Goldfish Country
Tags: Sports, Washington DC, Gun Violence, Gun Control, America

“Nationals-Padres game suspended after shooting outside Nationals Park” (Washington Post, July 17, 2021)

I wore my grandfather’s red corduroy hat.

“Washington, DC,” it said on the front. It looked like a train conductor’s hat. Between pitches I would put the Nationals-branded mechanical pencil Mom paid two dollars for in the hat’s side panel.

“Don’t lose it,” she said.

I thought putting the pencil in my hat would give off a fun nerdy vibe that might offset the fact that the conductor hat was oversized. And corduroy.

Parking had been $48. It was listed as only $16 on Dad’s app. “Game price,” the woman had told us, sweating profusely. “Cash only.”

We — Mom, Dad, Jessie, I — had trouble getting through security. Jessie, my sister, had said they would let backpacks into the stadium. Mom had thought they would not. They would not. As Mom was the last to go through security, she was told to get out of line and dispose of the backpack.

We watched from beyond security as she struggled to take out all the backpack’s contents — wallets, sunglasses, glasses — while folding the bag into its reduced pocket-size form. She became increasingly angry at Dad, who sort of stared and/or shrugged. I tried to go back through security to help, but I was told to exit through a side door. I did. Mom and I finally passed through security.

“Next time you can just bring the stuff in plastic bags,” the guard told us.

Guard is a strong word. Attendant.

“What’s the difference between a plastic bag and a backpack?” Mom asked.

We found section 141, row C, seats 20–24. Jessie’s boyfriend couldn’t make it to the game, so we had an extra. I sat between Mom and Dad. We were three rows from the right field fence. Kids around us yelled to Soto, trying to ignite his bright smile.

Mom missed the top of the first to acquire the previously mentioned Nationals-branded mechanical pencil, as well as a scorecard. I was able to score the two runs the Padres quickly put up from memory. Not a great start for Corbin. Granted, the Padres had plated 24 the night prior, so he and the rest of us were probably thinking this outing — this night — could not turn out quite so badly.

As I kept score, Mom chatted up anyone around us with a pulse. She told the man to her right to Google the video of Tatis Jr. double-jumping to catch a line drive.

An inning later, she double-told him. “Mom,” I moaned, “that was like two weeks ago.”

“I’m embarrassing you,” she said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I haven’t gotten out in a while. I’m social!” I smiled. “You’re fine, Mom.”

Pham and Tatis, the Padres’ leadoff men, got on base each of their first three plate appearances. Each scored twice, all before the fourth inning. Zimmerman hit a dinger to bring the Nats back to 5–4. The crowd seemed happy, grateful for so many runs — so much action — in just a few innings. A breeze hit us.

“I love it,” Mom said. “But it usually means a storm’s coming.”

“This is gonna be a long one,” Dad said. To his point, the clock hit 9:30pm after the fifth. Also to his point, Mom started to drool at the French fries making their way through nearby rows.

“Do you think the lobster shack will be open when we leave?” she asked us. “I just can’t help myself.”

My sister informed us she was leaving to meet her boyfriend at the Bullpen, the bar/music area just outside the stadium gates. I barely looked up, intent on watching (and scoring) Corbin’s fate as he gave up a single, got a line out, and was pulled after five and a third.

Not a good outing, and it would get worse. Finnegan entered and gave up three consecutive singles. His catcher, Rivera, helped by throwing out Cronenworth at second, and Finnegan struck out Myers, but the damage was done: 8–4 Padres going into the bottom of the fifth.

Then, real damage was done.

My back must have been to the field because I remember turning and noticing two things simultaneously: one, the field was empty — no players, no umpires, nothing. Even the dugouts had been abandoned. Two, across the way, on the stadium’s third base side, a bunch of people were running, left to right, along the stadium’s main concourse. It looked like a herd sprinting.

My eyes trickled down and out. People around us were exiting their seats and walking quickly up the aisles.

“What is happening?” someone said.

“Is it raining?”

The herd continued to sprint along that third base side. I followed with my eyes. They were clearly trying to run out of the stadium via the left field exit. I looked at Mom and Dad.

“Should we go?” I asked no one, and everyone. “I guess we should go,” I continued. “I think we should go.”

I started walking up the stairs. I was moving fast, carrying the backpack on my back, the scorecard and Nationals-branded mechanical pencil in one hand, and Dad’s unopened Sierra Nevada in the other.

Why haven’t we heard anything on the PA system? I thought to myself. Surely they would say something, with the players all, suddenly, gone. I looked around as I walked up the stairs. Many people were lying prone on the ground.

It is at this point that my brain went RED: ACTIVE SHOOTER. Probably I heard someone say it as well.

I was moving too fast. Mom was no longer behind me. I turned. She was moving too slowly. Dad was walking up the stairs but also checking his phone. I somehow had the mental space to be annoyed by his apparent lack of interest in the situation.

“A little faster, let’s go,” I said, taking Mom’s arm.

We reached the main concourse. Now I could see and feel people around us. They were straight booking it.

I looked at my parents, both 61 years old.

“Why are y’all running?” a Nationals Park employee asked nearby. I took this as a cue and said, “Come on, let’s go!”

It couldn’t have been actually like this, but now everyone in the stadium, in one moment, began to run towards the center field exit. After a few strides, however, we saw in front of us, by this exit, the group almost bounce back, turn, and then everyone was running in our direction.

As I’m writing I can describe it as a school of fish on Planet Earth redirecting itself violently in the face of a predator.

In the moment I could only describe it as, The shooters have taken this exit, and we must now run away from them if we do not want to get shot.

My mind switches tenses.

I turn to run back to our section, 141. Mom and Dad turn. Mom falls, hard. I pick her up and try to run with her, hugging her in my arms. It doesn’t work, and I stumble.

“Don’t stay together!” Dad yells, “Don’t link up!” My body accepts and then rejects this active shooter training advice. We run together and make it to section 139.

There are bodies lying wait in every row. “Take cover!” someone yells. “Get down!”

Mom and Dad are gone. I see an open space in the middle of a row, but I need to climb from the row above. Two girls, about my age, are lying in the way. “Excuse me,” I say, “I’m gonna try to get over there.” They move quietly, nodding.

I am not graceful. I do a slow-motion somersault, managing to scrape both my hand and leg as I land in my new resting place.

I pause to consider what many others must be thinking: We’re just gonna wait here while they shoot us, one-by-one, point blank.

“GET DOWN!” a man yells two rows up.

“I can’t!” a woman yells back, “My foot is stuck!”

I pop my head up. The woman is definitely stuck. Her left foot is somehow through the gap in a chair. Another woman is trying to help.

“JUST GET DOWN!” the man yells.

“I. AM. STUCK!”

I move my hands towards her foot, but don’t know what to do with them. “It’s gonna be okay,” I say. “Try to calm down.”

I am not calm. My head up, I now look for the bodies of my parents. I don’t want to make noise, but I want to know where they are. But I don’t want to make noise.

I look down my row. A girl mouths to me, “What is happening?”

I mouth back: “I don’t know.”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the PA booms. “WE KINDLY ASK YOU TO REMAIN IN THE STADIUM.”

That seems like a good sign. Why would they tell us to stay here if there were a shooter inside. People start to pop their heads up too. Someone is laughing. A man comforts his son, who is crying.

Where are my parents?

I shudder.

Where is Jessie?

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE THE STADIUM. THE INCIDENT IS OUTSIDE THE STADIUM.”

I look around quickly. My sister is OUTSIDE THE STADIUM.

There’s Mom, though, a few rows up. She’s standing. We make eye contact. “Jessie,” she says.

“Yes,” I say, “Where’s Dad?” I turn. A few rows down, Dad is talking on the phone.

“Dad! Where’s Jessie?!” I yell. He nods and points to the phone. I go up to Mom. Dad joins, hugging me tighter than ever before.

Out of nowhere, Jessie just appears.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” she says, shrugging off Mom. “I was stuck in the bathroom.”

I look down to the field. Members of the Padres bullpen are running towards their dugout. Some are walking. Their relaxed pace calms me. I breathe.

The nearby father is still holding his son, holding his son in his lap. His son who is 10 years old. Who brought his glove to the game.

I see the woman who had been stuck. She is unstuck and standing. I walk over. “Are you okay?” I ask. She looks up from her phone and starts shaking her head.

“They never should have built this stadium in Southeast!” she scoffs.

I fall back, shaking my own head at her take on all this. The fear within quickly turns to sadness.

Eventually, the PA tells us to leave: “CALMLY.”

We do, holding hands. “Will the game be suspended?” Dad asks. I touch my left thumb. Something is off with it. We exit the open gates.

“Much easier to get out than in,” Mom says, gesturing to our backpack.

I stop. “The scorecard!”

I realize that none of it — scorecard, Nationals-branded mechanical pencil, unopened Sierra Nevada — ended up in my hands. For a moment I consider going back to look for them. “Don’t lose it,” Mom had said.

We walk by the Bullpen bar/music scene, where people are somehow hanging out. My sister elects to stick with the plan to meet her boyfriend and others for drinks in the area.

Mom is not happy with this call. “What if it’s a gang war?” she says.

I laugh, but then stop. Now, after all that, I’m also not so happy with Jessie somehow hanging out.

She doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe if she had been with us in the fish school, rather than in the bathroom, she would be more rattled.

We find our $48-parked car, get in, and drive home, passing an enormous amount of traffic headed down South Capitol. We ooh and awe, recollect and shake heads slowly.

At home, we turn on the news. Reporters recall what people inside recalled, what we recalled: chaos, running for your life, “just out to see a ballgame.”

We watch a social media video of the fish school swimming towards the exit then swimming back. We think we see ourselves in the video, and the moment mom fell, and the large men Dad assumed to be the shooters but may have just been police.

We hug each other and say goodnight.

And now I have tried to sleep, but I cannot. Instead, I have questions:

1. Was I right to take my parents and follow everyone trying to run out of the stadium? Is it smarter to flee or hide?

2. How many others have grown up in this country only to inherit a public trauma that makes us associate, makes us know — immediately and collectively — that when a group of people is running through a crowded place, an active shooter is near? How many others scope out the exits every time they go to the movies?

3. Am I to introduce a family to this mess? How do I balance the desire to give my future kid a baseball glove and the desire to keep that kid from lying face down among peanut shells and abandoned beer?

These questions sound rhetorical. They are mostly practical.

I love baseball, and I love my country. But sooner or later the country I love will bring a mass shooter into the game I love to watch.

The INCIDENT will be INSIDE THE STADIUM.

People will hide or flee, yell or mouth, get stuck in chairs or bathrooms. And it won’t matter. We will all be fish in a barrel: fresh, terrified, and helplessly American.