I am the first to admit that my neighborhood is “fringe”. I hear gunshots and sirens with regularity that should be alarming, but is not.
A while back, a good friend who lives in my building texted me to let me know someone had just gotten shot outside. I was out of town; she was freaking out. The next day, I logged online and did some digging and she was right; someone had been shot just outside the front door of my brick six flat. I poured over the details of the story hungrily – my god, someone had been SHOT outside my building.
And then I read, “The victim was shot in the foot.”
I remember distinctly thinking, “Oh, that’s not that bad. I mean, he wasn’t REALLY shot. Just in the foot.”
What? Seriously? Someone was fucking shot outside my building, and that type of violence is so normal to me that I reacted with a “no big deal” when I learned it was “just” in the foot.
You grow accustomed to the noises and sights around you, and eventually they all just fade into the landscape of your immediate world. Gang violence included, apparently.
Then, every once in a while, you meet someone who has not allowed the poverty and violence to fade away to the realm of the forgotten. Those people stand there, arms spread wide, holding back the vast wall of apathy that threatens to overtake us, and say “No. Enough. We will not live in this way. We will not turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. We will fight for the rights of our neighbors to live in a safe and dignified manner,”.
Edwin, pictured in white, is one such man. Every day, he stands on the corner across the street from my apartment and guards the neighborhood with his booming laugh and warm smile. A pastor, he is somehow associated with the church he stands in front of. I do not know his last name or a single other fact about him.
But I know that the dedication and care he shows for others, and for our neighborhood, is dumbfounding. He knows everyone. He greets everyone. He laughs and smiles and makes us all feel as if we are connected.
Each day Edwin stands there, Batman in plain clothes, defending our small corner of Gotham City and I feel safer for it.
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