It’s a Sunday and I’m feature hunting along the lake.
There’s a woman who is setting up a grill. As I approach cameras on shoulders growing heavier by the minute a man comes up to tell me the parking meters are broken.
‘What a nice man’ I thought. I remember I’ve forgotten to pay for my parking.
It’s my second week in Chicago and I think I am floundering. I am in a city of 2,000,000. I am surrounded by stories I am surrounded by humans I am surrounded by some of the best photojournalists around and I am floundering.
I spent the night before on my roof wondering if the life that I knew before I came to Chicago would ever exist again. I spent the night before wondering about you, wondering if I had made a mistake. I spent the night before watching the fireworks from Navy Pier bust over the skyline. I spent the night wondering if the explosions I heard around me were the exuberant jubilations of those celebrating the birth of our nation, or the hallmark of death and destruction for those doomed to live in the West Side.
I spent the night on my roof drinking because I did not know what else to do.
I had fucked up just about every assignment the week before. I was on my seventh straight day of work and I’d yet to make anything I was proud of, anything that was more than mediocre.
I am walking to the woman when I get a call from Maggie. She was still triaging the photos from last night-- many had died as always in Chicago. But last night, a seven year old had died. His father is still wearing the clothes that he wore when he took his seven year old son to Stroger Hospital.
He was still covered in his son’s blood, the blood that pumped out with each beat, the blood that should have been his but was not.
Antonio Brown was still covered in his son’s blood when I pulled up to his home wondering what I had gotten myself into.
Antonio Brown stared into my eyes as I pushed my car through the crowd down the street to find a place to park. Antonio Brown stared but I wonder what he saw. I wonder if he was looking at me or if he was still staring into his son’s eyes, telling him “you’re good, you’re good” as they raced to Stroger. I wonder if he remembers me at all.
I pick up my camera and I am scared. I am in a bad neighborhood where a seven year old was murdered the night before. I am in a bad neighborhood covered in expensive equipment and I am wearing the wrong colors. I am scared and I hide behind my camera.
The reverends calls everyone together. The family was about to speak.
Amari wanted to be a police officer they said. Amari was never without a smile they said. Amari was taken too soon they said.
The sun was beating down. The air hung thick. I reached down to my camera and felt the heft, the curve where my middle finger fit, the ridge my thumb held onto.
I put six inches of glass and metal between me and world and I began to document. This is my world and this is where I define it in a 2x3 quadrilateral. Here the tears are not real, the emotions shallow, the actions an act. It is here that I pull back from the world to see it.
I saw an 18 year old woman shattered by the loss of her cousin. I saw a young mother destroyed by the lost of her first born child. I saw a man left hollow by the guilt that comes when you know your son was ended by a bullet meant for you. I saw a broken man.
That broken man broke yet again as the crowds surged forward. Reverend Ira Acree called up to the heavens for help. Only God could save us now. Only Jesus could save us now.
Antonio Brown fell his arms outstretched crucified on the memory of his son. Amari’s blood still covered him.
I separate myself from the world again and try to document what is unfolding in front of me. I am no longer me. I am observation and I am instinct.
I run to my car and I drive down four blocks South to file.
I am numb. I am familiar with this feeling. I am familiar with where this leads.
Amari was seven years old. Amari was seven yeas old when he was shot dead by a bullet meant for his father. Amari was dead.
I call my editor and tell her I need to go back. I need to document the vigil. I need to make sure this is not forgotten.
But it already has. Amari Brown died one month ago and no one remembers who he is. Amari’s death had no grand lesson. It did not have a lesson. I wondered if I could call you, if I could confide in you that I felt like a vulture that I am lower than I have ever been. I wonder if I could confide that I don’t think I am cut out for this, that this affects me too much and that I would give my own life if that meant Amari could come back.
He was loved. If a child so beloved by his family and firends can be taken away just like that, if a child could be destroyed and leave everyone helpless, then what is the point. What is the point of making a dent when you are making the dent that is confused as a truck-thrown rock. What is the point of making a dent when you no longer care.
I did not call you that night. I opened a bottle and a pack and tried to find myself in the bottom. I eventually did.
It is Monday and I am being complimented for my work. I am no longer a fuck up. I am no longer an outsider pretending to fit.
It is Monday and I wonder what Antonio is doing.
