merchandise. Three hundred dollars bought John, a slick-new, Glock-17, 9 mm pistol, with a 30-round magazine, serial numbers ground down and acid etched off, untraceable. The gun’s intended target was a 23-year-old journalism student from Georgetown named Tricia Rivers. It would be reported that a punk hustler, known as Flow , was the target, and that Tricia was tragically caught in the crossfire.
Tricia had volunteered at several North D.C. community centers throughout the summer. It was her way of giving back, of feeling connected when life at Georgetown got to be a bit too surreal. She didn’t party. The only thing she hit hard was the books. She spent most of her time in the library researching and writing. She loved to write, mostly non-fiction, current event shorts. She loved to tell stories about real people, the kind of people that roamed the streets in Northwest. Her stories went mostly unnoticed, appearing in The Hoya , usually behind all of the NCAA basketball coverage, and the Greek Life’s events calendar. These were picked up by the local news outlets that needed to fill twenty seconds of a forty-five-second clip about her tragically short life. What they did not find was her latest expose, an intriguing tale about a few street junkies who had disappeared after visiting a new community clinic, where they may have been recipients of an unknown drug treatment. Rumor had it that they had all suffered strokes. She wanted to bring awareness about the new clinic and its treatments. The truth was that no one cared what street people died of or that they had died at all. People only started caring when preppy college kids from well-to-do families wound up in hospitals or morgues. Then there would be feigned outrage about drugs and drug culture. There would be outcry for more treatment options for the innocent children who had become unwitting addicts of the drugs forced upon them by the nefarious influence that oozed from the dark parts of the District.
Muffled sounds came from the trunk. His shooter, Flow was coming to after several hours of barbiturate-induced unconsciousness. He would be the perfect fall guy. His prints would be all over the gun. He’d have gunshot residue on his hands and clothes. He’d be found with the stolen car that fit the description of the one seen by witnesses of the deadly drive-by. The police would conveniently find that the car had been stolen from the shooter’s neighborhood. The case would be closed before it could even be reported by the media. The police would have their collar. Everyone would pat themselves on the back for solving a tragic murder. Vigils would be held, and the community would heal, until the next senseless murder.
John pulled his purloined, mid-90s, silver-gray sedan into Flow ’s apartment complex a few miles away from the counter and waited a few minutes to make sure that the parking garage was clear. His reconnaissance team had confirmed that the cameras in the parking garage had not worked in years. He stepped out of the car, walking calmly, steadily, and with smooth, swift precision toward the trunk of the sedan. He opened the trunk lid and pulled the still incoherent Flow out of the trunk, like a toddler removing a ragdoll from a storage bin.
Flow struggled to stand as his emaciated frame shook violently. Years of crack addiction, alcoholism, and when he could score some, cocaine binges had eaten away at his flesh. Sinew and decalcified bone remained. Flow’s vacuous eyes met John’s. Tears and vitreous humor pooled into his bottom eyelids, a result of the prolonged beating he had sustained at the hands of his captor, his Baron Samedi . Now as the pain rapped on his consciousness with the fervor of a newly converted zealot, Flow pled with the Baron to take him from his grave. He was overcome by the memories of his boyhood, when he used to sing the songs taught to him by the neighborhood, botanical priest. He sang to Dambala to shed
Tricia had volunteered at several North D.C. community centers throughout the summer. It was her way of giving back, of feeling connected when life at Georgetown got to be a bit too surreal. She didn’t party. The only thing she hit hard was the books. She spent most of her time in the library researching and writing. She loved to write, mostly non-fiction, current event shorts. She loved to tell stories about real people, the kind of people that roamed the streets in Northwest. Her stories went mostly unnoticed, appearing in The Hoya , usually behind all of the NCAA basketball coverage, and the Greek Life’s events calendar. These were picked up by the local news outlets that needed to fill twenty seconds of a forty-five-second clip about her tragically short life. What they did not find was her latest expose, an intriguing tale about a few street junkies who had disappeared after visiting a new community clinic, where they may have been recipients of an unknown drug treatment. Rumor had it that they had all suffered strokes. She wanted to bring awareness about the new clinic and its treatments. The truth was that no one cared what street people died of or that they had died at all. People only started caring when preppy college kids from well-to-do families wound up in hospitals or morgues. Then there would be feigned outrage about drugs and drug culture. There would be outcry for more treatment options for the innocent children who had become unwitting addicts of the drugs forced upon them by the nefarious influence that oozed from the dark parts of the District.
Muffled sounds came from the trunk. His shooter, Flow was coming to after several hours of barbiturate-induced unconsciousness. He would be the perfect fall guy. His prints would be all over the gun. He’d have gunshot residue on his hands and clothes. He’d be found with the stolen car that fit the description of the one seen by witnesses of the deadly drive-by. The police would conveniently find that the car had been stolen from the shooter’s neighborhood. The case would be closed before it could even be reported by the media. The police would have their collar. Everyone would pat themselves on the back for solving a tragic murder. Vigils would be held, and the community would heal, until the next senseless murder.
John pulled his purloined, mid-90s, silver-gray sedan into Flow ’s apartment complex a few miles away from the counter and waited a few minutes to make sure that the parking garage was clear. His reconnaissance team had confirmed that the cameras in the parking garage had not worked in years. He stepped out of the car, walking calmly, steadily, and with smooth, swift precision toward the trunk of the sedan. He opened the trunk lid and pulled the still incoherent Flow out of the trunk, like a toddler removing a ragdoll from a storage bin.
Flow struggled to stand as his emaciated frame shook violently. Years of crack addiction, alcoholism, and when he could score some, cocaine binges had eaten away at his flesh. Sinew and decalcified bone remained. Flow’s vacuous eyes met John’s. Tears and vitreous humor pooled into his bottom eyelids, a result of the prolonged beating he had sustained at the hands of his captor, his Baron Samedi . Now as the pain rapped on his consciousness with the fervor of a newly converted zealot, Flow pled with the Baron to take him from his grave. He was overcome by the memories of his boyhood, when he used to sing the songs taught to him by the neighborhood, botanical priest. He sang to Dambala to shed
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