“It could have been anyone.” That’s what a guy named Sonny said, when I was standing outside Pal’s this afternoon. I had walked down there with Miz Vera — my block’s mayor — who was toting her own Miller Lite.
Nia Robertson’s friends and family were there, peering in the mail slot of Pal’s, checking to see if there was a security camera. (There was.) Maybe 10 bouquets leaned gently against the worn out doors, which were padlocked. A sign in the window says “Pal’s is closed for a family emergency; please lend us your thoughts and prayers.”
Sonny was tan, curly hair, tattoos; a bike lock and a rope snaked up his right arm. You could tell he was trying to help. He looked each of us in the eye as he told us all about the blood. He told us she said, why me, why me, why did he do this to me, until she died. He said everyone liked her, which was true. Her friends — the ones who came up with her, who knew her since she was small — couldn’t take it, and disappeared behind a big white car, and wailed in the street. But they also thanked him with great grace, and Vera embraced one woman, two, a touch on the arm from each of us, a benediction, arms around shoulders and tears and comfort. We all told each other we were sorry for the loss, and for each of us the loss was different: a friend, a bar, a neighborhood.
It’s not a bad time to remember what Mayor Nagin said recently about crime:
Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It’s not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. Sure it hurts, but we have to keep working everyday to make the city better.
Officer…Friendly, I don’t know who — came up to Vera and me and wanted us to go to the neighborhood meeting, at the First District police station, next Tuesday. He didn’t know me, but he looked at me, not expectantly. Hopefully. Plaintively. Please come, he seemed to say, not with words, but with his voice. And I promised I would.
