disconcerting

On Thursday nights I have been taking a class. It's a photography class-- the first one I've taken in years and years and years-- as they were having a sale on tuition and I've been wanting to get back to the lab for ages. I signed up for it and about three days later everything with the moving went into action, and then soon after Artomatic went into full swing.... so what seemed like a good idea at the time (hey, it's cheap enough that I can afford it! And what else am I doing of a Thursday night?) turned out to be poorly timed (argh! I have to miss three classes while moving and cleaning and I can't go in on weekends to use the lab because I'm unpacking and gawd I've got three artomatic meetings this week and all I want to do is go HOME not go to South Capitol....). But hey, it is what it is (and when it is), so I'm trying to take as full advantage of it as I can.

Last night was the first time I've developed my own film in well over a decade. I managed to mis-spool (sadly, if not surprisingly). Fortunately, neither roll was anything I was totally in love with, and I didn't lose all frames, but there was some film on film action with pinkish sworls and such. *sigh* practice practice practice.

On the way home I had one of those horribly disconcerting city experiences. I've had a few similar ones before, luckily not on the receiving end but always on the observing end. I was walking to the Eastern Market metro stop from the class a bit after nine, and old, white haired gentleman in a Mackintosh in front of me (it was raining). On the corner of that little... park sorta thing?... where the metro stop is a car was parked. Okay, lots of cars were parked. But this one-- an American car, like a Taurus, was on the corner. All the windows were steamed up. As the old fellow and I neared the corner (diagonally across the street), the back passenger door opened, there was movement, then a booming man's voice.

You ain't going no place! You gonna sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!

Then his beige puffy coated arm reached out into the night, grabbed the inner door handle, and slammed the door shut. The old man, who'd watched the whole thing, turned away and hurried on. I kept looking at the car where through the steamed glass I could see the puffy coated arm pumping repeatedly towards something that was below it. He was clearly punching someone, over and over and over, in quick succession, and very hard. The car was rocking back and forth.

The old man was already up by Pennsylvannia. I looked around, hoping for a cop, and spotted a Transit Police van parked maybe a hundred feet away. I walked up to the passenger window and knocked. There was a cop in the van on the driver's side. He rolled down the window.

Uhhh... I know it isn't in the transit system, but, uhm, there seems to be someone really beating the hell out of someone in a car over there.

He asked where, and I directed him to it. He said okay, he'd checked it out, and started to get out of the van while I went down into the metro station. I had to wait on the platform for about ten minutes for my train. Five minutes into waiting I could hear sirens for a cop car and an ambulance on the street above. They stopped when they got close to the metro entrance.