driving into architecture
So we move out of our dot-com slum in the barrio and into this much nicer neighbourhood, and then a bullet falls through the kitchen skylight and onto my shoulder, and then the entire block and their dog get into a fight.
So! Last night when Julia was swarming over me and swearing never to sleep again, we heard shouts in the street. Jeremy and I went to the bay window in our bedroom, which is like a box seat onto the opera that is Eugenia Avenue. A woman clattered up the hill on high heels. A man yelled after her: “Puta!” He seemed disconsolate.
He got into his black truck and sped up the street, right through the intersection and straight into the kitty-corner house.
It happened so fast it was kind of hard to believe. I was saying “Oh no, oh no” and dialing 911 from our bedroom phone. “Is anyone hurt?” said the dispatcher. “I don’t know, the driver maybe, he must have been drunk.” “I’ll send the police.”
Gilbert drove up and parked the Prius where the black truck had been. That family has some devastating parking karma.
Jeremy picked up some more details from the crowd that was still gathered when he took Miz Jules out for her evening constitutional. Apparently the driver was ok (drunk people tend to bounce). The house was basically ok too, just a ding in the stairs. All hail redwood construction. The truck, not so much, and Jeremy reported that the cabin reeked of alcohol.
Mum, Dad: it really is a much nicer neighbourhood. I think I tell these stories because it’s kinda surprising when this stuff happens in Bernal, whereas in the Mission you’d hear street fights with or without fireworks-or-gunfire, and you’d just sort of shrug and get on with whatever you were doing.
