ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070102
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM SPENCER
THE 85-YEAR-old man on the phone said he had called several times trying to get hold of me. He kept at it, he said, because he wanted me to write a column about ``the death of this nation.''
I misunderstood him. I thought he said ``debt of this nation.''
A balanced budget, whether it came in seven or 10 years, wasn't his issue. The country, as far as he was concerned, was so far gone that deficit reduction no longer computed.
``You can't go downtown,'' he told me. ``You can't go to the mall.''
``I was downtown yesterday, looking at court records,'' I replied. ``And last week, while I was waiting to get a flat tire fixed and my oil changed near Coliseum Mall, I went shopping.''
``Yes,'' the old man said, ``but my wife can't go, and neither can my daughter.''
``You mean they're afraid to go,'' I corrected him.
``That's right,'' he said.
After some verbal sparring, we had gotten to the heart of it: To this man, living with fear was like dying.
The fellow on the phone pined for the sense of security he once knew. Half his age, it dawned on me that I'd never had that comfort. To me, an unlocked door has always been an invitation to disaster. To him, it is a lost luxury.
All my adult life, I have accepted the notion that I shouldn't look certain people in the eye, lest my curiosity be mistaken for disrespect and that disrespect taken as a challenge.
In middle age, I routinely steer clear of groups of young men on the street and at the mall, conceding the right of way to them, rather than challenging them to defer to me because deference to elders is what polite society demands.
The old man seemed beyond these new rules. Or more likely, they were beneath him. He didn't believe in arrogance, but in an order he once knew. I had settled for half a loaf. He couldn't.
The violence I have seen in an extremely sheltered life is, I suspect, more than he could bear:
There was a staggering young man, crying for help, blood gushing from a knife wound in his stomach.
There was a fellow who wrapped a garrote around the neck of a co-worker and tried to strangle him, only to have his death grip broken and his head slammed over and over against the concrete apron of a swimming pool.
Twenty years removed, these moments of mayhem remain vivid, terrifying and defining. They remind me why I act the way I do and leave me singularly thankful that for whatever reason, be it timidity or blind luck, I have avoided the slash of a blade, attempted murder or a savage beating.
I'm sure the old man is just as happy to have dodged the bullet, but the mere knowledge of a gun is enough to kill his spirit.
He suggested that we build a giant, heavily secured building. I assumed it was a fortress for guys like him and me. Instead, he was talking about a huge penitentiary. He believed, as Americans once did, in the deterrent power of prison.
I know from too many professional encounters that locking up people mean or desperate enough to commit crimes protects everybody except the original victim. That person is never made whole.
As much as I want tougher prison sentences, I told the old man his fears and mine won't disappear until society spends as much time and money getting rid of meanness and desperation as it does punishing it.
He seemed unconvinced.
Once more, our expectations were as different as life and death. The more I thought about it, the more I realized where our points of view diverged.
I was dreaming about something I never had. He was grieving for something he had, but lost.
Jim Spencer is a columnist for the Newport News Daily Press.
- Knight-Ridder Tribune Information Services
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB