Murder at Midnight

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

The cop came knocking at our door this afternoon. We had guests seated in the living room and I hadn’t even had a chance to greet them yet when my brother burst excitedly into my room announcing the arrival of the policeman. “Hurry, come quick! They want to talk to you to see if you saw anything.” I didn’t believe him at first, but he kept insisting he was telling the truth. His eyes were wide open, twinkling with fascination as he spoke hurriedly in an excitement reserved for unreleased video games about to hit the market and for big, shiny Lamborghinis. “I’m serious, yo! He’s talking to dad right now. Hurry hurry!”

The shooting quietly occurred close to midnight last night. My parents were in the living room, complaining about the mediocrity of the latest Bollywood flick that they turned off midway — the plot was too ridiculous to prove entertaining. I was hunched over my computer deeply engrossed in mundane matters of one sort or another, as always. My kid sister was sound asleep, my brother devouring the Harry Potter book that finally made its way into his eager hands, and my other sister was rummaging through the wedding pictures of my elder, yes, sister. This house has never been deprived of females, much to my brother’s dislike. But we’re down to three girls inhabiting the confines of our home for about a year now and it seems like it’s always been this way, even though my elder sister’s name is mentioned just about once every hour, mostly by my mother. And my younger sister routinely flips through the pages of her wedding album, as she laughs off any suggestions of engaging herself in this activity because she misses her. Or perhaps she’s just self-centered and really only looks to see if she can find any flaws in the way her mouth is set, if her smile is crooked, if her eyes are looking into the right camera, if her dress was rumpled and the photograph was able to capture the disastrous calamity. At least that’s my theory anyway.

“You wouldn’t have heard it if the TV was on or if the windows were closed” the officer told my dad and I. He was tall and stocky, quite well-built, in fact, heavily built, I would say. I couldn’t imagine him as anything but a policeman. He wore a blue band on his wrist, like the white ‘Makepovertyhistory’ one that I wore. I couldn’t tell what cause he was supporting for his hand kept moving briskly as he busily wrote in a small notebook everything that I was telling him. The whole scene was simply surreal, as if a ‘Law and Order’ episode had come to life in my living room — the policeman at the door talking to me while his partner questioned my neighbours, my siblings watching in awe and slight fear, and the guests simply perplexed at what they had walked into — we were all frozen in concentric circles silently gravitating towards the policeman at the door, intently listening to the drama he brought into our home that day. They were going door to door throughout the 24 storey condominium building in which we lived, asking residents if they saw or heard anything. They were in search for witnesses. That evening, I read that they were having a hard time finding witnesses. “In fact,” he went on, “some people said they thought they heard a bang, but went on with their work thinking it was only the rush of weekend traffic, or perhaps even a minor accident. But it wasn’t. It was a definitely a gun shot and we’re looking to see if anyone saw anything.”

I don’t think I was much help to him at all even though he wrote everything I said. I didn’t get off the computer till it was late and by the time I got ready for bed it was almost 2 am. The house was completely dark by then, understandable, since I’m the only one with nocturnal tendencies in the family. When I got to my room, I headed straight to the window, which wasn’t at all unusual for me to do, look out my window in the dead of the night, that is. It is the one thing that I faithfully do each night before heading to bed. I often look for a constellation when the sky is clear and blinking tiny beams of light—Orion is my favourite, owing to its easy recognition. I mentally map the descent of the moon, enthralled by its pearly white presence as it bathes the darkness with its silver, mystic glow. I heartily gulp the fresh, slightly scented air wafting in through my window, as if the Earth finally heaved a huge sigh of relief for the momentary pause in our habitual and unceasing pollution.

But Saturday nights are always different. Young men silhouetted against the darkness, talking, laughing loudly, disrupting the ethereal peace of night, hover in the parking lots below. They lean against their cars, or stand in a circle as if involved in a fraternal ritual. They’re all clothed in enormously baggy pants and large printed shirts that drown out their frames completely. Several thick rings loosely reside on their bony fingers and heavy chains dangle across their necks. Being subject to stereotypical accusations many times, I should know better than to do the same, yet there hardly seems need for precaution. They walk that typical slow walk, deliberately bobbing their shoulders up and down, shifting weight to one side of their body, ever other step. They clutch the hem of their pockets, lifting their pants every so occasionally. The patterned bandanna in the back pocket stares glaringly at those daring enough to think of overtaking them. Tell-tale signs that scream gang membership.

This particular Saturday night was no different except that there seemed to be more of them and naturally, more getaway cars to lean against. Only once before had I witnessed what may have been the end result of a fight — I arrived at the scene too late and all I could see were three tiny fingers darting across the parking lots and onto the street, away from my 12th floor bedroom window. Last night as well, I arrived at the scene too late. There was an ambulance standing in the middle of the parking lot of the bank, hardly a block down the street, and a few steps further away from it, stood a lone police car. Both seemed to be deserted as I didn’t notice any uniformed men around. The body was either in the ambulance, or they had it taken away by then.

In the morning, my curiosity was aroused by the dreadfully menacing yellow tape blocking off about half of the bank parking lot. And I didn’t find out about the murder until I watched the news just before lunch. The victim was 26 year old man of Sri Lankan descent. Gang warfare. It instantly flashed through my mind. A victim to gang warfare that left only mourners in its wake. Mourners and angry young men with a bloody thirst for revenge. Revenge for perhaps a trivial reason in the outsider’s eye, one blown out of proportion, yet sacred in their’s. A reason that tampered with their unquestionable strength and dangerously played with their perverted sense of honour. Or maybe I’m too naïve. Maybe it was just for fun.

The yellow tape of the law is the only artifact of their deadly encounter. And the 26 year old dead man, of course.

Monday, August 1st, 2005

His picture is propped on a chair draped in white, set up against the lamp post where his body had lain. A red garland is draped over the large picture frame symbolizing his death.

In the afternoon a man sat bent over with sorrow. His head, in his hands, touched the ground.

They came back in the night and left several small candles burning around his picture. Your candle’s burned out long before your legend ever will.