 hours to the brownest place his pissant brain could think of to "kill as many Mexicans as possible."  His victimy screed filled with ignorance, bloodlust, and white sanctimony about HIS "beloved Texas."  Someone should have taught him better in school that HIS Texas was once essentially Mexico.  That perhaps he should have been the one to go back where he came from.

No matter, the blood has been shed, and it cannot be put back into the lifeless bodies still strewn on the floor of the Walmart.

Yet even as forensics crews worked through the night processing that horrific scene of mass murder; as bereft relatives began living the nightmare from which they will never awaken; even as we all struggled to find some respite in sleep - another mass shooting took place.

Last night, as many of us were getting ready for bed, or even in it fast asleep on the east coast, the wheel stopped again.  This time on the midwest town of my birth, Dayton, Ohio. 

In the area known as the Oregon District, as people were enjoying their Saturday night/early Sunday morning, as nightlife was winding down, 9 lives were taken in an instant as another cowardly piece of garbage, clad in body armor took aim.  As one witness described, he "had an AR-15 rifle, wearing a vest and earmuffs" and he "just started blowing bullets everywhere."

Police presence is heavy in that area filled with bars and entertainment venues, so they were able to stop him within a minute.  He is dead.  And like an episode of Deadwood, I wish he could be fed to Mr. Woo's pigs, that, as Al Swearingen once threatened, "Gabriel's Trumpet will produce you from the ass of a pig."  That is all these killers deserve.  To be turned into the literal pig shit they are. 

Police stopped him within a minute.  Yet 9 people lay dead.  26 are in the hospital.  His motive, as yet unknown, does not matter.  They are dead.  They are wounded.  They are traumatized for the rest of their lives.  Their crime?  Daring to step out of their homes.

It is that simple.  If the past week has taught us anything, it is that we ALL have targets on our backs.  Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

And the myth of the good guy with a gun?  Blown away along with the 29 people who lay dead within 13 hours of one another.  Texas, a stupidly easy place to open carry, filled with yahoos who liken themselves to some Lethal Weapon of vigilante-ism, did nothing.  A Walmart with thousands of people in Texas - many were packing - 20 people still dead.

That myth has got to go.  It is the most specious of arguments against strengthening our gun laws.  These murderers rely on the element of surprise.  They do not post an ad on Craiglist.  They do not send out an Evite.  They do not send a blast email.  They simply show up where they know there are a lot of people and start shooting.  You could be strapped up like Arnold in Commando and be dead before you had the chance to reach for your waistband.

I woke around 230am - pretty typical for me - reached for my phone to see what El Paso updates there might have been in the night, and found myself reading breaking news yet again.  And I am not ashamed to write these words:  I AM AFRAID.

I am afraid for my friends.  I am afraid for my relatives.  I am afraid for YOU.  And yes, I am afraid for me.  Not a single one of us is safe. 

This past week I have been doing something that at age 53, I had never had occasion to do before in my life.  I have been waiting  tables and bartending.  In my little town, there is one Mexican restaurant.  Authentic food, music, and some of the nicest people I know.  It was while Rudy and I were down there last Sunday night that the owner asked if I was busy the coming week.  She was short staffed.  I adore her and said I would be happy to help. 

The first day I was nervous, again having never done it, but I have surely eaten out enough in my life to know how it goes and how I like to be treated.  As for the owner, she has been so patient, so fun.  The young man cooking each day?  We delight in him trying to teach me a new Spanish word each day.  And yes, at times I have felt incredibly stupid.  Not because I have never waited before.  Pfft.  I picked that up quickly.  My Margarita game is really strong, too.  No, I have been embarrassed because I cannot speak Spanish with them. 

But unlike the MAGAtry in this country, I have no inclination to lash out, no ego that has me thinking they are talking about me.  And I certainly have zero interest in screaming "Go back where you came from!" 

They are incredible PEOPLE.  We laugh, we share, we make bad jokes.  She and I hug when I get there, we hug throughout the day, we hug before I say goodbye.  This little hole in the basement off the main street, loved by so many locals and tourists alike, has quickly become a place I feel welcome and comfortable.

Yet this morning, as I sit here knowing I promised her I would help with lunch today, I am frightened.  And I hate myself for that.  Nowhere in this country is safe from this happening.  Not a church, not a mosque, not a movie theater, not a concert, not a festival, not a bar, not a school, and not a restaurant.  Certainly not a Mexican one.

I don't want to die.  Maybe like Rose, "as an old woman, warm in my bed."  But certainly not in a hail of bullets fueled by hate, bigotry, and aggression fomented by the president of this country.

Yes, that's right.  I am calling him out.  God knows his own party won't.  And far too few leaders on the left are willing to draw the line connecting these murders to his yawning chasm of a mouth.  I appreciate that Beto, Castro, and Pete have had no compunction about answering the question directly with a version of - "Yes, Trump is culpable."  You do not get to draw targets on the back of an entire group for years, repeatedly cementing in your followers' minds that brown people are "invading" and the cause for all their woes, without this happening.  Every rally, every tweet - it all adds up to what we are seeing.

There is a racist, demagogic, white supremacist, careless, heartless bigot at the helm of these shootings.  His words have fomented this terror, his rhetoric has emboldened them to lash out, his administration is drenched in the blood of these people.  And if you support him?  You will never remove this stain either.  YOU BUILT THIS.  YOU WANTED THIS.  YOU UNLEASHED THIS.   You are sacks of filth who have cheered and clapped like deranged seals, egging him on, as he in turn eggs you on.  You think that your whiteness or MAGA hat will magically protect you from the next shooting?  And there will be one.  And that shooter is not going to stop to ask if you are a Republican, a Nazi, what your heritage is, when you attended your last klan meeting  And God help you should you have a deep brown summer suntan.  Trump does not give shit one about any of you.  Any of us.  Think I am exaggerating?  Watch him joke about using weapons on immigrants; watch him hear someone in the crowd yell "Shoot them!".  And watch him laugh and joke about it.  This is your messiah(ole).

Look how @realDonaldTrump laughs after someone yells to shoot migrants.#ElPaso #Dayton pic.twitter.com/05eC9tKRu0

— One Religion (@One_Re_li_gi_on) August 4, 2019

How about we expand your vocabulary, while you're still alive to do so?  Stochastic Terrorism.  Heard the term?  Here is the definition.  Read it and then tell me that is not what we are seeing, what we are hearing, what you soulless MAGAts are cheering.

Again, there will be another mass shooting.  Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe we will get a week long reprieve, but there will be one.  The deja vu will play out.  My question is when will it be Deja YOU?  When will you be covered by a white sheet in a pool of your own blood on a public street, in a Walmart?  When will your child be laughing one second, dead the next?  When will your office desk turn into the only protection you have between you and the one with the weapon?  When will you say goodbye in the morning to your spouse and never again say hello?  40,000 of us will not make it out of 2019 alive.  40,000 of us will die too soon, because a bullet finds us.  That number is not hyperbolic.  That is the average number of people lost to gun violence each year in this backassward country where we treat the 2nd amendment as some inviolate testament handed down by God.

Yesterday GOP politicians began their spin.  The "It's too soon to make this political..."  The "This is a mental health issue..."  Bull and shit.  The time to make it political was before El Paso happened.  Before Gilroy happened.  Before Philadelphia, before Newtown, before <insert name of any other mass shooting location>.  And as for mental health?  Yes, there is a percentage of shooters who are battling some form of mental illness, but not the majority.  And what we are seeing now are fragile white males who believe in their own supremacy.  Racism is a choice, not a mental illness.  We just watched as a 21 year old plotted, planned, and drove NINE hours to get to his targets.

I am fucking sick of empty platitudes, worthless thoughts and prayers, and worrying every single moment that my children, my friends, my loved ones may die at the hands of some reprobate who should never have had access to a gun to begin with.  If we can restrict who drives, votes, drinks, smokes - we can step the fuck up and restrict the who and how of weapons meant to kill as many as possible in the shortest amount of time.

I will go to her restaurant today.  Because I promised I would.  Because my word means something to me.  But also because to not go today would be saying "I don't want to stand next to you because you are Hispanic."  NO.  That is not who I am.  That is not how I live my life.  That is not how I see people.  No, I will go today and stand next to them because they are Hispanic. Because their humanity is worth as much as mine.  Because I see the beauty in how they have opened themselves up to me. Because all I see in them are PEOPLE.  Lovely, funny, warm people.  Because they are my friends.

Please stay safe.  And know that if any of you are taken, I promise I will politicize the shit out of your death, just as I ask that you do the same for me.  We cannot keep dying in vain.

Round and round and round it goes...

Comments

[Constance Liakos]

Thank you for putting into words what I cannot. I was born in Dayton, too, and still reside here. I can't remember a time I've ever disagreed with you. You're a true blessing. (not for posting, just for you)