To Live & Die Without L.A. - Shock Talk of the Street

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 02:46

Hey there Bill

Yeh that murder a couple doors down the street is actually quite shocking. And i am sorry if I am only relating this to my own experience to my sister back in '76. That then seemed a bit more cinematic and surreally suburban and Virgin Suicide like. This seemed (by comparison) rather lonely, uneventful, totally unneccessary and I'm lacking precise words here but also mundane. Like it should be more shocking than it is. Of course it is the shock talk of the street with all our neighbors and its sad it takes this to get us all talking but on the other hand therein lies a certain comfort (that when push comes to shove we all do talk, language dysphoria or not).

I was making pizzas in the kitchen when this Flemish inspector stopped by to ask questions. I could follow along quite well with his Dutch since I understood the context of the questions - and I always thought something like that would be really intimidating and scary and it seemed all rather pleasant despite the circumstances and actually neighbourly. Unfortunately Bart and I saw nothing unusual this morning as we both departed here before 9am when it supposably transpired. Although what transpired exactly and the how and why's we still don't know yet.

This email was interupted by our neighbor Jean who came by with his story about the news van de dag van de straatje...

The "Bird Lady" as I call her who runs a pet shop for bird people always gave Jean a bag everyday of the floor sweepings which were full of bird seeds which he'd spread out for the birds in the empty lot behind our building. So when Jean stopped by there this morning on his way to the baker across the street - he peeked in through the window and saw that floor wasn't swept up (thus the seed bag wouldn't be ready yet and his friend no where in sight and the store door oddly open wide on a cold morning) then he saw her lying on the floor in the back of the shop and yelled for someone to call 900 (the old emergency number here) and he ran in and saw his friends body all bloody and her lying on her back. The man across the street ran over and he checked for a pulse but there wasn't any and then the media arrived and the medics and then finally the police. Then the medics left because the woman was dead. Jean was held for questioning and had to have his shoes photographed since he was in the crime scene. The Bird Lady was retired and working to suppliment her state care since she was raising her daughters two kids since her daughter is dying from cancer. So this is a very sad story when you hear all this from Jean. And it is. The other missing piece to this story is a fellow who was sorta harrassing other shop people around here this morning. So we all want to see this story played out soon and the person who did this found.

When Jean came over this evening I made a pot of tea and he told us his whole day which has been defined by this shocking interuption to the normal usual uneventful routine of his mornings. I knew something was up this afternoon if the politie/police blue and white tape wasn't enough! because Jean is always around and if I don't see him I hear him outside but today I didn't and it turns out it took the police hours to sort out their investigations that required Jeans prescence.

After we had tea (at the moment all this is on TV news as i write this, seeing the street out the window and on the TV at the same time - woof! some sexy police men! were around today that i missed). Then after our obligatory to the dead cups of tea we walked the dogs together - he has a little dog named Lola, (what 67 year old single gay man doesn't right?), slightly more than a lap dog - every morning the Bird Lady would greet Lola with a dog treat so Lola was actually the first to find the Bird Lady - isn't this awful I still don't know a proper name for her - on the floor and according to Jean, Lola was running in circles around the womans body on the floor expecting a treat.

Now all of this doesn't seem so banal or mundane but involving all of us on the street. Especially if no guilty person is found - then we are all involved because it could be any of us next time this sort of thing happens. So we are all sorta hoping this story ends soon. Sounds strange to talk that way but there it is. Well Bill I am really glad your package arrived today because it will give us something else to occupy our minds with. This sad story which unfolded only five doors from ours and not farther than the distance across the length of some American sized attached multi-car garage.

There is a cafe between here and the Bird Lady's shop so we are all going to meet there when this is over and sit down to some Belgian brews you know the one's served up dark in those glass goblets. Its not a bad way to be remembered or waked by neighbors in this day and age, eh? Although if this drags on we'll be doing this a few times more I think between now and then.

I told Jean I would buy him some bird seed for wild birds (somewhere else) for him to give the birds out back. But since the man who owns that lot mercilessly cut down all those everygreens there aren't so many birds around here anymore anyways - at least the pigeons still hang out there for Jean to tend to.

The BBC's radio news today here suggests the heat is on under Bush juniors butt to account for the lies his administration dishes up daily to the American's and rest of the world. The other news here is saying the Pope is dying but i thought that was understood now for the last ten years.