The last day and a half have been quiet where we live.  Normally, the apartment complex that my wife manages and that we live in is either lively or down right obnoxiously loud.  Yet, the last 48 hours have been deafeningly quiet.  Death whispered in our ears.

At about a quarter to five on Sunday morning I sat straight up in bed after being wrested from a dream-laden sleep by the sound of five or six straight “bangs.” My mind knew what they were but my conscience tried desperately to substitute some kind of proxy; perhaps a vehicle backfiring, or fireworks.  But I knew this sound was unmistakeable.  Someone shot a gun several times.  No one else in my place woke up.  The kids remained in their virginal sleep and my wife finally found herself in deep sleep after a long night awake in front of the television.  I got up and the room seemed to move.  I knew those were shots, but my mind raced.  I ducked, and crouch-walked my way into our living room to see if I could hear anything outside.  It was silent.

Unlocking the door while leaving the chain engaged, my worst horrors filled my ears.  I heard the caterwauls of a woman in distress.  “He’s dead!” she screamed over and over again.  These screams have yet to silence themselves from my ears.  When I realized that there were no flashing lights from any police cars and the only sound besides the wails were the feet of residents running to help.  I sat, like a deer in headlights, wondering if I should go.  Men began screaming for help, asking, “Where the fuck is the police?!” I shut the door, and crawled into my bedroom and shook my wife wide awake.  “What’s wrong?” she asked.  I could only reply: “Gunshots.  Here.”

By this point a mere three or four minutes had passed, but it seemed more like three or four hours.  Not knowing exactly what was going on, but knowing that people were running to and fro throughout the complex grounds, I remembered that my sweet children remained asleep in their room which had windows facing our courtyard, where I thought the yelling was coming from.  I asked my wife to call the police, because my mouth was too dry to speak and I didn’t think my tongue would form the words I needed to convey the seriousness of the situation.  I grabbed my children, baby first, and set them in our bed and I caught small pieces of my wife’s frantic call to the police.  They had been alerted to the shots fired and were on the way.  My babies stayed asleep.

My wife was visibly shaking and looked terrified.  I knew this was the last straw.  “He’s dead!” again, outside.  Ten minutes after being awakened by the echoes of igniting gunpowder, someone knocked on the door.  It was one of the residents telling us that someone was shot in the parking lot.  We asked if the cops were there, and, indeed, they were.  I tried to open the door and realized that in the chaos, I’d put a kitchen chair in front of the door to wedge it.  I don’t even remember doing that.  My hands shook violently, so much so that I could barely open the lock on our door correctly.  The door finally opened.

I felt like a zombie walking outside down the sidewalk.  Everything seemed to be colored black and white.  Our apartment grounds seemed to be more of a horror movie set than green grass with beautiful apple trees.  I walked by an older man who could only mutter, “…just a baby” over and over again.  Peering down the parking lot I saw the police and EMTs who were not moving with any apparent urgency.  He was dead.

Sometimes, life changes in the span of five gunshots.

I returned to our apartment and found my wife on the phone with the police once again.  “They said not to go outside.  It’s not safe.” Everything seemed to be floating.  Then I remembered the kids.

I walked back into our bedroom and found my baby still asleep, but my older daughter laying, eyes open, shaking incessantly.  “Daddy, I’m cold.  I can’t stop shaking.” I brushed the golden hair from her face and kissed her forehead.  “What happened, Daddy?” she asked, shaking even more.  I could hear her teeth chattering like a typewriter.  “Someone was shot in the parking lot, hon.  Just relax, everything is okay,” I forced myself to tell her.  My baby still snored, and I wished I were her.

Our lives changed in the span of five gun shots and ten minutes of chaos brought about complete silence.  This wasn’t supposed to happen in Portland.  We left Detroit to avoid this.  A man was killed outside my door and Portland is dead.

For more details, please read my wife’s blog.