Residents were rocked this Palm Sunday by the most terrible of three shootings that occurred that day in our rough and tumble town. Jose Luis Garcia Bailey, age 11, was killed there, shot through the heart by persons unknown.
Someone broke into my car a few days ago, smashed the window, popped the hood and stole the computer chip. High tech thievery, but not intelligent thievery – the doors were unlocked.
I live in Belmont Heights, but just blocks away from less, shall we say, refined quarters, where drugs are sold in the light of day and boarded windows shelter humans far unluckier than I have ever been. Still, I was surprised – and felt violated. And then I felt luckier still, because I am alive, and no one harmed me or my wife, and just last month I put comprehensive on my car, so it’s covered after the deductible, which will sting, but, hey, it’s all relative – at least I don’t live in Darfur.
Or, for that matter, at the corner of 15th and Cherry, where residents were rocked this Palm Sunday by the most terrible of three shootings that occurred that day in our rough and tumble town. Jose Luis Garcia Bailey, age 11, was shot to death there, shot through the heart by persons unknown. He bled out in his neighbor’s kitchen while his grandmother screamed her grief to the unblinking sky, where only a few stars manage to shine through the glare of city lights.
How many more broken hearts will there be this year? When will it end?
Since I have no car, I have been walking home. And it’s all relative. The four miles is a fair hike after a day of running therapy groups, but it’s nothing compared to the ten miles an Ecuadoran might trek to school or the fifteen miles round trip millions of people face just to fetch drinking water or the twenty mile rounds an American soldier has to face, saddled with armor and surrounded by danger. I suppose it’s also a shorter walk than the few feet from Jose’s grandmother’s house to the donut shop where his life was senselessly ended, if you really think about it.
I love this walk home, though it tires my legs and lengthens my workday. I see a side of Long Beach I am privileged enough to avoid when I want to. Kids play in alleys next to dirt lots next to industrial dumps and you can see on their faces they don’t know anything different, but they know something’s missing. Dogs run loose (one chased me; I’m still pretty fast when that adrenaline gets going) and people live inside cages. Suspicion haunts the faces of many people; others remain stubbornly friendly and optimistic. But all, I am certain, have known the fear and tragedy of inner city life. Gardens spring up here and there, but trash is more common, and why not? The streets and rental units look forgotten by their keepers (the city; that’s you and me) and owners, so the residents, I have deduced, don’t have much reason to care for them either. I don’t think the majority plan on staying forever.
Many do, though. I know some call it home, and love it. More than a few show love for these neighborhoods year after year, but it’s got to be an uphill battle when gang members outnumber cops and crimes outnumber jobs.
I walked past cherry and 15th Friday, before the Palm Sunday murder. It felt to me like one of the safer spots, cleaner, calmer than many of the sidestreets I’d ventured down in search of the heart of this city. But nowadays, there’s no place safe, is there? Well, some are safer than others. How long would that last, I wonder, in an America with its best days behind it? How much of our social order is based on an ethical imperative, and how much on economic abundance and the presence of police?
Today I stopped on my walk for dinner and read the Press-Telegram’s stories, editorial, and column about Jose’s murder. I wept; how could I not? Maybe if more of us weep – more men, especially – something will change. Maybe the world will stop turning; maybe Jesus will show up (better late than never, right?) The P-T editorial board rightly calls on us all to do something, but for a while, I couldn’t imagine what that would be. Now I think I might now.
Dedicate your life. Devote yourself to the broken heart of the world. Every second spent pursuing material wealth, social status, blinding entertainment, and endless sense pleasure is a second not spent working for the healing that humanity so terribly needs. Every moment we see the enemy in another person is a moment we have missed the truth, a moment we have failed to recognize our brothers and sisters, from whom we have so long been separated by the forgetfulness of tribalism, nationalism, racism, and anger. The truth is we are the same – even, as the P-T so nobly reminds us, the least among us.
There is no other solution. No law, no jail, no protest march will do it. It is for all of us to dedicate our lives to nothing but love – from now until we die, in our jobs, our homes, our cars, in our words and our deeds.
If it helps, remember Jose. If it helps, remember Jesus. If it helps, remember 9-11. If it helps, remember the half a million or more Iraqis killed since 1990. Remember the feeling of despair you are sure to feel if you contemplate the bullet tearing though Jose’s chest, sit with that feeling and don’t push it away, don’t hide it under a beer or a TV show or a trip to Pachanga. Feel it, and set about creating a city where that kind of despair will one day be only a sad memory.
This is what we must do. Otherwise, there will be far too many more broken hearts.