"Um, we are under curfew now so.....it's almost nine...." I mentioned hesitantly to the men repairing our toilet. Yes, the toilet that decided to nearly fall through what ended up being a rotten subfloor, which also had to be rebuilt. In the middle of a pandemic, when I would prefer to be about twenty feet away from all humanity but cannot live without peeing."Do you think they will stop people on the highways?" one of the repair men responded. I found myself worrying about his skin, his slightly darker skin and what the police would do to a man of his color driving down the street after curfew while protests against America's treatment of black people filled the streets of our city and spread across every state in the nation.
"I don't know," I answered, "I've never experienced something like this."
It was the first night of curfew, after the protest erupted the Friday night before.
People that aren't from Atlanta don't really know the layout. No one lives downtown, in the business district where the tall buildings are. We just don't. We live in neighborhoods with different names within the city of Atlanta that surround the downtown area where people work or go to school. My neighborhood is one of the closer ones to downtown, about one mile from the Capital, even closer as the crow flies. I can see its gold dome when I walk around the neighborhood.
Soon there was the ever present buzz of helicopters. Sirens screaming and cops speeding down my street on their way downtown. Ambulance sirens. Convoys of police trucks all headed in the same direction. The National Guard driving military vehicles in front of our houses. And worse, later, when it got darker, loud booms resonated from downtown while we watched the news on TV, impotent, while they tear gassed the protestors and fired rubber bullets at them. A mile away.
After days of protest in Minneapolis, Atlanta finally got going on Friday, the 29th. Our mayor appeared on the television, begging protestors to go home and to not destroy things. I voted for Keisha Lance Bottoms and I believe in her. I believe in black leadership for the city of Atlanta. It can be no other way. She seemed honestly in fear for the protestors and in fear of what people might lose if their stores were destroyed. Immediately after, T.I. took the microphone with the same message, followed by an impassioned speech by Killer Mike. I turned my face to the side so that Alec wouldn't see that my eyes were tearing up. I could only imagine how hard it was for them to implore the protestors to not destroy things when in the back of my mind all I could think was tear it up....tear it up....no one pays attention unless you do....we deserve it....we deserve this place to be burnt to the ground.....Berenice King followed Killer Mike and my emotions swirled with love for my city and the eloquence of our community leaders, combining with immense sadness and anger. I can't breathe.... his haggard voice filled my ears and I squinted my eyes to avoid the image in my brain of his face, crushed under the knee of a nonchalant cop.
The buzz of the helicopters continued and I continued, sitting in my house, one mile away, watching the news. Day three, I noticed a different kind of buzz. By Sunday, I saw things on Facebook and whispers from neighbors that "they" were going to target residential neighborhoods. WHITE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS. I love my house and obviously would prefer it wasn't burned down, but it sounded ridiculous. THEY were coming for us. I saw the buzz from Grant Park to Decatur and even worse, people in fear that their Target store might get hit. Oh, god forbid the Target. I like Target too, I buy a pair of flip flops there every summer and even a pair of cheap sunglasses but jesus christ, you care more about a Target store than what this really means? A man died, another man died. I looked out on my street that night and saw that a number of houses had their lights off, as if you closed your eyes no one could see you, even though you are the one with your eyes closed.
One of my neighbors ran afoul during a COVID construction project in their backyard and ended up on our front porch with masks on. They brought a bottle of wine, which I uncorked immediately and basically put in juice glasses. We realized the minute that we drank it that it was exceptional wine, and we later found out it was the most expensive wine we had ever swilled and that they were asking us for something special. When I realized we were flanked by another high-priced neighbor, I felt like a Beverly Hillbilly.
I watched when the tree men came to cut down the oak. They had a 100 foot crane. When they sawed at my oak, which is even taller and older, I winced. And I stood in my yard and watched. But then, I stayed. I saw a rustling way up in the beautiful tree that was coming down on our property line and realized there was a man, way up in it, suspended by only ropes, with a large chainsaw hanging off of his ass. I was stunned. I sat there for four hours, watching this guy work in coordination with the crane, cutting the tree down, limb by limb. I cringed when they took large limbs off from over the top of my house, the crane swinging from side to side, mere feet from my roof and kitchen windows. I watched and I watched.
Soon, they were down to the trunk. I watched while they cut off ten feet. And then another ten feet. Then, they cut off the rest. It was large and round. It took a really long time for the chainsaw to get through the base and then, the claws of the crane lifted it into the air and through the sky over the yard. It looked like a human body.
I watched it, suspended and swaying in the air and cried like I haven't in a long time.
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