Vampire Town

I consider myself lucky; I’ve never had that moment of knowing.

What I’ve had are the other moments, the thousands of everyday moments that seep into you, an automatic static you don’t even know is there after awhile: locking the car doors the moment you’ve sat down; checking the side mirrors before you get out of the car; driving when you’d rather take the train, because you’ll be getting back too late to walk through the parking lot. Never walking at night; checking over your shoulder in the daytime; not walking too close to blind alleys or dumpsters; wearing your headphones low enough that you can still hear everything around you. Watching; being aware; being alert. Listening for that moment of still.

This is what some people call “street sense,” what other people call “common sense.” What I call “being lucky.”

Lauren Quinn’s essay “Still Moments in Vampire Town” in Vela contains a series of vignettes showing what it’s like to live in Oakland, Calif. — the “robbery capital of America”. Quinn describes a community of people being afraid to be outside at night, who have personally experienced or known someone who was robbed, and who decide that only walking in groups is safe. “It’s like living with vampires,” she tells a friend one night.

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