I was heading back downtown from Clifton to meet up with a friend when I heard the gunshots. I looked at my watch: 3:40 p.m.
The bus was approaching Over-the-Rhine, coming down Clifton Avenue just past that big bend in the road and just past the apartment complex that looks out over the city. The shots were loud, maybe only a few feet away. I counted two.
The black teenager sitting beside me in the horizontal seat in the front of the bus shouted “Holy shit,” turning around to look out the window, looking up the hill to see what he could see. Other passengers got out their cell phones and called 9-1-1.
The bus driver kept her cool and continued making all the requested stops. I sat there reading my New York Times and pretending like I was cool too. Hearing a gunshot on the No. 17 isn’t anything new to me while traveling in this part of the city.
I looked up from my paper and noticed the woman sitting opposite me. She had four small children around her, all girls.
I’m guessing the ages were 8, 6, 5 and 3, but it’s only a guess. Their clothes were a little dirty. They looked to be poor.
The 5-year-old was now on her mommy’s lap, crying in a timid way, eyes wide open. Her mother was telling her “everything’s gonna be all right, honey, it’s all right.” The 8- and 6-year-olds were also around their little sister, trying to bring comfort to her with a toy cell phone they’d been playing with.
The fourth child, the 3-year-old, was in the corner seat closest to the bus driver. She was the forgotten one after the gunshots rang out. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she really wasn’t crying. Something told me she was too scared to cry or scream.
She seemed all alone in her fear. My heart sank.
“You know that noise we heard?” I said, leaning toward her, pointing to the top of the hill. “It was way back there. We’re all the way down here now. Everything’s fine. We’re going to be all right.”
She looked at me with those wide eyes. She had braids in her hair. I told her she looked beautiful, and she smiled.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Kristina.”
“That sure is a pretty name. Do you like the name Kristina?”
She nodded her head yes.
“I bet you’re a heartbreaker,” I said. “You probably have a lot of boyfriends, but maybe you’re married. Are you married yet, Kristina?”
I don’t think she understood my little joke, but her mother and sisters did and, when they started to laugh, so did she. And for the next two or three minutes, she sat in my lap and showed me that toy cell phone. I showed her my real one, and she had fun pressing the buttons and watching the phone light up. The tears were now gone.
As the bus approached 13th and Vine, her mother pulled the chain for the bus to stop. As Kristina got off my lap, her mother looked at me and smiled.
“Thank you for talking to Kristina, mister. That sure was nice of you.”
“A total pleasure,” I said as I waved goodbye to her and the children.
Before Kristina got off, she ran back and gave me a hug. For the next few minutes, before my stop six blocks up the road, my eyes became moist as I fought back tears.
All of this happened almost a month ago now. In the days after hearing the gunshots, I looked in the paper and watched the local news on television to see if there was any mention of it, to find out if anyone was hurt or killed. I could find nothing.
I wonder if the police responded to those 9-1-1 calls that were made by some of the passengers on the bus. Chances are they probably didn’t bother. Most of us don’t care much about the poor sections of our city — or at least our actions don’t support any good intentions — so why should the police? Everyone seems to want to look the other way.
Kristina lives in Over-the-Rhine. I find myself thinking about her often. I can still see her on that bus — that beautiful face and those wide eyes.
I wonder if her mother is married or if she has to raise those four children alone. I wonder if she has a house or if she and her children live in a small rundown apartment with not enough food to eat.
I wonder if hearing gunshots will simply become a part of Kristina’s young life.
CONTACT larry gross: lgross(at)citybeat.com. Living Out Loud runs every week at citybeat.com and the second issue of each month in the paper.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2005.