Violence, redux

I posted last week about witnessing the impending death of a young man at the hands of a shooter on the street some eight blocks from my apartment. As it turns out, the day after I wrote, and across town, violence would take another swing...

Hansen's Sno Bliz is the iconic snowball stand in the City. If you live outside New Orleans, you might think I mean Sno-cone. You would be mistaken. These creations are lovingly made from the finest hand-hewn ice shavings on the planet, and are adorned with the sweetest and finest of homemade flavors (I said homemade, not natural), like Cream of Almond, and Orangeade, and the mysterious Snobliz flavor itself. And, behind the creation are three generations of the Hansen family, lately in the form of Ashley, "the granddaughter."

For years, my personal ritual has been to arrive at the stand about fifteen minutes before closing, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and try to get the last snowball of the day. Along with this treat came the sometime responsibility of closing up the front door, and allowing customers out, one-by-one, until no more remained, in club-bouncer style. The whole time, I'd be shooting the breeze with Ashley and, in years past, with the other family members running the stand. Eventually, it would just be us, and I'd eat my snowball there in the stand while the family cleaned up.

More recently, that ritual has been broken. In fact, I've only been into the stand a couple of times this season. Mostly due to a grossly inflexible schedule... But, in some part because Ashley's life and my life have moved on to a degree, and there's just not the closeness I once enjoyed.

So, lately I've not been the doorman. And, lately I've not been there when the last customer was in the stand. And I wasn't there last Friday.

The man had waited in line, patiently (you always wait at Hansen's... it's the way of the world), then ordered a snowball. Ashley made it, cheerfully, I imagine. She and her family are known for their incredible congeniality, no matter when you walk in, right through to closing the doors each day. Only after he took the snowball did the gun appear.

With a gun pressed into her stomach, Ashley was forced to surrender all of the stand's take for the day. (A take that is substantial, but arguably not enough to warrant a container stronger than the traditional cigar box). The man disappeared out the door, leaving Ashley physically unharmed, through the crowd of people who were still standing around enjoying their snowballs.

Nobody saw a thing.

I can only imagine that Ashley's a good bit shaken up, with thousands of questions, doubts and what-ifs running though her head. As for me... I'm just mad. Mad at someone who would take advantage of her complete kindheartedness and innocence. And, I'm mad at me for not being there. (I kid myself into thinking there's something I could have done.)

Days later, I don't know what she'll do about the stand. A detail police officer for security is likely to cost a significant portion of what the stand does in revenue, and the on-duty patrol is very clearly not enough. I don't expect she'll continue with no protection. I wouldn't.

The stand has been a labor of love for the family for years, not sustained for the profit, but for the sheer joy of pleasing its generations of patrons from everywhere in the world. And that's perhaps the biggest tragedy here. The stand wasn't just robbed of its money... It was robbed of its joy.

Violence

I've not mentioned it here, but I've taken up running, to a lesser or greater degree. This evening, I took almost a minute and a half off of my two-mile time in the Frosty Two Mile run in City Park. This, needless to say, was a pretty happy thing for me, since it was both for a good cause, and a personal advancement. But, that was before I drove home.

I crossed the City on Bienville St., toward my apartment on Governor Nicholls St. in the French Quarter. As I approached the I-10 overpass, I passed a car stopped in the oncoming lane. I didn't really think about it at first, since New Orleanians have a nasty habit of stopping right in the middle of the road to talk to one another. But, as I got about ten feet past, my mind's eye saw the blown out driver's window, and the baseball cap laying across the back of the driver's seat. I reversed.

As I rolled backwards, I could hear "help me," from the vehicle. I looked across as I came even with the driver's door. There was a young man sleeping on the seat. Check that. There was a young man dying on the seat.

The young man had taken at least one round in the neck, and possibly one in the head. There were at least twenty bullet holes in the car. And not the academic happened-a-while-ago-and-may-have-been-staged kind. The really-just-happened-some-thirty-seconds-ago kind.

I hopped out of the car, and the young lady (who would turn out to be fourteen years old) crawled over the driver and spilled out onto the street. I did everything I could to convince her that she shouldn't move. "Just sit down. Don't move." and went to grab my cellphone to get 911 on the line.

"Hurry mister... I'm bout to die," I heard from the girl. She wasn't. But she was awfully bloody, and she was certainly in pain.

I stopped, and looked back at her bloody shorts and shirt, checking to see if she really had been shot. I thought not. (I was wrong). This was just before I saw the blue lights from the multitude of police cruisers arriving on the scene.

After the swarm of officers stabilized somewhat, I asked one of them what they needed from me. He simply asked what I saw. Nothing.

"Go on home, you don't need to be here."

Relieved, I walked back to my car. Just before I opened the door, I looked back at the young man in the driver's seat. Our eyes briefly met.

I think I was the last face he ever saw.