basically wonderful.

The Perseids.

Read my sister B’s account of last night below, with my follow-up afterward:

madras:

So.
The meteor showers were going on tonight.
We decided to go back to the beach a bit earlier during the peak to check them out. Anamarie, my mom, Rachel, Adam and me. We meet up at the parking lot. We go down to the sand. We see a few meteors, we’re quiet and relaxed. I notice five guys coming up the beach by the water. They’re talking, getting closer, and asking each other “Is that people? Are those people?” and they wandered closer and closer. “Is that a dog?!” the one asked, staring at Adam, getting really close. We said no, we’re people! they asked us what we were doing. We said we were looking at the meteor shower.
“What’s a meteor?” the dumbest one asked.
“Shooting stars.”
“Can we sit with you?”
“Um…”
They moved on. Not too far off. Adam, Rachel and I grew still, not paying attention so much to the night sky as we were to the group of young black guys talking a little bit away. One was carrying a big stick. We all agreed later on that we should’ve left then—but they weren’t far enough away to get away if we wanted to. We tried to listen to what they were saying without much luck. And then they start walking back towards us, stumbling around, acting drunk.
“Any of you got a light?” one asked.
“Nope.”
“You got a light?”
“No, sorry dude.”
“You got any money? We need some gas money.”
I’m reaching for my phone in the front pocket of my hoodie, Adam is sitting up, Rachel’s going for her phone. This is not going to end well. They’re kind of surrounding us.
We’re all praying for safety.
“No, sorry, we don’t have any cash,” Adam says.
“It doesn’t cost money to look at the stars!” Rachel chimes in.
Adam is getting to his feet, dialing his phone. The guys are still demanding that we have money, credit cards, whatever, and we should give it to them. We honestly weren’t carrying anything on us—everything was in the cars.
“We don’t want any trouble, come on guys, just leave us alone,” Adam says calmly.
“You’ve got money. Give us some money. Credit cards?”
“No, that’s all in the car.”
“Where’s the car?”
“You want my car? Here, here’s the keys,” Adam tosses them to him and gives him his phone. I dialed 911, I’m still sitting, I have it facing down so they can’t see. Rachel had gotten up, moved towards the water.
“Why are you on your phone? WHO YOU CALLIN’?!?” The dumb bitch asks us.
Rachel drops the phone, “I DROPPED IT! I PUT IT DOWN!” her hands are in the air, the phone is laying in the sand but she had 911 on the line.
The motherfuckers are giggling. They say they’ll shoot us, we can’t call anyone, they’ve got a gun. We told them to take the car, all the stuff in it. The one bitch throws the stick at Adam. He was singling him out. Adam goes, ”Hey, hey, we’re not going anywhere. We won’t follow you! Just take the car!”
“We’ll shoot you!”
And then they fired off a shot, giggled, and ran off like the little bitch ass pussies they were.
We waited. No one was hurt. I was dialing 911 again. This area being GAY they have to transfer the call. WHILE WE DIE. (regaling that part to the one cop later had him laughing. okay, it is funny, BUT NOT.)
Anamarie is crying. I feel horrible. She is very sensitive. She was terrified—rightly so.
“Come on. We’re going this way. Let’s go towards the houses. NOW!” Adam says calmly, quietly, but forcefully. We went towards the water where it was dark, heading east, away from the parking lot where the fuckers were going.
Anamarie joined a fitness weight loss challenge at Rachel’s work a couple weeks ago and has been working out. Even my mom has worked out a little. Rachel and I left our flipflops in the sand and we took off towards the water’s edge and were running.
“Why aren’t they following?” Adam demanded, looking back and seeing my mom and Anamarie all but standing still.
Rachel and I are on the phone with 911, saying where we were, which direction we were going in, etc. They would send out police. I tweeted “We just got shot at” as I’m running. BECAUSE TWITTER IS IMPORTANT IN THESE SITUATIONS. If you don’t tweet about it, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Anamarie and my mom are not keeping up. Adam and Rachel forge ahead, cutting across the beach towards the dunes and towards houses that are along the beach.
I stay in the middle. Adam ran back to drag Anamarie forward. Then they caught up and, still barefoot, we climbed up the dune through grasses, stickers, leaves and sand. I would’ve never been able to traverse that a few months ago. Thank God I’m in better shape. THANK GOD Anamarie has been working out. Because otherwise she would’ve NEVER made it.
Adam and Rachel got over the first hill, warned us it was steep coming down, went up the second dune which was on the street. I saw my mom and Anamarie still on the beach—barely making it up the hill.
I stopped, called back to them as I heard Anamarie sobbing brokenly, gasping for breath, and freaking out, “Take off your flip flops! I’m barefoot, it’s much easier that way! I’ll carry them! Come on, Anamarie, IT’S NOT THAT HARD. YOU CAN DO IT.” They’re still not keeping up. I went back down the hill, grabbed Anamarie’s arm and started pulling her. She held onto me for dear life, still gasping.
“Don’t cry right now. You need to take deep breaths or you won’t make it. It’s not that hard, we can climb this hill. It’s okay. Come on, it’s fine. You can’t stop, you don’t need to stop.”
We were trying to come down the hill, she’s almost making me fall. My mom fell. It was dark out—hard to navigate.
“I want to go home!” she cried.
“We can’t go home if we don’t make it to the street! It’s okay, we’re fine as long as we make this climb. It’s not hard, don’t think about it, you can do this.” I kept urging her on, and of course coming down the hill she lost her footing, fell face first. I felt horrible.
“Calm down, just roll over, just roll down the hill. Don’t bother trying to get up, it’s okay.”
She’s sobbing into the leaves and my heart is breaking. “I CAN’T!”
“Yes, you can, it’s not far to go. Come on!!” She rolled awkwardly, got to her feet. After that it was pretty much flat. I pressed on, knowing they could make it now. I met up with Rachel and Adam by a lightpole. We ducked down as cars drove by, wondering if it was those little fucking bastards. My mom called to me from around the last little incline, the grass high so she couldn’t see us.
“Rebekah! Where are you?”
“We’re right here. It’s not far, just keep coming, you’ll see us.” And then they emerged, and I gave Anamarie back her flipflops and we met up with a cop in the street.

That was around 11. The car was recovered in a church parking lot not far away because of OnStar. We got our flipflops and blankets. Going with funny Officer George in the cruiser, looking for the shell casing. No such luck. There were enough of us to say that we definitely got shot at, attempted murder.
We chatted, CSI came out, we watched the meteors streak across the sky.
CSI guy was a big roly poly black guy, whistling the theme song for the Addams Family. Badly. Adam bummed a cigarette off of Officer George. He kept us company as we waited. Anamarie was much better and had a scratch on her face from falling. She was almost paralyzed with fear, hyperventilating as we were making our escape earlier. Thank God Adam, Rachel, my mom and I keep pretty calm under pressure.
Adam got grazed by the bullet. Barely at all, but that’s the good part.
When CSI was done taking pictures and bagging evidence, he turned his Explorer around, gave a honk and Officer George told us, “He has to take care of that truck—he won’t get another!”
“Or he’ll use a bicycle to get around!” Rachel joked.
Straightfaced, Officer George said, “Not that man.”
we all burst out laughing as the dude was quite, um, rotund.

What a night. WHAT A NIGHT.
Is there really ever a dull moment in my life? Honestly.

“I almost died,” I said, “Now I have to live my life to the fullest.”
Dread-tinged, my mother groaned, “Oh no, what does THAT mean?”
muahahahahahaha.

I said I tweeted when we were running by the water.
“Dude, you were tweeting when you were running away from the gunshot?!” Adam asked.
“Yeah…”
“That’s fucking awesome.”
I can drink, smoke, drive AND tweet at the same time. Running and tweeting ain’t shit! 

Anna saw our tweets. She called me. “WHAT’S GOING ON!?!?” this was before, when we were looking for the shell casing. I explained a bit of what was going on. I had invited her and Dan back out again, thank GOD they stayed home. We’re all thankful. I would’ve thrown myself on her to protect her. God knows Dan would’ve fainted. He hates guns. We all agreed we didn’t want to think about how he would’ve reacted.
But anyway. We’re all alive. Anamarie commented in the church parking lot, sitting in the car, much improved from before, “It’s midnight!” grousing that it was so late.
“And we’re alive to see it,” I pointed out.
“Oh, well, that’s the good part!” she agreed.
heheheh.

We had all been praying when the guys walked by the first time. No going back now and undoing it—and either way it would’ve happened—it might’ve been worse if we HAD gotten up and left. They were really close, could’ve jumped us from behind and gotten both cars.
Unfortunately Adam and Rachel both had their wallets, purse, laptop, camera, etc in the car as Adam had been on surveillance and working.
There was a brief moment I wanted to cry, right after the adrenaline started to wear off, as we were standing at the cop car having just come over the dunes. I remember walking a fairly flat, level path from the parking lot to the beach with Anna and Rachel the other week and almost dying from exhaustion. Heaven knows under normal circumstances, and certainly NOT barefoot, never would I have been able to climb up the dunes and get to the road in the daylight—let alone by the light of the stars.
At one point as I looked back at Anamarie and my mom, I saw the moon starting to rise on the horizon of the lake. It was blood red. I thought on a breath, “It’s beautiful.” I admired it for a while, called back to them to follow once more, and then turned and kept going.

I am so thankful Adam is brave and calm. I am so glad that nothing happened. I am thankful Rachel and I had our phones, that we were able to think clearly enough to call 911. I am so glad Anamarie touched her toes for the first time ever at the gym earlier—not knowing that in a few hours she would need that new found strength to possibly save her life. Thank God I didn’t bring one of my dogs—either it would’ve deterred them or they would’ve shot the dog, and I would’ve probably gone batshit crazy and ripped their jugulars out with my bare teeth. Only in the bowels of hell exists what I would do to the person who would kill my dog.

It could’ve happened anywhere. Anytime. We prayed, God definitely protected us, we are safe and sound.

It’s almost been 24 hours since it happened. It seems like just minutes ago and years ago all at the same time. We’ve discussed/dissected this at length today, and the way things played out was really the BEST way it could have gone.

Adam has shown everyone his wound. It’s superficial, BUT A BULLET GRAZED MY HUSBAND PEOPLE. When he puts his arms to his side you can see if the shooter was just 6 inches to the right it would have hit Adam smack in the center of the chest. Terrifying.

This morning I had to use tweezers to pull debris out of the bottom of my foot. I’ve been limping all day; my feet are killing me. But when people are shooting at you, you don’t think, you just ACT. You don’t care; you run blindly over grass and dunes and marsh and sticks. Splinters are a small price to pay for your safety.

I talked out the situation with a friend from work. When they fired at us, I immediately dropped to the sand; my friend said they probably thought they shot me. I mentioned this to Adam today and he said that’s what he thought intially too. If it helped their exit then good.

EVERYONE I talked to said the safest thing would be to run down to the water. Which is exactly what we did. The most heart-wrenching moment was looking back at Anamarie, who was lagging behind a bit. She reached out to me and sobbed “Rachel!” and I about lost it as I grabbed her hand and ran with her.

I have been eerily calm throughout this whole thing. I never got an adrenaline rush. I never felt emotional or like crying. Mostly, I’m pissed off. These men were animals. Coldblooded, heartless animals. They were literally giggling the entire time. When you can giggle as you rob someone and shoot someone—you are a monster.

When this has happened to you—when someone has threatened your life and your loved ones in such a callous manner—you don’t question life without parole. You don’t question the death penalty. WHY WOULD YOU WANT SOMEONE LIKE THAT OUT ON THE STREET? TERRORIZING PEOPLE? Would you want these men out on the street? Passing you on the sidewalk? We’ve already said when they catch them—there will be no plea barganing. I will not back down. They’re doing time.

My friend pointed out that when someone has taken your belongings—your car keys, your phone, they have what they want, you’re cooperating—and they STILL shoot at you, they are bastards. It’s weird, but there are different levels of criminals, and to act the way THEY did shows they are some of the BAD ones. The worst of the worst.

Attempted murder.

Grand theft auto.

Armed robbery.

While they laugh at us. While they shoot at us. Hit us with tree limbs.

They were idiots too—used the phone they stole from Adam and called a number. We already got the name and address for the number. Now if only Gary PD would call us back so we can get moving on this solid lead.

One foot in front of the other. Pray for action, resolution, justice, peace.