“Didn’t I Meet You At The Stabbing?”

By Caroline Hack

Why am I the first person the cops question when somebody is stabbed?

There are like, 35 people standing on the same street corner that I am, but for some reason I’m the interview in demand.  I’d say it’s because cops generally like a wiggle with their half truths, but this was on the lower West Side.  There’s more wiggle down there than on my Aunt Sally’s cheeks when she’s running from one of my Uncle’s well-thrown forks.  I got half the back fat of most of the West Side ladies, but perhaps because neither of my eyes were swollen shut, I’m the one talking to two thick-necked cops.

The scene is pretty standard:  people you wouldn’t think should be in the proximity of an attempted murder quickly let a scary situation become a social event.  As I stand before the genderless cops I hear lively conversation, laughing, and friendly banter between young males, young women, girls with kids, and a couple of neighborhood elders.  There were a few people who must have been new to the neighborhood and introductions were made.

I’m getting the usual line of questioning, and because my meds have evened out nicely in the past few weeks, I’m fairly sure that I haven’t stabbed anyone I’m not related to, and certainly not in public.  The cops don’t seem clueless as they are disinterested.  The buzz around us is more interesting than me recounting my morning: I woke up, called a cab, went out to check the house number and street name I was at, saw a group of people on the corner talking about how so-and-so got stabbed by whoever, took a morning-after pill and sat on the stoop.

The cops released me and asked no one any more questions.  I found this curious.  It doesn’t take me much energy to not care about these things, but like I said, the meds are pretty even right now.  Sometimes it makes me feel like a ‘normal’ person.  Sometimes I ‘think’ about things and wonder why there’s ‘blood’ all over the sidewalk and on some kid’s bike.  I don’t like how these thoughts make me feel and that’s when I start to cut the back of my hand with the corkscrew on my keychain.  I feel better.

The corkscrew makes me think of Father’s Day.  I went to my brother’s mother’s father-in-law’s house (my family tree is 600 yards wide).  We did the cookout thing and I was one of the first to leave because I hate being with my family.  As I walked out, two neighborhood girls were kicking the crap out of a different neighborhood girl.  Two guys stepped in to break it up, but the whole thing was very noisy.  My sister’s ex-step brother-in-law lives in Clarence and he was all freaked out.  He’s asking me if he should step in and see what the problem is, thinking maybe he should help sort it out.  I’m like, ‘You’ll have fake nails sticking out of your eyeballs,” so he went back in the house.

The fighters were between me and my car, so I said, ‘Excuse me’ and walked through.  No big deal.  The same basic scene had played out in my front yard the night before.  The only difference was that I was one of the girls giving the beatdown.  Don’t have my boy light your smoke and you won’t have to smell my elbow for the next two days.  How’s that?

I wonder now, if that’s why the cops didn’t ask many questions at the stabbing.  I was the only one who looked a bit out of place because of my smaller ass and lighter skin.  For everybody else it was kind of business as usual and they were treating the stabbing like somebody backed into a street light.  If my sister’s ex-step brother-in-law was there they’d be talking to him all day.  Even if he had no information, he at least had an appropriate reaction.

I like the fact that I’m not nervous around blood and fights.  I can take care of myself and if I can’t, ECMC’s ER does a beautiful job.  But sometimes I think about how it might be to feel like my sister’s ex-step brother-in-law.  Not so much the part where he’s a candy ass, all worried about a couple chicks fighting, but how he maybe gets to feel when he’s not around people bleeding and yelling.  Like how he must feel at home, when he doesn’t have to think about this shit.  Most of his life must be pretty quiet if one screaming fighting match makes him so uncomfortable.  I wonder what that’s like.

So I mess with my meds to try to find out.