Here's what I think about whenever I cross this intersection, here at F and the Boulevard, which is surprisingly often, since this is the turn that seems to be the most efficient way to get off the Boulevard and through to our home in the Northeast: My old neighbor, Mr. Callaghan, just some fucking guy up the street, a wife and two kids who were slightly older than me, one day coming home from wherever, work probably, and getting shot, here at this intersection, except the bullet was slowed down enough while shattering his car window that it didn't pierce skin, just blew a hole in his jacket and stopped, no injury, a new lease on life—
Ah shit I already talked about this, didn't I? I did. It's too easy to repeat when you're spending all your time looking back. In fact, that's basically been this column's m.o. over the past, what, ten days? "This is a place I am, and it's also a place I once was." Isn't that weird? How many places in my life are just repeats of places that I've been to already in this short 37 years of life? In My Place is an exploration of the past, the present, the future, but they all end up being the same when you stay in the same city all your life. These boundaries keep you here, spinning in circles. Where did that bullet come from? Maybe the question is not where, but when.
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