Thinking Criminally

From time to time, the matter of safety from crime comes up here where I live. Sometimes it's something I read that others don't see, and yet when I'm out and about, it's most often those around me who feel unsafe and I who fail to see any particular reason for concern. Often I make a quick trip on foot out to the mailbox late at night, and am surprised to be cautioned about doing so. Other times, ladies leaving a party or other social engagement at a similar hour either request escort or have it foisted upon them. That's a reasonable course of action, of course. I just don't think of it because I generally don't feel unsafe except in the worst quarters of the city.

It isn't that I'm unaware of my surroundings. I guess that I just have a different methodology for determining whether or not it's warranted to feel unsafe. Frequently the outcome is the same either way. When I was ignorant of what was what downtown, I was definitely ill at ease when walking through the Fashion District at night. The thing is just that for me, red flags are raised by more than tents on the sidewalk and young men displaying commonly recognized gang paraphernalia.

Recently, there was a striking crime of disposition both grisly and mysterious, and it was not so far away. The crime unfolded at a restaurant with a very interesting reputation. It had inexplicably remained open in spite of no activity in evidence inside and only men in suits smoking out front. Those who entered with the objective of getting something to eat were invariably made to feel extremely unwelcome, and further noted that the staff seemed to have no clue about what they were doing (not remarkable in itself).Then one day, when it was inexplicably packed, violence erupted.

Had I laid eyes on this business in advance, I can't say I would have predicted what happened. I would have, however, made a stronger conclusion than to say the place was just a bad place to eat or even shady. My inference in this case from the first would have been the involvement of organized crime, and it seems all the more clear now. There was a similar pizza place in my previous neighborhood. I thought at the time that it was awfully odd that they would frequently be closed for long hours during the middle of the day (There was also a locksmith like that, but it's hard at the moment to see more in that that an inept proprietor), and figured it was something like this other place turned out to be.

It's a thing that tends to remind me of the embattled, fatalistic soldier under assault by bombing raids. He would find solace in the belief that each bomb had a name on it: a predestined individual or set of individuals. So long as his name was not on the bombs, he was safe. For him it was a philosophical conceit to cling to; for me, there are practical reasons to feel that I myself was not vulnerable to this one.

As I said, there's the appearance of organized crime in the thing. Those who have no affiliations of that kind, and have not crossed anyone who does may continue to feel safe from such a thing, it seems to me. Naturally, an offense of this nature is to be addressed and all that is behind it eradicated, but I will not live differently even as that remains to be done, because I'm certain my name's not on that one.