Posted on 07/20/2013 10:21:48 AM PDT by Steve Peacock
The following literary essay recounts my post-shooting thoughts & experiences specific to getting shot by a black, retired New York City police officer. The whole story soon will be revealed. For now, a snippet. Click through if you wish to read the entire piece via Gravel: A Literary Journal.
So this is how my life’s going to end.
My mind latches onto the sound of footsteps approaching as I lie face down on the filthy sidewalk. I let my mouth droop open, smuggling and releasing puffs of air through my nostrils, appearing—I hope—to look as if I’ve ceased breathing. I press against the ground, muscles taut, trying to temper the spasmodic shaking. Having just been blasted in the side at point-blank range with a snub-nose revolver, I need to give my assailant the impression that the first and only shot has finished the job. But it’s futile. Try as I might to control the shakes, I’m as relaxed as a squirrel flapping in the road, freshly nipped by a passing truck.
A succession of clicks on the pavement moves closer. The stranger halts, his shoes making a double scrape on the concrete—inches from my right ear. The lurking sensation of a gun leveled at me injects an adrenaline blitz through my system, prompting my chest and ears and fingers and eye sockets to pulsate while waiting for bullets to crash through the back of my skull—and as I wait, one image comes to mind: Mom, lips quivering, choking on tears and struggling to stay upright as she clutches onto the coffin’s edge at my funeral.
(Excerpt) Read more at gravelmag.com ...
I am not going to read two paragraphs that explain very little to go to some blog in which you have an article.
Win.
Based on the intro, he lived. No need to visit the blog.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Our loss. Too bad he couldn’t figure out how to cut and paste the entire article — it clearly isn’t covered by excerpting rules.
It’s a literary journal, not a blog. And it is not MY site, though clearly I am the essay’s author. I gain nothing by your visit, other than sharing with you a peek into my encounter with black-on-white violence.
Please also note that it is filed under FR’s “personal” posting option, likewise categorized under “society” and “poetry.” The point of your comment is... what?
I am currently under obligation to Gravel to merely excerpt it.
Thank you, wku man, for reading and expressing your enjoyment of it. The other hostile responses are puzzling. I hope my separate responses explain the purpose behind excerpting the piece.
Read it or don’t read it, people. Don’t take my word for it. Wku man suggests it’s worth a small investment of your time. Over and out.
Ignore Humblegunner. He fancies himself the blog police. Sometimes he’s right- mostly he’s just annoying.
Great read. Can’t wait to read the rest. Let me know where I can purchase it.
guess again. The site is copy protected.
BTW Great story. Well written, a good read.
Homeboy should have posted it here first then.
Or do you too think that FR is simply a source to be milked for hits?
Nice to see you are still around and are still a bitter old carmudgeon.
It is his own article, on his own blog. You think he couldn’t get permission from himself to post it?
If he wasn’t the author, he screwed up the posting.
Even when I was being paid for my column by the newspaper, I got rights to post, although sadly I was never able to get them to provide the appropriate documentation to get off the excerpt list. I say sadly because now the paper has gone under, and all my columns that are excerpted here have dead links.
It is a delightful blog.
You do have a very real axe to grind. My sympathies.
I am not in lock step with the principle that links are a bad thing. FR is my window to the universe. I depend on fellow FReepers to show me worlds I have yet to explore.
However, I dutifully copy and paste Daniel Greenfield’s writings from the Sultan Knish Blog in their entirety to a FR ping list. Until Greenfield determines FR may not reproduce his blog postings I will continue to do so.
As one who is firmly committed to Greenfield’s blog and the dissemination of its contents I have no compulsion about recommending my readers to his site. That I do not do so by posting leaders and a link is respectful of FR and its importance to me and the members of the Ping List.
FR is a vast repository of opinion and information. It should only be allowed to continue to grow.
What I read was great! Please let me know when the entire work is done and available to purchase.
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