Brooklyn, NY
Chris Rock once provided a pertinent sound bite, saying that there are two types of malls: malls that white people go to, and malls that white people used to go to. A funny line in its own right, it was also shared by some friends in high school during our daily commute past the Aurora Mall. Fast forward fifteen years and it would be no surprise to our former selves where a midnight multiplex massacre would take place. I can't say I'm so surprised as my present self.
There are few things more American than firearms. Giving weapons a close run for the money in the modern era is victimhood. We see some tragedy, perceive some slight, real of imagined, and latch ourselves onto it like it's our turn on the mechanical bull in the crowded bar. We know we'll get bucked off quickly, and we know we'll make it look more arduous than it really is, but look how many people pay attention to us while we're on it.
So I feared I was feeling such this morning as I read about my hometown. That's five miles from where I grew up! That's two miles from my church! My favorite German restaurant is in that same complex! Now, everyone, write on my Facebook wall and share some sympathy.
Indeed. Of the global population, I probably rank somewhere in the top half-million when it comes to associations with the Aurora Mall (the press is calling it the Town Center, but trust me, you can't rebrand the Aurora Mall, no matter how much you spend on changing the facade.) I left long ago. I went away to school in the midwest, spent a year volunteering in Africa, wandered a bit more and somehow find myself receiving my mail in Brooklyn these days. As my late grandmother remarked, I undid centuries' worth of my family's migrations with a single plane ticket. Aurora was always great to come home to for the holidays, but I'm just one of those kids with their eyes perpetually on the horizon.
Truth be told, I'd be farther away from the tragedy had I never left. My parents shelled out for a Catholic school down Parker Road, so I know what crowd I I'd be with if I stayed. My peers knew their fathers, had cars on their sixteenth, filled out applications for this thing called "college." They've got their own set of problems now, but none of us ever feared for our personal safety while wearing a Starter jacket during school hours.
I've come to appreciate growing up between the two worlds. I can talk literature while playing drinking games with the car dealers and mortgage brokers; I know where to keep my eyes and how to comport myself in those......um......diverse parts of town. Just as I would never trade my quality Jesuit education, so too am I grateful for those moments of terror when John Norman was about to beat the living shit out of little skinny me.
So imagine my sorrow, but, moreover, my resigned understanding when I learned about today's shooting. Of course that happened where it happened. Of course I don't have to make frantic phone calls home because people I know don't go to movies at midnight, and certainly not there. So I could be sad without grieving, feel without hurting, shocked and sympathetic with the full lucidity to shake my head and say, "That's Aurora." Put their names with Zach Obert, Ed Morales, all those people working at Chuck E Cheese that one night, those at Skate City another, plus at least a couple dozen each year. My City Of Lights always has police tape and body bags at the ready.
So imagine my disappointment (yes, I am saying disappointment) when they flashed a picture of the "suspect." Had he been some young, angry, discontent and misguided dropout from Gateway or Overland or Aurora Central, it would have fit the narrative. There would have been the grief and anger, the pleas for solidarity, a couple wordless candlelight marches and a tearful ceremony of forgiveness between the families and then we could have had The Conversation. I was all set to lead the excoriation against the NRA and those who fight so tirelessly to arm our streets. I was salivating to be the one to point out (because, Look At Me, I'm from there!) the billions pouring out of Washington to the campuses of Lockheed and the Air Force Academy for industrialized murder. Then (Then!) to juxtapose that against the budget shortfalls of Aurora Public Schools and the dearth of opportunity facing young men and women born on the wrong side of I-225. Add a dash of resentment against the present tax structure that burdens the poor (which would most certainly have affected the formative years of The Shooter), a pinch of militant incredulity at the for-profit health care system (which would have completely ignored the psychological red flags of The Shooter), a dash of lament at the urban sprawl and the sights of blight it leaves behind, then top it all off with a dollop of seething, entitled rage against the Do-Nothing Congress that scares us with abortion and birth certificates so they can keep taking bulging envelopes of cash from the people that keep guns on our streets.
It was going to be a good one.
Instead it just turns out to be some batshit-crazy grad school ne'er-do-well with faulty neurons and a case of homesickness. The media will fixate on the video games he played, the music he listened to, who he followed on Twitter, but I knew 90% of what I needed to know when I saw his picture and heard he was from San Diego. Peers will describe him as "weird", neighbors as "quiet, but polite", and we'll spend a couple news cycles interpreting his creepy green eyes with our thumbs up our asses until Anderson Cooper and Oprah tell us it's about time to move on. All the while, Romney will try to telegraph fraternity to the gun nuts in his speech of condolence, Obama will go out of his way to mention that the problem is anything other than guns for fear of losing Ohio's electoral votes, and the media will keep its helicopters and klieg lights on standby until the Next One.
An unspeakable tragedy. A terrible morning. Let's hug our daughters a little bit closer tonight and remember not to change a fucking thing.
Alas, The Conversation will not happen tonight. We're destined to keep spinning our wheels into post-industrial dystopian decline and these unfortunate patrons of the silver screen will get a moment of silence at the Rockies game, maybe a couple ribbon decals to grace the cars along Peoria Street. The rest of us will just be grateful it wasn't us and keep blazing our bold trails of meekness.
And me? Well, I'll go back to church and that German restaurant next time I'm home. I'll lament the loss of innocence and try to squeeze some tears out of my eyes. And then maybe afterward, I'll feel good about my sympathy, remind myself what a terrific victim I can be while driving to a bar downtown.
Chris Rock once provided a pertinent sound bite, saying that there are two types of malls: malls that white people go to, and malls that white people used to go to. A funny line in its own right, it was also shared by some friends in high school during our daily commute past the Aurora Mall. Fast forward fifteen years and it would be no surprise to our former selves where a midnight multiplex massacre would take place. I can't say I'm so surprised as my present self.
There are few things more American than firearms. Giving weapons a close run for the money in the modern era is victimhood. We see some tragedy, perceive some slight, real of imagined, and latch ourselves onto it like it's our turn on the mechanical bull in the crowded bar. We know we'll get bucked off quickly, and we know we'll make it look more arduous than it really is, but look how many people pay attention to us while we're on it.
So I feared I was feeling such this morning as I read about my hometown. That's five miles from where I grew up! That's two miles from my church! My favorite German restaurant is in that same complex! Now, everyone, write on my Facebook wall and share some sympathy.
Indeed. Of the global population, I probably rank somewhere in the top half-million when it comes to associations with the Aurora Mall (the press is calling it the Town Center, but trust me, you can't rebrand the Aurora Mall, no matter how much you spend on changing the facade.) I left long ago. I went away to school in the midwest, spent a year volunteering in Africa, wandered a bit more and somehow find myself receiving my mail in Brooklyn these days. As my late grandmother remarked, I undid centuries' worth of my family's migrations with a single plane ticket. Aurora was always great to come home to for the holidays, but I'm just one of those kids with their eyes perpetually on the horizon.
Truth be told, I'd be farther away from the tragedy had I never left. My parents shelled out for a Catholic school down Parker Road, so I know what crowd I I'd be with if I stayed. My peers knew their fathers, had cars on their sixteenth, filled out applications for this thing called "college." They've got their own set of problems now, but none of us ever feared for our personal safety while wearing a Starter jacket during school hours.
I've come to appreciate growing up between the two worlds. I can talk literature while playing drinking games with the car dealers and mortgage brokers; I know where to keep my eyes and how to comport myself in those......um......diverse parts of town. Just as I would never trade my quality Jesuit education, so too am I grateful for those moments of terror when John Norman was about to beat the living shit out of little skinny me.
So imagine my sorrow, but, moreover, my resigned understanding when I learned about today's shooting. Of course that happened where it happened. Of course I don't have to make frantic phone calls home because people I know don't go to movies at midnight, and certainly not there. So I could be sad without grieving, feel without hurting, shocked and sympathetic with the full lucidity to shake my head and say, "That's Aurora." Put their names with Zach Obert, Ed Morales, all those people working at Chuck E Cheese that one night, those at Skate City another, plus at least a couple dozen each year. My City Of Lights always has police tape and body bags at the ready.
So imagine my disappointment (yes, I am saying disappointment) when they flashed a picture of the "suspect." Had he been some young, angry, discontent and misguided dropout from Gateway or Overland or Aurora Central, it would have fit the narrative. There would have been the grief and anger, the pleas for solidarity, a couple wordless candlelight marches and a tearful ceremony of forgiveness between the families and then we could have had The Conversation. I was all set to lead the excoriation against the NRA and those who fight so tirelessly to arm our streets. I was salivating to be the one to point out (because, Look At Me, I'm from there!) the billions pouring out of Washington to the campuses of Lockheed and the Air Force Academy for industrialized murder. Then (Then!) to juxtapose that against the budget shortfalls of Aurora Public Schools and the dearth of opportunity facing young men and women born on the wrong side of I-225. Add a dash of resentment against the present tax structure that burdens the poor (which would most certainly have affected the formative years of The Shooter), a pinch of militant incredulity at the for-profit health care system (which would have completely ignored the psychological red flags of The Shooter), a dash of lament at the urban sprawl and the sights of blight it leaves behind, then top it all off with a dollop of seething, entitled rage against the Do-Nothing Congress that scares us with abortion and birth certificates so they can keep taking bulging envelopes of cash from the people that keep guns on our streets.
It was going to be a good one.
Instead it just turns out to be some batshit-crazy grad school ne'er-do-well with faulty neurons and a case of homesickness. The media will fixate on the video games he played, the music he listened to, who he followed on Twitter, but I knew 90% of what I needed to know when I saw his picture and heard he was from San Diego. Peers will describe him as "weird", neighbors as "quiet, but polite", and we'll spend a couple news cycles interpreting his creepy green eyes with our thumbs up our asses until Anderson Cooper and Oprah tell us it's about time to move on. All the while, Romney will try to telegraph fraternity to the gun nuts in his speech of condolence, Obama will go out of his way to mention that the problem is anything other than guns for fear of losing Ohio's electoral votes, and the media will keep its helicopters and klieg lights on standby until the Next One.
An unspeakable tragedy. A terrible morning. Let's hug our daughters a little bit closer tonight and remember not to change a fucking thing.
Alas, The Conversation will not happen tonight. We're destined to keep spinning our wheels into post-industrial dystopian decline and these unfortunate patrons of the silver screen will get a moment of silence at the Rockies game, maybe a couple ribbon decals to grace the cars along Peoria Street. The rest of us will just be grateful it wasn't us and keep blazing our bold trails of meekness.
And me? Well, I'll go back to church and that German restaurant next time I'm home. I'll lament the loss of innocence and try to squeeze some tears out of my eyes. And then maybe afterward, I'll feel good about my sympathy, remind myself what a terrific victim I can be while driving to a bar downtown.
