michael murray

Around midnight on Saturday, Rachelle and I heard a sort of pandemonium out in front of our apartment on Queen East. There was the sound of frantic shouting and the pulse of movement and velocity. In short, there was the sound and feeling of a fierce, uncontrollable energy.

We went out to the balcony, which is one floor above the street, and saw a teenaged boy lying unconscious on the curb directly across the street. He was not moving, not even a little. A few people attended to him, but it was clear that they had no idea what to do. An alarm from the public library began to sound and people, in a panic, were running in crazy, pointless directions, as if their circuitry had been broken. Young women covered their faces and wept, while young men with clenched fists, screaming with rage, searched for an enemy.

WHO DID THIS?!

WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?!

And then one of them would take a swing at somebody.

There were perhaps 20 teens on the street, all of them presumably having just left the Lotus concert at The Opera House a block away, and the ungovernable energy that was springing out of their bodies was both awesome and frightening.

Almost instantly the police arrived and began to mediate things. Older, larger and wiser, they intimidated the teens into some semblance of order. With a scowl on his face, a Cop who must have been about 55, pushed a boy up against the wall. And as he did this, and the boy’s spirit just vanished, you could see just how young the boy was. Over his shoulder, the Cop yelled at another boy, “ TAKE FIVE STEPS BACK!! AND NOW, TAKE ANOTHER TWO BACK!! And the teens obeyed, relieved to have found an authority figure to seize control of the terrifying situation.

Streetcars passed slowly by, some passengers staring at the scene, while others, unaware, flipped through the newspaper or sent text messages to friends. Rachelle and I in our housecoats, stood above it, as if in a box in a theatre, where under streetlamps, something utterly crucial and immediate was unfolding.

Rachelle squeezed my arm.

“I can’t stop thinking about that poor boy’s mother. She’s going to get a phone call in an hour or two telling her that her son won’t be coming home.”

And we just stood there, watching until the boy, the last one to leave the scene, was placed in the back of the ambulance and taken away.