It was St. Patricks Day. I woke up and decided to just do it! Today was the day! I was going to shoot my first short film. After a few phone calls, I was on my way to meet my friend and begin my journey as a filmmaker. She had even been kind enough to offer her beautiful home as the back drop. I borrowed a camera from the equipment department at UCLA and had written what I thought was a great script. Everything seemed to be lining up.
I wandered in to a video gaming store a little after noon. I had a little time before meeting the amazing artist Monique DeBose, my counterpoint in my film. An Asian gamer looking skateboard guy who seemed to be friends with the clerk, a chubby Hispanic guy with fluffy, unkempt multi colored hair, were the only two in the store. I was just killing time, I thought maybe I could get an "in da hood" deal on an X-Box for my boyfriend.
3 non assuming African-American guys of various sizes, dressed in black -hoodies and sweatpants entered the store. In a split second one jumped over the counter with a dark garbage bag, another ended up next to me, and the other hovered around the door. I figured the clerk must have known them because his expression didn't seem to change much. Time halted to a stop when the guy at the door yelled, "This is a stick-up!" My brain struggled to make sense of the next 4 minutes, they slugged forward in slow motion. The fluffy haired clerks expression didn't change but his hands went up, almost in front of his face. The 3 assailants pulled black bandana's over their faces. The one next to me at the counter brandished a gun and pointed it directly at the clerks head. I had never seen a gun before. Was the gun real? Was this a joke? Was I in the middle of the filming of some reality show? Was I being 'Punked'? I could hear my heart pounding in my throat. The rush of adrenalin suppressed my sudden urge to slap the gun out of the assailants hand. The blank look on the clerks face had been utter terror. My brain began to slowly compute, "Matty you in danger girl", this is a robbery.
Still in a haze of disbelief, I mechanically turned and marched directly to the door guy. He seemed to be the brains of this mid-day mayhem. "Excuse me" I politely said, inferring that he needed to move from in front of the door.
"What you doin?" He asked me. We were face to face, eye to eye. I remember nothing of his eyes or his face. The detectives were lucky they had footage because I failed selecting any of them in the photo line-up.
"Is this a robbery?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yeah it's a robbery shorty."
"Well, you don't need me for that, excuse me, I'mma just go." I tried to pass him, and for a millisecond he smiled. By the time he said, "Get yo ass back over there, this is a robbery yo!" I figured I better not try my luck. I resumed my position at the counter next to the gunman.
My brain immediately switched gears from slow to fast motion. Don't let them take you to the back. I was in my "What Would You Do?" TV mindset. Don't ever go to the back. Put your hands up to show your submission. Cover your eyes to show you won't be able to identify them later. Girl how you gonna cover your eyes and have your hands up at the same time? Why is the back of my neck aching? I rubbed my neck. "Don't nobody move. Yo, didn't I tell you to put yo hands up? This is a stick up!" I was sure I was having a heart attack. I struggled to breathe. My hands went up.
Again, the gears in my brain shifted, this time into several simultaneous parts, some fast and some slow. A calming all is well echoed ever so quietly and ran from the back of my ears down through my chest and over my stomach - my eyes darted back and forth taking in information too fast to even recognize but grabbing little details that for some reason popped out - the guy at the door belted orders.
Without meaning to, I whispered to the gunman, "Please don't shoot him in the head." The thought of the fluffy haired clerks brain splattered all over me urged me to the present moment. "I won't be able to get over that if you shoot him in the head." I pleaded "It'll go everywhere. Please."
"I ain't gonna shoot him." He reassured. The clerk however, wasn't so sure.
I keyed in on something on the tip of the gun, that begged the question, is that gun real? I thought just slap it out of his hands and tell him to stop. My hands slowly moved toward the gun. "Hurry up! Hurry up!" from the door shot my hands back up.
"You promise?" I took a quick glance at the gunman.
"Yeah, I promise. You gotta be quiet shorty."
"Just promise."
"I promise." He paused, as if to question the pact made with me.
My father transitioned about a year and a half ago. From somewhere inside my head I felt like I could hear him speaking. He didn't sound concerned and said, "This might be a good time to practice that seeing the loving essence stuff you are learning in that school you go to." I closed my eyes in obedience. Ron Hulnick, President of the University of Santa Monica where I was earning a Masters in Spiritual Psychology stated in class that we are all divine beings having a human experience. If that statement where true, I thought, then I was a divine being having the human experience of being robbed and scared almost out of my body. And, if I was divine were these 3 in fact divine? Divine beings having the contrast, the human experience of robbing? I noticed details of the hand holding the gun. There was a mark, maybe an old scar from childhood. His hands had a precious softness, an almost tender baby quality. He is divine, I thought to myself, he is a child of God. I prayed for safety of the three of us being robbed and for the 3 robbing. I prayed for the gunman, I prayed that his hands would remain steady and that he would hold to his promise. That no harm would come to anyone on St. Patricks Day in a dinky game store in South Los Angeles, just off the 10 freeway. I felt my father's smile. He knew for some reason unknown to a terrified me that this was an important experience.
The rest of the robbery seemed a blur. I had a few random thoughts like, why are they only taking video games, why not the game machines, why not an X-Box? "Let's go!" the guy at the door ordered. The gunman backed away from the counter. The other jumped back over the counter and headed for the door, his trash bag full with their booty, the spoils of the day. It was almost over. Then, "Get her stuff!" The gunman and the doorman stood eye to eye. Slowly, the gunman put his gun in his pocket, but the doorman was not having it. "Nah man get her shit!" The gunman turned to me and shrugged an I'm sorry. He ever so gently removed the brand new Coach bag my aunt had given me for Christmas, my car keys, and my cell phone. His hands were as soft as I imagined. We both looked down.
"Ya'll wait 30 minutes before you call the police or we will be back." Just like that the ordeal was over.
They didn't take the thing that was most valuable next to our lives, the video camera that was hanging from my arm. I wasn't in much of a mood to "shoot" anything having been so close to a shooting. Almost 7 years to the day I shot Faith & Justice, my freshman film project. The series explores the divinity of 3 seemingly, lost souls and seeks to answer the question, does Faith have faith?
I have learned to honor the creative impulses that come from within me. At the time I didn't realize the correlation between the fateful day in March of 2007 and how it would relate to my determination to birth this seemingly wacky story in March of 2014. Many times we do not know why we are inspired to tell one particular story over the next. Exploring righteousness and forgiveness and right doing vs wrong doing has many facets. It is indeed a labor of love. To support this series please click the link below.
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awesome!
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