Parking Lot
Ever had a whoopin’ felt so deeply in your body it knocked the sound and spirit, right out of you? Knocked to the point where you can’t even hear your ownself scream anymore?
Now take that pain, and multiply it by 50.
“Urrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
I cried in terror as my body hit the parking lot pavement.
The pressure, speed, and relentless disregard of the stray bullet for the structure and humanity of my body were incomprehensible. The fire of a triggered bullet by cannon forcibly shifted the forward walking position of my feet, in reverse. Lowering myself and my fiance to the weathered pavement of the parking lot.
“Oh my Gaaaaa-oooooood! Make it staaaaaa-ooooooooooooop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stoooo-ooop!”
It was at this point, I could feel my mind and spirit disconnecting from the audible pain magnified from my vocal cords — in my body’s fragile attempt to process the violating intrusion of this stray bullet. My inner child was terrified, the innocence of me dying from the unexplainable spiritual robbery, delivered by unknown parties of aggression.
“Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaapeeeeeeeeee.”
The peel of friction my body made against the pavement, as my fiancé pulled me out of the way of flattening screeching tires, fueled by the escapism of unknown aggravated parties. Constant fire across my body was all I could feel at that moment. A debilitating physical and mental handicap. The intake of gunfire to the human body came at a speed I was unable to comprehend, to the point of delusional dissociation.
“I can’t move my arm, I can’t move my arm! Am I bleeding?!”, internal dialogue as I lay, looking over at the pool of deep velvet blood building under my left shoulder.
My birthday celebration with friends took place on a Friday that week, 3 days after my official birthday date on Tuesday.
It always takes work to plan parties on a weekday. Choosing between an outing after the satisfaction of a fully completed work week, or the guilt-free risk and responsibility of your friends not showing up for work promptly the next day.
A image clip from Jasmine’s personal 31st birthday invitation to friends. Picturing two of her favorite fashion icons André Leon Talley and Naomi Campbell pictured above.
In true plan ahead style, I sent out an event gathering to a few of our closest friends by Facebook invitation [actual copy]:
Hey Everybody! Guess what? I’m turning 31!
I’m officially stepping into the 30s with a “Dont-hold-me-back-live-boldly-without-reservations-dont-tell-me-what-I-can’t-do-attitude.”
With that…
This year, I’ve decided to have a Happy Hour in the spirit of André Leon Talley’s newly released documentary: “The Gospel According to André” — which will be showing at Lagoon Cinema this Friday (June 8, 2018).
Why Andre? For those who need a history brief of Andre’s impact on fashion, creativity and self-awareness: Andre Leon Talley Wikipedia
Friday evening will start with a Happy Hour at Stellas Fish Cafe, followed by the viewing of “The Gospel According to Andre” at the Lagoon at 7:15PM.
I’d love to see your smiling face, even if its just a brief hello. Feel free to bring friends and loved ones. Join me for the Happy Hour, documentary viewing OR BOTH!
With Bold Love,
Jasmine
The night was filled with joy, laughter over dinner and a few snores during the documentary. I think back often to the innocence we all held that evening. Unsuspecting of the possibility of disarray that would follow the optimism of a new year of life. The playback of these moments often escapes the mind, until the body experiences failed labored attempts to re-orient to reality.
Photo Note: The facial identity of Jasmine’s friends has been hidden for their privacy and protection with the original shooters still being unknown, resulting in an unresolved case.
Credit: Google Photos: “Stellas Fish Cafe” Building photo.
Jasmine’s personal photos: Laughs post dinner at Stella’s and shoe photos post documentary.
Jasmine’s personal photos: Group Photos post dinner at Stella’s.
As the documentary came to a close, we parted ways with our friends through shared hugs and murmurs of loose plans for the next gathering.
I was so honored that everyone made time in their schedules to celebrate my birthday over dinner, and entertain the grandiosity of watching an André Leon Talley fashion documentary with me. My heart was full.
Jasmine posing in front of Andre Leon Talley documentary post hours before shooting.
“Be safe traveling home!”, my fiance and I said with love.
Following our departure from the majority of the group, there was one guest, an honorary ‘community-not-blood-brother’ of my fiance’s, who was unable to make it to the early evening dinner. So in impromptu style following the documentary, the three of us shared a meal and conversation at a near-by Hibachi grill.
As the night grew older, we collectively agreed it was time to call it a night. After closing out our bill we walked his brother to the parking garage he parked at, in protective familial tradition.
“Be safe traveling home!”, we said with love.
From Jasmine’s personal photos: Post documentary at Hibachi grill.
To get to our car, we needed to cut through an open parking lot. The night scene was in full form — honking traffic, shouts and demands from friends, with friends testing their vice limits.
Noticing my observations of concern, my partner put his right arm around my left shoulder as we walked through the crowds from our goodbye point with his brother, back to the destination of our car.
An alley, a shortcut…
“What do you think, should we take the alley or the parking lot?”, he said.
“Oh, the alley’s waaaay to dark, definitely the parking lot.”, I say with a confident smile.
Reenactment photo of parking lot.
5 steps forward.
As we pass over the first line of the parking lot entrance, I notice a small group of men to my right. Three. Standing in coercive conversation around a black SUV. My head drifts right, slightly lagging as I squint to grasp the inflamed demeanor of the men. I orient my head forward.
5 more steps.
As we continue to walk through the parking lot, the gap in our path to an unrestrained party in front of us lessens, as a group of three men — walking broadly with aggression head directly in our path, through the parking lot.
“Are they going to mo-ove, or run us over?!”, I think to myself.
2 more steps. (HAARRD bump to my right shoulder) Smh. The trio fork-splits us in two as they charged toward their mark. One on our left–two on our right.
I’ll never forget the stomach-churning energy of the body exchange I felt from the man of the trio who walked through me with his right shoulder. The power and force of his body threw both myself and my partner off balance. What affected me more than the power of his passing shoulder, was the sunken depth of dark rage encompassing his reality — as they approached their target, with blind disregard for others.
“People don’t know who their fuckin’ with…”, I over-heard one of the men mumble.
2 steps forward.
Reenactment photo of police car arrive at crime scene.
“Urrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
I cried in terror as my body hit the parking lot pavement.
The pressure, speed, and relentless disregard of the stray bullet for the structure and humanity of my body were incomprehensible. The fire and fury of triggered lead by cannon pierced through my left shoulder, forcibly shifting the forward walking position of my feet in reverse. Lowering myself and my fiancé to the weathered pavement of the parking lot.
“Oh my Gaaaaa-oooooood! Make it staaaaaa-ooooooooooooop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stoooo-ooop!”
“I can’t move my arm, I can’t move my arm! Am I bleeding?!”
Internal dialogue as I lay, looking over at the pool of deep velvet blood building underneath my left shoulder.
“Yoooo, we need a credit card! Give me a credit card to put under her aaaaarrrrm!”, a man yells with urgency at someone as I’m swarmed with an unexpected circle of support.
As he’s handed a credit card, he takes off his white crew-neck shirt, revealing a tapestry of tattoos. At this moment, he held an urgency of movement, vocal circle leadership, and paced tempo within, an unfortunate experience. He’s done this before. He’d been here before.
“Put this under her arm!”, he yells.
Reenactment: Blur of Night Lights while Jasmine lays on the ground after a gun-shot wound.
“Take OFF her scarf and put it under her aaaaarm!” A woman yells at the person behind me.
“STOP SCREAMING!”, the same woman yells at me, in tears as she gently grabs my face.
She unravels my headscarf revealing a flat-twist style, protected by the membrane of a black stocking cap. I begin to feel exposed.
“(Whimpering as I choke over my tounge to catch my breath)”, I muster.
My mind and body were in complete disconnect from the audible actions of my vocal cords. In my body’s act of survival, screaming was mentally involuntary. How long had I been screaming? Who were these people? and where is my partner?
“Where’s my partner?!”, I yell.
Frantically I dissected the faces beyond the circle with my eyes, for him. He had been pushed to the outside of the circle, and I immediately notice the vivid black blot of blood on his right arm.
Are you bleeding?!” I ask at him.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”, he says reassuringly.
I saw him, emotionally die at that moment.
We both died. Surrounded by a community of strangers, witnessing our spiritual dissolve, I lay in the bloody puddle of the angst of our silent mental scramble.
I felt safe.
You were there, available to answer my confusion as I lay on the concrete, wounded in my puddle. You hid your pain with expected discretion — always putting my needs before yours. Unable to comprehend my surroundings, I was fully reliant on your care — the delicacies of submissive comprehension, revolted by pain.
Reenactment photo of EMS and emergency trucks.
Reenactment photo of EMS and emergency trucks.
Shaking in the coldness of my blood, I could feel my emotional spirit leaving my body. I needed to ground
“What’s your na — ?”, I began asking each of the individuals in the circle.
–“Did someone call 911?!”, the woman in the circle yells. “I did.”, my partner says.
“My name is…(thank you)…My name is…(thank you so much)…My name is…(thank you).”, I cried with each response as I worked to gather three names of the facing individuals supporting me within the circle.
“Let’s get her up!”, the EMS team exclaimed.
They had arrived.
“Aaaaaaaaaa-aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”, I yelled in pain as the EMS team urgency placed my fraile body on the stretcher.
“Wait, what about my partner?! He needs to be here”, I yelled with exhaustion.
“Is he the one with the shirt off?!”, the EMS support exclaimed.
“No! He has a blue polka-dot shirt on.”, I yelled angrily.
Angrily partly in exhaustion from the unbearable pain, my body was reacting to in loss of heat, and dually in frustration with the assumption of who my partner was, being in an interracial relationship. Triple-ly because I had just been shot.
“Miss, we don’t have time, we have to get you to the hospital, he’ll have to meet you there.”, he says.
“But he’s bleeding!”, I scream.
“We’ll have someone look at him–load her up!.”, he directed with urgency.
As the external EMS support to the second truck closed the back door, I was trusted into a debilitating mix of interrogation and emergency support with three white male EMS supports.
“Do you know where my purse is?”, I ask through chattering teeth.
“Hopefully someone has it. Miss, we’re going to have to cut off your dress and bra to examine your body. Can you tell us about what happened?”, the EMS support says.
“Ahhhhh!”, I cry as they inject a needle into my restricted veins to administer pain-resolving medication. My vocal attempts to labor investigative clues to the EMS support were diminished by the all-encompassing pain of my gunshot trauma.
The naked exposure of my humanity and unveiled head wrap further dissolved my mental connection to the reality of pain and degradation I was experiencing in the back of the EMS truck by the three white male supports.
My favorite dress. The feeling of fabric tension on my torso as I felt the button holes being cut away, as they started the fray base of the dress up toward my neck — cutting in urgency to examine the possibility of further gunfire beyond my left shoulder. Exposing my breast with a single cut of scissors to my bra, in an effort of identifying possible chest trauma.
“Did you know the people invol–?”, asks the EMS support.
“No! I already told you that, I’m sorry for yelling but I really need more pain medications. I can’t answer anymore questions. I’m in tooooo much pain! I’ve told you all I know!”, I scream through tears.
“Miss, I’m really sorry this has happened to you. I’m really sorry…”, said the EMS support.
I could feel the familiarity in his voice of seeing this scenario with black bodies. I could feel his numbness.
As we reached the hospital emergency entrance, I could smell the potency of my own blood on my breast baren body. The internal recognition of the volume of the black bodies the EMS team regularly saw in this position was palpable in their tone.
The distinguishable unfamiliarity this first-time incident had on my spirit; paired with the expectation that I should be able to fully comprehend, and converse all while my body is in traumatic shock.
There was a palpable disregard for the inhumane voice labor black bodies were required to provide post-gunfire.
Reenactment of hospital bed.
“Lift her down! 1–2–3…Ehhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”, I cried in pain.
Bare-chested I was wheeled to the procedural room table for examination.
“Lift her up! 1–2–3….Orrrrggggghhhhh.”, I groaned in my left arms inability to move on its own.
“I NEEEEEED more pain medications.”, I cried.
My body was beginning to give out on me.
The mental and physical strength required to stay alert was turning into a zone of spiritual withdrawal, to separate my mind from the humanity of pain. One nurse and three doctors surrounded the procedural table lightly lifting my back and examining the trauma point of entrance. I began to hear gasps of disbelief.
“Wow, Oh wow.”, the doctors began saying to each other.
“What does that mean?”, I yell out of fear.
“Well honey, you got just about the best-case scenario you could have for a gunshot wound. The bullet entered the back of your arm and exited in the front through your cartilage. You’ll be able to go home tonight.”, she shared as she placed a nightgown over me.
“Where’s my partner?”, I asked.
“Don’t you worry, we’ll find out where he is, for now we’re going to give you a few more pain medications and hold you in a room until the pain goes down.”, she said.
Afraid and alone, I was wheeled to a solitary holding room to provide time for my body to accept and respond to the pain medication. All of my clothing had been cut, including my black legging stockings–reducing me to the black stocking cap membrane atop my flat twists. The last connection of preparation semblance I had to the joy of looking forward to a celebratory night with friends.
“Knock, knock.”, my fiance’s mom says as she appears at the holding room door in plain face.
“Hello, good to see you.” I muster. “Do you know where he is?”, I ask in exhaustion.
The pain medications had not settled in and I was in no position to hold a full conversation. She walks over to the holding room's only chair, at the foot of the bed, and sits.
“We’ll I’ll tell you–I bet you’ll never bet on the number 31 again.”
“What did you say?”, I ask in confusion.
An octave higher — “I said I bet you’ll never bet on the number 31 again, with all this happening.”, she confirms with a laugh.
I had no time to focus on her misplaced humor antics without being disrespectful. I saw a nurse pass by in the hallway door.
“Excuse me. Excuse me!”, I shout as the nurse comes to stand at the door. “Could someone change this gauze? This one under my arm is completely covered in blood, and its cold.
“Yes ma’am, I’ll find someone that can do that for you.”, the nurse says at the door with a smile, before walking away.
Finally.
“Hey!”, says my partner at the door as he walks over to give me a hug.
“How are you, I brought your belongings.”, he says with a smile as he hands over my purse items in a plastic bag. “They needed everything else for evidence.”, he explains.
“I was answering some questions with police in another room. They were able to look at my right arm and I just need a few stitches put in. Shouldn’t take too long, but I wanted to see how you were doing. They also said the target of the shooting is in the same hospital.”
“Sounds good”, I say with a kiss.” The same hospital?!”, I say out of concern.
“Yeah, I’ll be right back, I just need to get a few stitches.
I brought your belongings.”, he says with a smile as he hands over my purse items in a plastic bag.
It was at this moment I realized we both received gunfire trauma from the same stray bullet, as we walked through the parking lot with his right arm around my left shoulder.
The scuffle between the unidentified parties, resulting in gunfire–released a stray bullet that grazed under his right arm, splitting his skin; and entering through the back of my left shoulder exiting through the front cartilage of my left arm.
While waiting for him to return, with phone in hand, I immediately texted friends and family:
“We’ve both been shot. Please call when you can.”
(Knock on door) “Hello–I’m here to help with the gauze”, says the male nurse.
I look up.
“Yes, this gauze sheet is completely bloody.”, I say.
“I can help you with that”, the nurse states as he proceeds to remove the gauze sheet under my arm without providing a new sheet and placing a finger bandage on the back of my gunshot wound as a replacement.
“Thank you?”, I say with a puzzled look at the nurse in the lack of care.
What is a finger bandage supposed to do for a gun-shot wound?
My fiance returned shortly after with his stitches and the news that we were free to go home when ready.
There was no debrief on the next steps, only the number of an investigator ‘if’ we wanted to move forward with charges. The target of our stray bullet crime was located ‘somewhere’ in the hospital. We were reduced down to only our hospital gowns, a sling for my shoulder, stitches for him and plastic bags for our belongings — as we exited through the hospital hallways.
“I’ll go grab my car and pull it around.”, his mom said.
As we wait, the unfamiliar feeling of paranoid environmental exposure rises for the first time — through silence. As his mom pulls into the round-a-about to take us home, I think to myself:
How will we be able to take care of ourselves when we get home?
And how will we be able to take care of each other?
