EPT
So this summer I've taken a temp job with a crowd control service before I go off to college in the fall. Yesterday was my first day at work running a gate for seats for the Torchlight Parade out here in Seattle. Seeing as how I would have had to drive downtown during the biggest event in the year I opted to take the bus to work, setting me up for some of the scariest shit I've seen in awhile.
The job itself was fine. About halfway through the shift a cop posted up right next to me so I didn't really have to do anything. Where it got heavy was heading back to the bus stop afterwords. There were a lot of people kinda just flexing their muscles at each other across the street, which I was used to The high school that I just graduated from was kinda ghetto so I had seen people messing with each other in the hallway. Eventually out in from of the symphony hall a fight broke out. Some dude kinda backed up across four lanes of traffic and about four cops jumped on the two of them. Of course what they thought was going to be an isolated incident quickly exploded. With all of the cops across the street people started realizing that they could really do whatever they wanted. Thus the riot.
What started happening was that three or four people who knew each other would get together and just start beating kids down in the street. No Fucking Joke. I saw this little girl no more then five with her cousin watching this, not yet really understanding that people could act this way. Anyways I decided at this point it would be a pretty good idea to get off that block before they started rounding people up or something so I headed down to second avenue (most of the busses run on 3rd where I just was because they are retrofitting the bus tunnel for light rail.) I haven't really been bus dependent in a few years and figured that the bus I wanted must either run on second or first. And that's where I saw something that I haven't been able to get out of my head.
As I was walking down this hill there was this like fifteen year old kid running after some girl that he seemed to know. When he catches up with her he just starts hitting her in the face. My heart starts pounding here and I try to assess the situation. Here's this kid, maybe five eight that I could maybe take in a fight if I tried to stop him. Except he's got maybe ten of his friends around. And there's cops everywhere. If I get stopped I'm eighteen and they book me. And so I walk away. Pretty soon I'm running. I run maybe ten blocks and find myself down in Pioneer Square where I thought I remembered dropping a friend once to get on a bus back to West Seattle. But the bus stop isn't there. It's 10:30 and the bus I needed has come and gone. I have no money with except for bus fair, I pulled it all out because I didn't want to get mugged for eighty bucks. No cab money. All of the busses that go remotely near where I'm headed are full.
In the end my mom was able to pick me up and I got out all right. As I sat on the block waiting for her in Pioneer Square, a commercial district where there's more bars than street lights I sat in shock, sort of jokingly telling myself that that I had gone soft because I couldn't catch a bus anymore. And then I remembered that girl, how I had run away.
Last night I saw a city explode. I am ashamed of the way i saw people acting. What's worse is that I know how those kids feel, how they feel unable to cope with things they can't control, how they are angry and subjugate one another for that little bit of solstice. But I still hate them for it. I am ashamed to know some of those people an I am ashamed that we must be policed to be able to function like normal people. And I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed that there was a girl who needed help and I was so afraid that I ran. I'm a fucking adult and I ran and called my mother. I was too afraid of having a record that I let that girl get hurt. I don't think that I'll get over this soon. Last night I saw a city explode, and I don't think anything well ever change.
-Clark
