Beyond the Barricade

The road is closed with a barricade and a police car sits broadside behind it. The man on the corner says the police won't let him go home (because it is on the other side of the barricade). He's been waiting since 1:30 a.m., it's 5:30 when my dog, Max, and I arrive at the scene. Beyond the barricade, a quarter mile down the road, where the black and whites have their lights flashing, I can see photos are being taken by the bright flashes of light. It's tragic news for somebody today. They wouldn't block a street like this unless it was a serious crime scene. I tell the man there are other ways to get through but I can see he has already thought of that.  

Later, after I have taken Max home, I am walking up to Second Street. I see a woman on her front stoop is putting on her running shoes. A young boy, hair in sleepy disarray, shuffles out in his pajamas and gives her a hug. I cannot hear their quiet conversation because I have my earbuds in.  

On Second Street I purchase a coffee at the not-quite-ready-for-business-yet coffee place and meander over to the bay. Over by the bay, the running woman has met a friend now and they are stretching at the bus bench. I pass them and meander onto the sand. The sun is rising. Gulls have gathered near me at the shoreline, turned customarily towards the brightening golden sky. A heron that had been dead still atop a small buoy gracefully unfurls its wings and flies to the peak of a roof of a home across the bay. Its silhouette in the rising sun looks two-dimensional.  

The atmosphere is thick this morning, north, Mt. Baldy seems many miles away, to the east, Saddleback, is modeling a wreath of clouds, south, firetrucks now on the barricaded road...west, behind me, a thousand Sunday souls sleeping in, including my wife and now Max curled up beside her.  

In my old newsphotographer days, I would have had to find the incident commander and get beyond the barricade, get shots of the police working the scene, get something to tell the story...today I only have to bear witness, to an early morning mother-son hug, to a decent cup of coffee,  to the rising sun and the shorebirds who crave it. I will contemplate waking my wife and enjoying breakfast with her and getting on with the business of the day. Somewhere else there will be crying and recrimination, lives turned upside down and worlds that do not make sense, but that is not for me today. I do not need to know what lies beyond the barricade.

Tim Bulone is an ardent observer of life on the swirling blue marble. He works at Davis Group Consulting and creates fine art and canvas prints which he likes to sell from time to time at http://www.MyFamilyArt.com He is an early morning pedestrian in Belmont Shore, where he resides with his wife and a variety of pets.