The Blue Lights
Added 2020-04-17 18:00:02 +0000 UTC16 February 2020
A bar in Neukölln
Every time a cop drove past, I’d watch it like a hawk.
Eyes wide, mind alert, muscles tensed, heartbeat elevated. That prickly feeling, when you feel the release of adrenaline into your bloodstream.
Every time, even if it was an ambulance, even if I wasn’t being Ernestine—especially in Waltham or if I was at home and a cruiser rolled past. God forbid that. I always imagined being frog marched out of my house, in front of my cats (my children).
Here, now—well, first (if you’re not a raver), Berlin is very quiet. My neighborhood is about as quiet as my old little-house-on-the-prairie in Western Massachusetts. There are few sirens. And when there is one, it’s a friendly European siren sound.
But, WOW. I just had a moment.
An ambulance pulled up beside the bar, filling it with bright blue light. I felt my customary US reaction begin and prepared to deaden it—an impulse so familiar it goes without thinking.
Then I realized. (How has that not hit me until now?)
I’m not a criminal. I’ve done nothing wrong.
Not here.
I wonder how long it will take for all those accumulated white blood cells to leave my body, for the inflammation to heal, the bodily crisis to pass, all of which accumulated as a physiological response to living under criminalization.
For me to believe I have done nothing wrong. Hurt no one.
To un-identify as a deviant (probably never).
How long until the blue light signifies “help;” or “someone else is in trouble;”—or, as I think I felt before becoming a whore—“not us;” or even: “city.”
Criminalization affects us on a deeper level than civilians can possibly fathom.
How long?
Fondly,
Ernestine
