It Could Happen in Any Neighborhood, Now

Dearest Rachel –

I’ve been meaning to write out the usual stipend to Twofeathers ever since the holiday weekend marked the turn from one month to the next. I admit that I’m nowhere near as faithful – or should I say punctual – as I was when it came to paying the mortgage to your parents, but I do try to get something sent to her before she contacts me. Granted, it’s not that she actually calls me to ‘remind’ me to send her something – I’m under no obligation to do so, after all – but it serves as a reminder all the same, and it lays a bit of a guilt trip on me if I haven’t done so that month. I haven’t had the kind of rapport with her that you did, to be honest, and so talking with her is challenge enough for me without having to deal with the (probably self-imposed) guilt of not having kept up with my payments to her.

It’s not helped by the fact that, quite often, she will relate what sounds to me like one hard luck story or another about what’s going on in and around her life. While I won’t contest the veracity of her stories – and to be fair, she doesn’t relate them with a complaining tone or spirit, nor has she ever come out and explicitly requested anything more than our prayers – it sometimes strikes me as improbable that she and her husband have to deal with so many things so often, whether their own health issues (although I think Stan was diagnosed with his cancer before you had to leave, and I know you remember the boot her foot was in for an interminable period, preventing her from being able to work as much as she’d like to) or that of the house having one problem or another (and you’ll recall that we tried to help remedy what we could, but at some point, you’d think we should be able to leave the house in their hands to take care of).

For now, I continue to send what we agreed upon every month, despite my own folks’ reservations about it. I know you would be insistent that we continue – and for all I know, you might head down every now and again to check the place out and see if she needed more assistance from your directly, something I haven’t done since your departure. For all that I agree that it seems like the appropriate reward of a faithful servant, I wonder what your folks would think; would they be irked that I’m sending her more than twice what I used to pay them for the mortgage on our house? And I’m basically spending “their” money when I do so – would that bother them at all? I suppose the point is moot now, given that the money is of no use to them now, but I can’t help but ponder this every so often.

Anyway, this morning topped any story I’ve heard from her before…

…and yet, I was vaguely aware of it before she tried to call me – although I’m not a hundred percent sure when she did, as my phone is set in permanent silent mode these days, thanks to the number of spam calls I get. It pains me to admit it, but I’ve missed calls from people I want to talk to these days because of this setting, but it’s still better than having to field all the nonsense that comes my way (even though it’s considerably less than it was at its peak). Anyway… I’m thinking it may have come while I was at the gym; but even without knowing to take the call, I could see on at least one of the screens above the storefront window that there had evidently been some sort of shooting in your hometown that was being reported about on the news. I couldn’t see anything more about it, as I was just getting started on my uphill walk, and I generally take my glasses off once I start to work up a real sweat. I thought I might look into it later on if I thought about it at all thereafter.

Twofeathers’ call, and the message she left, gave me the impetus to remember to do just that, and for good reason. While the news reports only discuss the block on which the incident happened – in this case, “the 300 block of North Normal Street” – which, now that I think about it, is probably standard procedure on their part to be both specific but not too specific, her message indicated that the house being surrounded (and having been so since about six o’clock last night, when police went in to execute a search warrant, at which point two officers were shot) was directly across the street from your house.

The details are literally coming in as I’m telling you about this, honey, but it seems that both of the police officers have been discharged from hospital, and at least one of the suspects has been apprehended, while at least one other remains barricaded in the house. Meanwhile, the campus is closed for the day (as is their Quad Cities campus – which seems odd, as the situation isn’t affecting that location), and people are being instructed to avoid the roads marked in red. Evidently, Stan left the house at some point, and Twofeathers is concerned that he might not be allowed home – although not particularly concerned with her own safety as such. The heavy police presence, including a vehicle she describes as “like a tank,” seems to assure her that she won’t be affected by any shenanigans that might be going on over there.

This is the sort of thing you imagine happening “somewhere else” – in the inner city of some run-down metropolis (which, let’s be honest, can be found somewhere in nearly every major U.S. city). It’s not something one imagines happening in their own neighborhood, especially in one’s childhood home, where – when we were growing up – we felt like we could leave our doors unlocked with impunity (I mean, we didn’t, but we felt safe enough that we could). I guess it could happen in any neighborhood, now; nowhere is like that, anymore.

Not that it matters all that much to you or your folks, of course, but I have to confess being a little disconcerted to hear about this. What would you have made of getting on the news like this, honey?