It's taken a couple of days to want to talk about this one. After it happened, I sort of took a short break to recharge.
But the reason I think it's important is because it is microcosm of the great unraveling that I think is taking place.
This weekend amid my regular activities I'm driving down my town's little Main Street. A street where nothing happens but curbside burgershop dining and window shopping.
At the one bus top we have by the tracks I see a commotion. It's a woman wearing partial fatigues who is attacking an elderly couple at the bus stop. I would learn later that she hit the man in the face and was throwing some type of liquid on them by the time I got there and screaming. It doesn't take it long at all to register this was most likely a vet.
She was first trailing away from them yelling when I parked my vehicle next to them and assisted them. I checked them for injuries, asked where they needed to go. There was a language barrier. I'm absolutely embarrassed to say that along with the other language I'm learning, I hadn't completed Spanish. All I could get from her was 'hit' 'husband' and 'liquid'. Then I look up. The assailant was coming back. Her arms were open, no weapons, but she was yelling. I in turn, yelled at the couple to get in my car for protection but my spanish is for shit and they looked so shocked they could barely move. The whole thing was happening too fast.
I had one choice, I was going to have to keep her away from them myself. I scanned her for weapons saw none, I walked outward toward the street and backward, she beelined for me, it's what I wanted, I wanted her moving away from the couple, as they made their way across the street. I stopped and took that same pose she had, arms stretched out. She could see I also had nothing on me. She was screaming at me, something about 'making us go home' 'you think I'm unfit' She called me by another woman's name in a barrage of cusswords.
I said absolutely nothing. it would do no good to speak to a delusional mind. She didn't 'see' me, she wouldn't have 'heard' me. She only saw the figure in her mind. That figure was most likely an authority in whatever armed services she was enlisted in at one point. Shit got tense when she picked up speed and suddenly made it so close to my face I could feel her breath. Now, we all say, right? that we know exactly what we'd do in situations in theory, when we play them out in conversation or our minds. If I were to play this out in my mind, I would've said something like, "I'd make short work of her ass and call it good"
It would've taken a minute, she was tall and built like me. But, no, that isn't what happened...
It's when the other person gets so close, you see their eyes, feel their aura. What this woman had done was against the law. But her eyes said, "I'm scared here. I can see myself reeling out of control and I can't stop it...I can SEE everything has gone to shit..."
It was as if some kind of force kept both our arms locked in non position. She also, never moved her arms, just got nose to nose, eye to eye. It was then we heard the sirens. Her face melted into another look and she walked into middle of road and waited. She'd been here before, she knew what this was about.
In a city like Portland one cop car comes if at all, in a small town where nothing ever happens, and it's a call about an elderly couple getting their ass kicked, THEY ALL show up. Soon the vet, the couple and I were awash in flashing lights and cruisers. They were trying to find an officer who spoke Spanish. I walked near the officers who detained the vet, I made a 'calm down' hands motion to them, even after all of this shit, I didn't want needless harm to come to her. Isn't that strange, not wanting the assailant to suffer?
The cops in our town are just our town's residents, so I believe they were familiar with her. They were respectful and well mannered with her. When she maneuvered a foot behind one of the officers to get him off balance, and to keep her from screaming without a mask in his face, he did slam her head down on the cruiser hood until she agreed to gain control. She calmed down after that and was let up.
The elderly couple refused to press charges, due to the language barrier, for some reason they didn't want to bring 'undue' attention to their family. I thought about that, I thought about how much injustice happens due to language barriers, and recent immigration friction our nation faces.
The police ended up not booking the vet, which I'm actually grateful for. This may sound strange, yes I do think violence needs a few hours in the klink, but there was something about her situation that made me not want to see her booked. I think someone got ahold of one of her contacts that may dispense her medication. She came back a few hours to the same place where it all happened, the bus stop. I saw her as I drove by that day. She was only one there, and she 'looked' medically restrained. I wonder if she returned to try to relive what had happened.
The next day I drove by to find the bus stop enclosure shattered. The enclosure reminded me of our Nation's state at present. How many of our crisis can converge at one time?
Bouncing off one another. One victim of one circumstance, attacking another victim of another circumstance and all the dirty glass walls are closing in until someone puts their foot through one.
Yes I'd say the unraveling has begun. Whether we want to face it or not.. it's here. It's not something you can turn your head away from any longer. It's in your backyard. It's knocking on your back door and it's telling you to do something about it.