Dear Mari,
First: Jess, Efraín, Pete, Lucretia, Carlos, and Serena are all dead. I haven’t found Mya, Hugh, Will, Beth, Dolores, Tom, or Anabel yet, but I think they’re dead, too. I’m so sorry.
We were on stage when the first bomb went off. It was down the street and we were playing too loud to hear it. Efraín and Jess were playing so well, better than ever. You should have heard them. Efraín was breaking in a new kit. Jess had the same shitty guitar she’s always had, the one she’s made sound great. It was a big night, crowded from the stage to the back door. I remember someone screaming from the back. Then the second bomb went off, right outside.
There was a flash and the windows blew in, and the flames shot in right after them. The people near the windows were shredded and set on fire. The whole building shook and the ceiling above the bar collapsed. The power went out and the room filled with smoke. I grabbed Jess’s hand—I was standing next to her—and started to drag her toward the front door. You know it’s only five feet from the edge of the stage, but somehow in those five feet I lost her. I spilled out on the street with a pile of people. My bass was still strapped to me, but the neck had snapped. There was a scrap of bloody cloth hanging from the broken place. Maybe a dozen other people were on the street with me. We scrambled away from the heat and waited. No one else came out.
I read somewhere that there are people who don’t panic, and I guess I’m one of them. I watched Eight State burn. It scares me now what I felt then. I wish I could say I cried, or that all my sadness turned to rage. Instead I felt my blood pressure drop. The sound in the world got a little quieter. I looked down the street and saw a row of fires, bomb after bomb. I heard tires screeching and machine gun fire, and I knew—just knew—that there was nothing I could do for anyone at Eight State, and half my friends had been in there. But maybe if I got to Temple in time, I could save the other half.
You know on the news they said it was a paramilitary outfit. I say it was a bunch of assholes who decided to get a lot of guns, make a lot of bombs, buy up some Army surplus vehicles and make their own uniforms. The news said they came at our city because we said we were a sanctuary, because our mayor spoke out, because we marched. They said they did it in the name of law and order. But I didn’t see any order that night. I saw burning buildings, shattered glass, flames, and rising smoke. I heard people screaming and shooting, shooting that wouldn’t stop. I heard sirens everywhere. Police cruisers racing from block to block. An ambulance on its side, on fire, in an intersection. And body after body, ruined and run over, or smoldering, or just full of holes. The couple the police captured said they just attacked wherever the people were. It was a Friday night, so that meant clubs and restaurants, downtown streets. It meant us.
Everyone was on the street in front of Temple. They hadn’t hit the place yet. I found Jacob there. He still had his guitar. We stood there and wondered what we were supposed to do. Nowhere felt safe.
Then we all saw it, a tan Humvee barreling down the street toward us. It ran over a dozen people and looked like it would plow through the rest of us, except that another car, racing in from a side street, crashed into it and knocked it on its side.
This is our city. You understand what it’s like. As soon as the Humvee stopped, we were all over it. We got two of the tires off. They’d locked the doors, so we broke the glass, dragged three of those motherfuckers out, and threw them in the street. They got shoved around a lot. One of them shouted at all of us: We’re the New Patriotic Army of the East and we are coming for you. You could tell he practiced it. He tugged at his uniform when he said it, like his clothes gave him his power. So we pinned them down in the street and stripped them naked. Someone set their clothes on fire.
That’s when the police showed up. I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t. I don’t even know what I wanted to happen. I wanted to hurt the men who had attacked us. I don’t think I wanted to kill them. I know a few other people did, and would have done it. I don’t know if I would have stopped them.
But the street was filled with sirens and flashing lights. The police hauled off the men we’d beaten up and a few of the people who’d been beating on them. The officers looked scared and exhausted. There were ambulances and paramedics scrambling around. Blood all over the pavement. And then the lights were gone and it was quiet and we were all standing around again, staring at each other, listening to the city explode around us. It still didn’t feel safe to go home.
“You got your car?” I said to Jacob. He nodded. We got in and drove out of downtown, under the highway, and to the shore. We were the only ones there, and it was dark and quiet. The highway above us was empty. We could hear the waves against the rocks. And without either of us saying a word, we crawled into the backseat and fucked. We did it because we survived, and because it was better than screaming at the sky or burning something down.
We’re kind of a thing now. I hope that’s okay. It’s been two days and the New Patriotic Army keeps saying they’re coming back. A few of us have left town and I don’t blame them. But the rest of us are staying here. This is our city and we all have this feeling, more than ever, that we make it what it is. So we all have each other’s numbers now. We check in all the time. We’re buying guns that we don’t want to use, but we will if we have to. We’re a sanctuary now in a bigger way than we were before. And we’re already partying a lot more, a lot harder. It feels like the best kind of resistance, to insist on living how we want, and to keep doing it, until they put us in the ground or learn that it’s a lot better to join us than to fight us. We’d even let them in if they wanted it. I wish they did.
Please be safe, and come back and visit when this is all over. Our town misses you.
Love,
Ali