The Nerd's Eye View

In the same vein as my previous post I am finding life in the city to be most "exciting". After the theft of Dr Germ's car outside my house, the drive with the tweaker cabbie, I thought, "What could happen next?". My answer was to come sooner than I had anticipated and in a very dramatic and unexpected manner.

It started benignly enough, being taken to a birthday party at a small apartment in the Mission. As we walked over there we encountered a group of drunken fashionistas of the most vile variety and prayed that they were not going to the same party we were. To our utmost joy we discovered that they were and walked into the building behind them and up to the apartment.

The party was in a studio apartment, with all the "room" coming from the fact that the bed was in the hallway. The only saving graces were the fire escape off the bedroom-cum-living room and the small roof space upstairs from the kitchen. I spent most of my evening on the roof, the weather being perfect this past two days. As we talked and laughed on the roof, we heard loud popping bangs several times. They sounded suspiciously like gunshots, but not being overly familiar with the sound outside of my limited experiences in GTA III, I dismissed it. Still it didn't sound like firecrackers or anything else. I pushed it from my mind and went downstairs as early Michael Jackson rang out of the small stereo speakers.

We danced like crazy people, while smokers congregated on the fire escape, when suddenly I heard a similar pop outside again. This time it was followed by a crashing of glass and a prick on my forearm. Things move very quickly and slowly at the same time in situations like these. There was shouting and people stumbling through the window from the fire escape. I could see the glass in the window shattered and what appeared to be a bullet hole. Everyone was panicked,a nd one chubby fellow kept saying "I think I've been shot - have I been hit?". I tried to remain calm, after all it seemed unlikely that the guy could have been shot by anything more than a .22 without being sure of it - unless he was in shock that is. A girl walked around in a daze and everyone was stunned. "What do we do?" they all said.

Seeing how everyone was I decided that some direction was needed. I told one person to call the cops - yes 911 - and the others to pull the shades down. I glanced into the bathroom. The chubby guy had been hit, and his back was scored with small wounds all bleeding profusely and dripping blood to the floor. The girl in shock was on the floor rocking back and forth and all the other folks were trying to comfort each other. Dr Germ was admirably in control of herself and directed the police to arrive at our location. They showed up much quicker than I had thought they would, and were both courteous and professional. The only part that weirded us both out was when one of the officers walked through the apartment with what appeared to be a modified M-16 without the stock, and with a sniper sight on it. This was not expected - did they think it would happen again? Would there be a shootout or was this how they respond to possible gang violence?

Statements were taken and the injured were taken to the hospital leaving the birthday boy in tears and the rest in shock. I managed to stay very calm throughout and surprised myself with my own lucidity. I found my senses all sharpened by several orders of magnitude. I could see gleaming shards of glass, the small bullet hole in the glass. The beginnings of tears in the eyes of the attendants. It was all clear. What was unclear was the account of the incident from each of the people questioned. How could they claim to see muzzle flashes when they weren't even near the window? It certainly shook my faith in eyewitness reports of anything. How odd it all is.