The Naked City

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City....and this is one of them."

Since October is over and with it Australia month, and the election has terminated, I feel it is time to add a new segment to the Free-Lancer. The concept really isn't new, and I could feasibly retroactively include a few earlier posts under the heading, but now I'm making it official.

The Naked City: Atlanta

I don't much care for the city, its people, its smells, its size, its murders. Yet for a few years now I have made my home in the Capital of the South and, having attended school and now working full time in the heart of the downtown I have seen a great deal of ridiculous things. Here is where I will recount them as I see fit.

Today, November 11th 2008, a crazed black man runs from the Peachtree Center Marta Train Station brandishing a long, bloodied blade. The man, with madness in his eyes and murder on his hands is fleeing for his life through the very epicenter of Georgia State University. Students walk to class unawares that death is today's guest lecturer.
For the students of GSU, a dirty-looking black man running through campus is not an unusual sight, in fact you could almost set your watch by them. Thus, the man with the knife crosses through campus unmolested, his feet carrying him swiftly away from his unjust deed towards an unexpected, but inevitable confrontation.
Woodruff park, the centerpiece to the GSU campus is alive this morning like it is every morning with loiters and bums, chess players and panhandlers. The man with the knife runs to this park, hoping maybe to loose himself in the sea of black faces, nappy roots, and Obama T-shirts. Inside he meets Johnny Law.
Johnny is older now then when he joined the force. His hair is white and his gut is copiously fed on the good life. The APB has gone out, and Johnny has just been jarred from his boredom by the news. He rushes to the center of the park, his hand on his hip-holster and his jaw set in determination. Johnny's seen a lot in his time, and he's ready for anything. Anything, except for our man and his knife.
Maybe Johnny has too much faith in mankind, maybe he was just rusty, but when he stepped in front of the perpetrator running towards him in Woodruff Park this morning, he made one, painful error: he didn't shoot first and ask questions later. The crazed black man with the knife, having killed once already, doesn't think twice about what he is going to do when he sees Johnny bar his way to freedom. He charges straight forward, knife out, and stabs for the heart.
Now Johnny's been pierced, his blood has been drawn. Immediately the pain shakes the rust free, the years dissipated in an instant and Johnny moves like lighting. Jumping back from the man, arching his back to avoid another thrust, he rips free his pistol from its complacency and makes that gun barrel speak volumes.
The sound echoes across the park, bouncing off of Atlanta's tall buildings, ringing through the halls of the still sleepy campus.
Johnny's done it. He's killed the man with the knife. The pistol still smokes in his hand, blood still pours from his knife wounds, but justice has been served.
Other officers arrive, the scene is taped off, and a white sheet is laid over the dead perpetrator. An ambulance is brought for Johnny Law, and he is heroically driven off to Grady Memorial Hospital. The students and lookie-loos go back about their business, to class, to work, to loitering. Another life has come to an end in the Naked City of Atlanta, and with it another story.