Aftermath of a Shooting

hobson 9 Christopher Z. Hobson Aftermath of a Shooting Do I say a man, a white man, or a white businessman? No one is talking the same language. Whichever I call him he entered a subway car where four Black youths demanded five dollars from him. That's his account. All that the witnesses heard was the shots, all they saw was the four going down. That night he was headlines, by morning witnesses were beside the point, everyone knew where they stood. Here where the shots still echo a young white woman carrying packages, running for the train, stumbles in the door, a Black man catches her elbow, steadies her, a young white man asks "Do you need help?—Is that man harassing you?" he insists to her astonished face. But you don't agree unless you already agree, that's what's happening here. Almost to the end of the empty platform two Black men in watch caps and army coats stand by the iron pillar. My eyes don't turn my brain feeds data of peripheral vision. As I pass one is saying "Far as I'm concerned the only kind of music is music"—and they stand there, making Black music. Here they come four of them along the car Hey man got a match? No, man, moving on dancing down the car making distance around them Check out that goofball sitting up tight in his seat like he don't want to be here—Hey man got a light got the time, hey man, you got five dollars— Goetz, Cabey, Ramseur, Allen, and Canty are gone, one in the headlines, one in a coma, three into the projects where you would never go where you would reenter the train sooner than ask directions where we live where my mother tries to keep six kids together age six to 20 10 the minnesota review and she stands every Monday outside Social Services sun in summer, wind in winter but their ghosts glide through the subway dancing past each other with eyes aside, only who you think they are depends on who you are. NEW GERMAN an interdisciplinaryjournal ofgerman studieswill I l\XV L· Our current issue (no. 36, Fall 1985) includes: SPECIAL ISSUE ON HEIMAT Miriam Hansen, Dossieron Heimat Michael E. Geisler, "Heimat" and the German Left Eric Rentschler, New German Film and the Discourse ofBitburg Angelika Bammer, Helma Sanders-Brahm's Germany, Pale Mother Thomas Y. Levin, Nationalities ofLanguage: Introduction to Adorno Theodor W. Adorno, On the (Question: "What is German?" Klaus Theweleit, The Polüics ofOrpheus: Gottfried Benn Liliane Weissberg, Writing on the Wall· The Letters ofRahel Varnhagen C. Fred Alfort, Nature and Narcissism: The Frankfurt School New German Critique is the first Americanjournal to develop a comprehensive discus sion of German politics, social theory, art, and literature on an international level. New German CritiqueThe University ofWisconsin-M¡Iwaukee German Department Box 413Milwaukee, Wisconsin 5S20I ...