Harrison Avenue

During my young years, living with my grandparents, on Harrison Avenue, I witnessed many acts of violence, hatred, and wickedness. And I also saw, and experienced many acts of love, compassion, and kindness. Mankind - every single human being - is capable of all. One night it was raining so hard that it sounded as if the heavy raindrops might break through the windows. At some point, my older brother, Tracy, invited me to go out into the stormy night with him to retrieve our football from the front yard. "No way," I said. "Grandma would kill us if she knew that we were outside in this kind of weather." Tracy looked right at me and said, "she is upstairs asleep. She will never even know." I pondered for a brief moment, and reasoned that our grandmother would likely never know, for she had been sick and a bit lethargic around that time. "Come on," Tracy said, bumping my shoulder with his hand, and sliding off his shoes. "Alright, come on," I said with a toothy grin, and slid my shoes off. Our younger brother was asleep on the couch, so we eased to and through the front door, onto the front porch. The wind was blowing hard as we descended the front steps. And huge raindrops were falling fast and hard from the blackened sky, smacking loudly against our bodies, and making visibility difficult. "Where is it," I yelled, enjoying the experience. Then, "there it is," Tracy barked. And we both trotted to the edge of the yard. Tracy picked up the football and, as he did, we both froze as something drew our attention. We stood staring through the heavy rain to the corner of Harrison Avenue and Second Avenue, right in the middle of the intersection. "What's happening down there," I asked. "I don't know," Tracy said, staring and stepping slowly, cautiously in that direction. "Come on, let's go look." "Ok," I said, eager to investigate. We walked briskly down the street in our quiet neighborhood, past the Foster's house, then past the Mitchell's house. Then our pace was halted as we could see a bit more clearly, and we realized what we were seeing. But I could not believe it. Tracy turned to me. The look in his eyes was terror. The look he saw in mine was likely the same. There was a man lying on his back, with no shirt on. His arms were stretched out wide like Christ on the cross, his long blond hair fanned evenly around his head. He was being straddled by another man, who clutched a large butcher knife in his hands. He raised the knife high above his head and plunged it into the man's chest. The sound of the raindrops seemed to grow louder and eerily there was no traffic, as we watched in disbelief. "Come on," Trach spat. Finally, we turned and ran home, shaken and frightened. I wanted to tell our grandmother what we had witnessed, but Tracy convinced me that if we did, we would have to tell on ourselves for being out in the rain. So, we kept quiet. But the next day we heard our grandmother discussing the stabbing with someone on the phone, and we learned that the two men in the rain the night before were brothers, and that the stabbing stemmed from their love of the same woman.