[Leica] showing my unenviable true colors

[Kyle Cassidy <cassidy@netaxs.com>]

i had a real eye opening experience this weekend ... you like to think
you'd behave a certain, gallant, way under duress -- you even have all
these visions of it from time to time and the great shots you'd bring
home. you think "given the opportunity, i'd do the right thing." but how
often do we get to find out?

... so emily and i are out at a halloween party on saturday and a fight
breaks out when an attempt is made to evict a drunken neighbor who's
crashed the party. a dozen or twenty people pour into the street and arms
and legs are flying, friends of the drunk begin flying off of nearby 
porches and into the fight like pidgeons onto a bagle, people are
screaming, suddenly twenty people are beating on one another, the
evicted neighbor pulls out a knife and starts stabbing this kid lying on
the ground -- everybody jumps away --  people are screaming
"call 911! call 911!" and a bunch of cell phones come out with people
screaming into them in a sort of "oh the humanity!" way, but nobody's sure
of the address and everybody's giving a slightly different one. someone
behind me shouts "he's got a gun!" and the crowd slams me to one side. the
only thing that runs through my head is "i'm seeing people die."
after the guy on the ground's been stabbed about three or four times in
the chest and upper arms, emily jumps in and kicks the attacker in the
face, he rolls back, leaps up, grabs her by the arm, stabbs her three
times and runs away. on the way he pauses very briefly to stab a 19 year
old girl, who was just standing there, just under the collar bone. the
whole thing took maybe 20 seconds. about a minute  later, five police cars
pull up. where am i? not taking pictures. the thought didn't even cross my
mind that i should have until i was home. i didn't photograph the fight,
the bloody knife lying on the ground, the cops, emily with a furious blood
splattered look on her face, nothing (okay, i did take a photo of the
police cars lined up in the street as i was leaving but where's the honor
in that?) ... the cops took em to the hospital, left her and her
boyfriend waiting in the emergency room for three hours (they were the
only people there too), after which time she got impatient and left, went
to the police station, where she was told that although she knew who her
attacker was and where he lived they couldn't arrest him unless she could
give them his first and last name. 

while it was going on i was in complete shock, well, not clinical shock,
but i wasn't acting the way i thought i'd act. i was kind of consumed by
this overwhelming thought that i was probably going to get murdered right 
there and then. "paralized with indecision" might be a better way of
putting it.

in the aftermath nothing's as serious as it seemed at the moment. nobody
dies, everybody's sitting on the porch for half an hour showing off their
wounds to the cops who don't think anybody's about to bleed to death any
time soon. emily sustained a huge bruise on her left arm where the
guy was holding on while stabbing her; a puncture wound on her upper left
arm, one in her shoulder and one in her back but they're all superficial,
oweing, i think to the fact that she was wearing two heavy shirts. she's
okay but  really pissed off at the police for not doing _anything_ to this
guy who a dozen people can identify. the appance (or not) of a gun is
still a hotly contested issue among those present. i didn't see one.

kc