Shot At!

_{I was driving on the San Diego Freeway, the 405 between Marina del Rey and Hermosa Beach, on a Wednesday morning, happily thinking about lunch.  I was meeting a friend in Torrance for a few hours of pastrami sandwiches and catching up.  The freeway was busy, as always, not moving very fast.  I was relaxed, listening to Broadway show music on my car radio, singing along to “My Fair Lady” tune.  Suddenly there were three fierce popping sounds from the passenger side of my car.  I looked over to the window and saw three bullets lodged in the glass.  Oh my God, my window had been shot.  Most of it was cracked all the way through. There were pieces of glass on the seat and floor.  I didn’t know what to think or what to do. My face froze, my hands clutched the steering wheel; I kept staring over at the window and I continued to drive but slowed way down. What the fuck had just happened?  I looked over at the car in the lane to my right, and everything there seemed normal. A guy was driving, a woman sat next to him and nobody was staring at me. I checked my body to make sure I hadn’t been hit by the bullets. I didn’t feel pain or see blood.  I was as terrified as I ever remember being in my life.}

_{But what had happened?  I had paid attention to the current news about the rash of freeway shootings that had been occurring in LA over the past few weeks.   I only knew that nobody had been caught, most of the incidents had happened on a different freeway, not this one.} 

_{I called Tom, my husband, shivering and having trouble speaking.  He sounded panicked, told me to turn around immediately and come back.  When I had my first chance, I got off the freeway and headed towards my home, about fifteen miles away.  I was dizzy, my stomach was twisting into knots.  I had to control vomiting.  Every time I looked at the passenger window with the bullets lodged in the cracked glass, I screamed into the car.I knew I must call the police as I assumed I was in danger; I was waiting for something else to happen}

 _{and I felt total desperation.  But I didn’t have any idea what I would say to the police.  My car has been shot up. Somebody is trying to kill me.  I thought, “How will the cops even find me after I call?  I don’t know where I am.” I kept driving, much slower than the cars around me while they honked at me to speed up.  I drove on city streets that I didn’t know but that were going in the direction of my condo in Marina del Rey.}

_{After a few minutes my body started to shake.  My mouth trembled, my hands couldn’t stay still on the wheel, my head throbbed.  Was the shooter’s car following me?  Would it happen again?  Would the cracked glass shatter and slice me? I needed to reach my friend to cancel lunch but I couldn’t remember her number. I just wanted to go home, lock the doors and collapse in my bed.}

_{I pulled over to the side of the road and dialed 911.}   

_{A police car showed up a few moments later.  I continued shaking. One of the two cops investigated the window and told me these were pellet gun bullets, not as deadly as real gunshots but not as benign as BB guns.  But yes, they certainly could have flown through the window and hit me. They told me I was one of the few reports so far from this freeway, the 405; most were from the 91, not close to the 405.  Which probably meant there were several shooters, they explained.  They were calm and professional, not particularly compassionate.}

_{After about fifteen minutes of the cops talking with me while they filled out their report, we all concluded that I was in fair enough shape to drive home, since I was able to speak and think, and my trembling had subsided. I continued driving on.} 

_{Finally, home. Thank God.  After a sleeping pill, some herbal tea and a long hug from my husband, I was able to vanish from this planet until the next morning.  During that time Tom arranged to have the car window replaced and the broken glass cleaned up, so I would never have to confront it again.} 

_{For about two weeks afterward I couldn’t drive. I felt a near- constant pang in my stomach, and finally when I had to drive, I was always scanning the cars next to me, searching for a gun.  Or some other lethal object.  My sleep was tormented with dark dreams of danger.  A therapist friend told me I had classic PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder – often found in soldiers on the battlefield. It made sense, I felt anxiety-ridden most of my waking hours, couldn’t really face going out with women friends for lunch or other couples for dinner.  I drank vodka every night and I couldn’t think of much else but the blaring sound of the three shots, and the sight of the black bullets.  My doctor prescribed tranquilizers, which helped somewhat.}

_{I found myself thinking about death frequently, which normally I only do from time to time.  I asked myself where and what would I be now if he (I always assumed it was a “he”) had managed to kill me?  And then the everlasting question:  What comes afterward? Anything?  Nothing at all?}

_{During the two weeks after my episode, when I never heard from the police, the LA Times and local tv news were filled with stories of these shootings.  There were nearly twenty recent incidences, and they didn’t end until one man was finally caught. He had done all of them; one driver was killed when her car window was shot, like mine, but she lost control and crashed into the freeway meridian.  That horrified me over and over as I thought about her dying like that.}

_{I obsessed for weeks about this poor woman, about the seconds before she died on the freeway.} 

_{And of course I was haunted by thoughts about  the true unpredictability of life every day. One day I was happily driving off to a neighboring town to have pastrami with a girlfriend and suddenly I was shot at. I had no interest or curiosity to find out anything at all about the shooter.  I thought if I knew his name or other details, he would become human, I would visualize him, I would hate and fear him even more than I did then. He would live someplace inside me forever, even more than he does now.}