[This is the third installment of a three-part series on American gun violence. Read part one here and part two here.]
“You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”
This is the iconic question that The Joker, played by the legendary Jack Nicholson, posed to his victims in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Batman. You see, what The Joker is asking Bruce is if he’s ever wrestled with fate. Moreover, did that tangle with fate deliver grief and sorrow to his life experience.
I sure have danced with that devil in the pale moonlight.
Late in the summer of 2011, I ventured out with my roommate to Queens (NY) on a school night in an attempt to lift his spirits as he was dealing with a breakup. I offered to be the designated driver for the night so he could take his mind off the emotions of the breakup and have a good time.
Coming out of the club that morning, as fate would have it, my roommate began to say that there were Angels all around us and that he could see them. I affirmed his vision to appease him and wondered to myself how much he had to drink. Seconds later each of us had the barrels of loaded guns pressed against our torsos. Our initial response was to push the guns away, to which our assailants threatened that they would shoot us. They stole our jewelry and then ran off into the night.
We quickly moved to the car and drove off towards flashing police lights in the distance. Thinking that we were trying to chase them, one of the robbers opened fire on our car eight times at close range. Similar to the photo above, I’ll never forget ducking down and looking back to see flames coming out of the muzzle of the gun. As I turned my gaze forward, the back windshield of the car in front of us shattered. Luckily the car was empty and we sped off towards the police lights. Thankfully, he was a terrible shooter and not one bullet struck our vehicle. The Angels that my roommate saw that evening and the availing prayers of my Mother had truly prevented us from being yet another fatality in America’s gun violence epidemic.
Hearing the gunfire, the NYPD acted quickly and ultimately apprehended the young men with our jewelry in their possession. We were a little shaken but the Officers asked that we return to the precinct to identify the shooters later that day.
The Officers had investigated the crime scene and determined that whoever was in the passenger seat would have been struck between the head and chest area – I was in the passenger seat.
With that in mind, the Officers then crammed six young black men into a small room and asked that I select the men who robbed us. Looking through a one-way mirror where they could not see me, I looked at these young men in the eyes and was overcome with strong feelings of empathy and sadness.
What could have transpired in the lives of these young men to bring them to this room? Was it low wages and poverty that brought them to this room? Was it the poor public education system that brought them to this room? Was it the American government backed distribution of crack cocaine to black neighborhoods that brought them to this room? Was it mass incarceration and the fatherless homes that those policies left in its wake that brought them to this room?
Having an understanding of the pitfalls in the area in which I grew up in Brooklyn, I had a surreal feeling knowing that there was a pane of glass separating me from an alternate life that I could have lived. In fact, I would later find out that one of the young men who robbed us lived in the neighborhood I grew up in. Here I was, a young black man working for American Express, living on my own, but wondering what I could do to prevent other young men from being in this room. In a way, I felt and feel a sense of survivors guilt. I walked away from that room muttering to myself, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
I know those young men went to jail and I think about them from time to time. I wish blessings on their lives and I hope that they can overcome the mistakes of their youth and the unrelenting punishment of the American prison system.
It has taken me a few months to complete this series on American gun violence and share my own personal experience with guns. Sadly, as time passed, I knew that before I completed this series that there would be another mass shooting. As I write this piece, I received yet another Notification of Death that ten people have been gunned down in a Texas High School.
Why do we need gun reform in America? Quite simply, too many Americans are having to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight… it needs to stop.
This article was originally published on 22 May 2017.