Bang Bang

20 years ago tonight, Seattle experienced the mini-version of the riots in L.A.. After the verdict in the Rodney King case had been read & news of the reaction in L.A. had reached Seattle, people were breaking windows & looting, but mostly the city was conducting business as usual.

I had stepped outside the restaurant where I was the weekend manager to drop some bags of garbage in the dumpster. I heard a sound like a child’s cap gun go off followed by a quick bright sound & the sting of metal. A car drove away down the small curvy side street.

I looked a few inches away from where I was standing to discover a small dent in the dumpster. I leaned over & picked up the bullet, still warm, & held it in my palm. It all came together in brain, I had just missed getting shot by a few inches. I still have that bullet. It is in a display case along with arrowheads, pins, shards & assorted jetsam & flotsam from my life.

My little case of treasures is in the middle foreground in this shot of my work space

I feel that I have used up my quota of personal violence, having experienced being mugged, shot, shot at & fag bashed during my considerably long life. None of those events compare to the freight induced by the release, 35years ago, of You Light Up My Life, recorded by Debbie Boone, which stayed at #1 for 10 weeks & became the most successful single of the 1970s. That was personal violence that I can still not recover from.