I think we're calling it "The Bourke Street Incident"

[lizbee]

I've gotten into the habit of talking a walk on my lunchbreak. Usually I head down Bourke Street, into the mall, and wander around the department stores or accidentally fall into a bookshop. (I've also gotten into the habit of not taking my purse on these walks, for budgetary reasons.)

Yesterday, I almost didn't take a walk at all, but the Acclaimed YA Novel I was reading got on my nerves, so I changed my mind. I stepped outside around 1:30, looked down at Bourke Street, then impulsively went in the opposite direction. There was a helicopter hovering overhead, and I thought about tweeting something like, "The inauguration hasn't even happened, and we're already on high alert!" but decided it would be tasteless. I opened Pokemon Go, switched on the final episode of the podcast In The Dark, and headed down Lonsdale Street.

I had a quick look inside a discount book store, and I went into JB Hi-Fi to see if they carried the discount Spencer Tracy collection I spotted at a suburban outlet. I don't love Tracy, but this set had Desk Set, which I'm told is great, and Judgement at Nuremberg, which also features Marlene Dietrich and Montgomery Clift, plus it was only $12.98. I didn't have my purse, of course, but if it was there, I might go back after work.

I started heading back to work around 1:50. I'd planned to walk a block south and go up via Bourke Street, but I decided that I didn't have time. I'm almost the only person in the office, and none of my employers were around to notice if I was a few minutes late returning from lunch, but I decided that I didn't want to set that precedent for the year. So I went back the way I came, catching a Cubone along the way.

As I waited to cross Lonsdale Street, I heard sirens, and spotted a police car careening down the wrong side of the road and pulling into Queen Street. It waited for a few seconds, but the traffic on Queen was all banked up, so it pulled out into the oncoming lane and continued.

That's interesting, I thought, only my observation was less thoughtful and more amused: Apparently there are shenanigans afoot! Four years of transcribing police and court matters makes you a bit callous, and the true crime podcasts probably don't help. I pictured some kind of brawl, or maybe an incident at the controversial homeless camp on Flinders Street.

When I got back to my desk, my inbox was full of friends discussing the sirens and police presence. "Apparently a guy drove up onto the footpath on Bourke Street and started shooting."

Twitter had more details: a man had driven through the Bourke Street mall, mowing down pedestrians, then careened up the footpath. Shots may or may not have been fired. A baby had been thrown from its pram.

After that, it was just a matter of watching The Age's liveblog and Twitter.

For a few minutes, I had the same reaction I always get when events like this unfold: "This is worth paying attention to because it's going to be important in weeks or years to come, and also it's very interesting."

Then my brain belatedly went, "Ummmmmm, I came this close to being right there, it is only because I felt like a change and a Spencer Tracy movie that I wasn't a witness or a victim."

So I texted my parents and siblings to let them know I'm fine, just in case they heard the news, and settled in for an afternoon-long anxiety attack, coupled with a very fun sense of self-loathing for Making It All About Me.

But seriously, I could have been there -- and so could lots of my friends and former colleagues. Two former co-workers used to be in the building opposite the spot where the guy finally crashed. Another friend works just up the street. Several friends had colleagues, friends or relatives who were witnesses or near misses. This was very close to home.

And then, of course, I spiralled into "What if I had been there, and injured, while carrying nothing but my phone? Who would feed the cat/call my parents/get my bag from work/notify my bosses/return my library books?" Good times!

(Self, your parents' numbers are right there in your phone, from there, everything else could be taken care of. Including the cat.)

Eventually I managed to stop reading the news, and switched to Reddit -- and only spent a couple of minutes reading r/Melbourne. r/JUSTNOMIL was ... oddly soothing? Largely unrelated? Anyway, it was not the most productive afternoon, but I got out of the cycle of catastrophising and ramping up my anxiety.

I still needed a massage when I got out of work, mind, and then I treated myself to a therapeutic burger and pomegranate fro-yo. And then I was in bed by nine. But I slept okay -- the cat woke me up from a nightmare by gently biting me, he is the worst therapy cat ever -- and woke to the news that the baby whose crushed pram is all over the news is still alive. In intensive care, which can't be good when you're only three months old, but fighting. I can't even imagine what her parents must be going through, or the families of the other people killed. One of the victims is a ten-year-old girl.

...I had said more, but I jumped into another tab to get a link, and Dreamwidth reverted to an older saved draft. Point form:

- the alleged perpetrator is alive, albeit with a gunshot wound, so the trial should be interesting. (See that "alleged" I threw in there? Something, something sub judice.) The media is reporting that he has a history of family violence, just like all those other guys who commit acts of mass violence, it's almost like it's a clearer warning sign than religious extremism...
- an hour after the police stated that this was not a terrorist attack, the New York Times ran a story implying that it was. This led to Americans arguing on Twitter about the guy's "Middle Eastern heritage". Guys, he's Greek-Australian, come on.
- I think I've curated my social media well, because what I saw on Twitter was largely confined to reality.
- Just as I went to bed last night, I realised that I probably had this extreme of a reaction because my period is about to start, and remember, premenstrual dysphoric disorder makes me very anxious. So I've largely stopped beating myself up, and now that I've written everything down here, I feel like I can put it all aside and get on with other things.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

I'm glad you're safe.

It's okay to have thoughts about how these things relate to you, especially if you're that close. I've been close enough to violent incidents to get freaked out like that before (not involved or a witness to anything, but that kind of "If these plans hadn't changed" near-miss), and jumping immediately to how it affects you is pretty common. I think it's something to do with safety and survival stuff kicking in, and not fight-or-flight panic, but a general sense of being keyed up and gravitating towards practicalities? (Like even when I was checking up on friends, it was in a very "What should I do? Should I go get them?" way.)

[lizbee]

That's good to know! I've never been in a situation like this before -- thank you!

Practicalities: like, I should probably take work up on their offer of first aid training?

[nonelvis]

What wolfy_writing said. If you don't think everyone in the Boston area, myself included, wondered what would have happened if we'd been downtown the day of the Marathon bombing, or been at that gas station the day the terrorists hijacked a car (and I've been to that station, more than once), or been in the Watertown neighborhood where the endgame went down ... well, you'd be wrong. What your brain took you through is completely normal.

Mostly, I'm glad you're okay, and I'm glad the baby is doing well, too.

(Also: yes, take up work on their offer. It's good to know that info even if you never have to use it.)

[wolfy_writing]

First aid training sounds good. If you end up needing it, it can really help. Plus, I find it helpful to have as a thing to think about - like a lot of what would have been free-floating worries turns into thinking through tangible things like what I'd use to improvise a splint, or who I'd send bystanders to call. (I've lived in many countries without an emergency services number.)

[lizbee]

Yeah, that's what I thought -- otherwise, my main recourse in any emergency would be to flap my hands nervously and call emergency services.

[wolfy_writing]

That last bit actually really helpful, but it's good to know more.

[recessional]

Yup. Basically in the presence of perceived threat to life or limb, even if it doesn't get to fight-or-flight yet, the brain pulls back from complex processing and into immediate-processing - to parts of the brain that are inherently very selfish and concerned with YOU and YOUR PEOPLE. Which basically makes your thoughts likely to get stuck there until the threat-response chemicals ease off and your brain starts relaxing.

It's almost impossible not to have that moment, inside your head, if an event has remotely freaked you out. (One can def choose whether or not to share that moment and with whom! But HAVING it is basically non-optional.)

[nostalgia]

glad you are safe etc

[lizbee]

Thanks bb! <3

[recessional]

The media is reporting that he has a history of family violence, just like all those other guys who commit acts of mass violence, it's almost like it's a clearer warning sign than religious extremism...

GOSH REALLY!

(At least large chunks of actual law enforcement know this, too. I have heard MANY A FRUSTRATED RANT. It's almost like violence is a regular predictor of violence!*)



*before someone brings it up: yes in a vanishingly small number of cases people jump from total lack of violence to horrific violence. They are genuinely a tiny. fucking. number. of cases. The cases where violence is a reliable predictor of violence, however, are MYRIAD.

[lizbee]

Yeah, the police released a statement pointing out that they strongly opposed bail for this guy. Legal shake-ups will presumably ensue, although the media is pulling back a bit for now, since the guy will face a jury trial.

[divinemusings]

That's so scary. I'm really glad you're okay. <3

[lizbee]

Thank you <3

[musesfool]

How frightening! I'm so glad you're okay. And as others have said, I think it's perfectly normal to wonder about what you'd have done/what would have happened if you'd been there, especially if on any other day, you probably would have been!

[lizbee]

Thanks. I appreciate the reassurance a lot!

[capalxii]

Glad you're OK, and what everyone else said: those thoughts are normal after an event like this. It's not selfish or anything like that.

[lizbee]

Thanks -- I really did need to hear it!

[deird1]

Glad you're okay. None of my people are working in the city at the moment, so I wasn't having to frantically call people - but I have been wondering about all my acquaintances whose workplaces I don't know...

[ms_prue]

Very glad you're safe (and also not mentally beating yourself up anymore).

[branwyn]

I had only just gotten out of bed when I saw your FB post saying you were okay, so I googled what was going on. I'M REALLY GLAD YOUR WHIMS LED YOU TO SAFETY.

But I know what you mean about having reactions that go back and forth from detachment to WHAT ABOUT ME to guilt--last year a man was shot in a drive-by at the end of my street, and at first it was just "lol, another day in Bodymore," then it was "I am literally walking past that exact spot 3-4 days a week, it's just chance I wasn't there to witness it", and THEN it was "but if I HAD been there maybe I could have stopped the bleeding in time for the ambulance to get there" because the character of my neighborhood is such that people hunker down inside their apartments rather than try to help, and it spiraled from there into frustrated feelings about crime and endemic poverty and how it impacts communities and when it was all over I realized I was an asshole who didn't even bother to look up the guy's name.

So yes, I am glad you're okay, and I hope the victims recover, and you obviously have very sound instincts, you should keep following them.

(I didn't really like Desk Set? I watched it during my brief semester in library school because a professor recommended it. It started out great, with Katherine Hepburn's powers of information organization conquering all, and then it ended on a note of "of course men know best in the end and the brainy woman is happiest when she submits to male authority.)

[lizbee]

I've heard -- on You Must Remember This? -- that most Hepburn movies end that way, because that was how Hollywood made her feminism palatable. It certainly explains why The Philadelphia Story doesn't end with her running away with Jimmy Stewart, the only man who knows you don't fuck drunk women.

Your experience with the shooting is EXACTLY how I would have reacted. It's almost humorous, in a bleak way.

[prof_pangaea]

meanwhile just fifteen minutes ago i was planning what i'd do with my cat if there was a drive-by or a shoutout on my street (ie run into the bathroom with him and that's basically it since we don't have a tub to hide in) just because my brain likes to plan for catastrophic things with little provocation (i heard a noise outside). so basically i'm like "how did your brain not go to 'what if I had gotten hit by a stray bullet?'" and then gone into "WOULD MY CAT DIE WHILE I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL???" because that's what my brain would have done.

[branwyn]

I do understand, on a logical level, that a stray bullet (or, my neighborhood being what it is, an intentional bullet) could paralyze me, destroy all high brain function, put me on a colostomy bag for the rest of my life, etc. But I don't feel that fear on a visceral level. My instinct, stronger now than it used to be, is to run towards the source of the trouble. "What if I get hit by a stray bullet" is, I imagine, what everyone else in my neighborhood is thinking.

1) Do people really still say "shootout"? I thought was from Westerns.
2) OF COURSE YOUR CAT WON'T DIE, YOUR SISTER WILL LOOK AFTER HIM.

[branwyn]

Oh! Since you listen to In the Dark, have you tried Someone Knows Something? I found the first season interesting, but the second season is about a different case and as terrible as this will sound, I found the main witness to have such an annoying voice that I couldn't keep listening to her.

[lizbee]

I've thought about it, but I'm not sure how keen I am for a true crime podcast with no certain resolution. I had to stop Serial for the same reason, and also Bowraville, an Australian podcast about the probable serial murder of three Indigenous kids.

[branwyn]

I am probably the only true crime fan who couldn't finish the first episode of Serial. As weird as this will sound, I become hugely anxious about false imprisonment, so an investigation into potential miscarriages of justice are too stressful to listen to. I think it comes back to my whole huge trigger about people coming from out of nowhere and telling me I did something horrible when I had no idea I was doing anything wrong, and having to submit to a punishment I didn't know I was setting myself up for?

[rj_anderson]

That is TERRIFYING and I think your reaction is entirely understandable. In fact I'd be amazed if your mind hadn't jumped straight to "That could have been me / someone I know." To me it doesn't seem at all like a sign of callousness, but rather of identification -- a reminder to yourself that the people affected were every bit as real as you and your friends are, even if you can't feel as strongly for them as you would if it had happened to you or someone you know well.

I hope the baby will be all right, but those other poor kids (and adults). What a horrible thing.

On the more positive side, I watched Judgment at Nuremberg many years ago and thought it was amazing (and this was back when I tended to assume that all black-and-white films would be dull, badly acted and cheesy, because those were the only kinds of B&W films I'd ever come across flipping channels on TV). I may also have developed a minor and short-lived crush on Maximilian Schell, enough to make me look up Topkapi (but not enough to make me watch past the first ten minutes or so, despite my love of heist movies. I can't recall why, though).

[lizbee]

In fact I'd be amazed if your mind hadn't jumped straight to "That could have been me / someone I know." To me it doesn't seem at all like a sign of callousness, but rather of identification -- a reminder to yourself that the people affected were every bit as real as you and your friends are, even if you can't feel as strongly for them as you would if it had happened to you or someone you know well.

That makes me feel a LOT better! Even though I did just turn to the cat and smugly tell him that I'm not self-absorbed, I'm just empathetic. (He seemed unimpressed.)

[copracat]

Glad you are okay. And, you know what everyone else said. Like they say on the planes, secure your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others.

I loved Desk Set, and probably overlooked all the misogyny simply for love of Kate, please see Desk Set icon which I am posting out of season for joy of herself.

[lizbee]

IT'S OKAY, I AM GOING TO SEE DESK SET. As soon as I find that DVD collection again. I'm resigned to all of Hepburn's movies ending with her learning a very important lesson about being nicer to men.

Your reminder about the oxygen masks is just what I needed!

[ironed_orchid]

I'm glad you followed a whim and turned the other way.

We found out through a work email saying that everyone in Melbourne location just off Bourke Street Mall was safe and accounted for, and that they were closing up and going home. I had goosebumps thinking about how close they were, and then as I read the news serious shivers as I read about the baby in the pram.

My social media feeds were all very good, people checking in and linking to trauma hotlines and police statements that it was a random act by a person with a history of family violence.

The only fail I saw was when I clicked on individual tweets and fb posts, including ABC news and Vic Police and saw idiots commenting that it was a Muslim terrorist plot. Other people were shutting them down, so I blocked and moved on.

[maidenjedi]

Really glad you're alright. What a terrible thing to have happen, and so near where you are!

[falena]

I'm glad you were safe. Such a close shave would have thrown anyone for a loop, I think.

[kerravonsen]

*moar hugs*

[deslea]

I'm glad you're safe. :)

[skygiants]

That sounds really terrifying and like an EXTREMELY NORMAL reaction to such a thing. I'm glad you're OK!

(Is Desk Set the one where Katharine Hepburn is a librarian struggling with a giant computer?)

[fallingtowers]

Oh god, that was close to your workplace?! (I only heard some vagueish news stories here, mostly because the MO was so similar to the actual terror attack in Berlin, and then I decided I didn't want to know any more details after all.)

I'm glad that you and your friends and former colleagues are all safe, and I hope that you've recovered from that anxiety attack by now. ♥ Please don't beat yourself up too much for Making It All About You: I think freaking out in that way is just a normal response to intense stress that makes our survival instinct kick into action.

(Or at least that's what I keep telling myself: I was stuck right in the middle of a city-wide traffic / public transport shutdown due to a mass shooting mistaken for a terrorist attack last year, and I was pretty much a sobbing mess because I was convinced I'd been gunned down in the street or something.)