sergeant, and though the sergeant tries to be patient, he eventually approaches one of the boys, twirls him around, and handcuffs him. A man in his thirties, a golden retriever at his side, embraces a police officer, turns around, and mutters, Too much violence. It’s too much, and then collapses on the sidewalk and has a seizure. “It was one of those moments when I realized everyone was damaged,” Pete told me.
As the summer progresses, Pete continues to record the numbers, but his senses feel heightened, like he can hear and see things that used to feel out of reach. He begins to offer commentary as well.
It’s about the gun laws, Sup McCarthy says. So far no other mention of other factors.
In the Austin neighborhood: “All these people wanna grab guns and nobody got target practice,” she said.
Someone just dropped off a woman at a hospital, GSW [gunshot wound] to the buttocks. She doesn’t know how it happened.
Sleep all day, to wake up for night life.
“He doesn’t know he’s dead yet.” A police supervisor.
A man with (what appears to be) an AK-47 tattooed on his forehead was charged with a shooting in Uptown. Story soon. #chicago
Safe Passage crime scene. 6100 S Indiana. 2 people shot, 10 casings (at least) on the ground.
Heavy rain begins to fall on Bridgeport. What I wouldn’t give to be home, in bed, with a window open right now.
Geez, what a night.
He tells Erin, “Next summer I’m going to plan it better and take a break.” He makes a list of the things he wants to do: watch Lord of the Rings, ride a bike through a forest preserve, cook and spend more time with friends and with Erin, go ice fishing. He’s gained weight. His right eye twitches. Erin tells him he looks mean even when he’s resting. He needs a break. But he can’t look away. In fact, the longer he spends chasing the violence, the more he needs to linger, to hear from those still standing. He knows how they feel. He knows their anguish, their fury, their fear, their will to go on. The violence, the trauma, he realizes, has this paradoxical narrative. It isolates people. He knows that, all too well. It especially used to unnerve Erin when she’d find him in the living room after a shift, with six opened Coronas, the TV on, Pete asleep on the couch. She urged him to spend time with his friends, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t, really. But he found comfort in talking to people in the streets, people who had seen what he’s seen, people who had a lot more at stake than he does. The violence, he tells me, also pushes people together. He gets a tattoo on his left forearm, a quote from Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses: “The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.”
Sitting outside Christ Hospital (second time in two weeks I’m writing on a 5-year-old boy shot) and I met another GSW victim, from last year.
July 4th weekend: 67 people shot this long weekend, 11 dead. Ages 5-72.
I love this city but it can be tiring.
Chapter 6
Father’s Day
JUNE 15…JUNE 16…JUNE 17…
Mike Kelly, who’s forty-four, lives on the twenty-first floor in a high-end high-rise along the lake called the New York, a nod to its exclusiveness and to Chicago’s Second City insecurity. It’s a two-bedroom apartment, which Mike keeps pristine. It’s been a long day, not because he’s done much but rather because he’s feeling somewhat sorry for himself. He just ended a five-year relationship, the longest he’s ever had, and he can’t quite figure out why it didn’t work. He’s been napping and is now cleaning: refolding clothes in his closet, scrubbing dishes, washing the windows and the mirrors with Windex. His overweight six-year-old Lab, Lucky, lies on his bed in the living room, and Mike coaxes him up to take him for a short walk. At 8:30 Mike’s son is coming by, once he gets off work, and it’s the one thing Mike is looking forward to. It’s a tradition. Every Father’s Day the two of them get together for pizza, and sit on the small balcony which overlooks both Lake Michigan and the downtown skyline, and there they talk about things they don’t talk about with anyone else. Mike calls his patio their “dome of silence.” For both, their lives have been shaped