The Wednesday after the mass shooting, a man in a suit with blond shoulder-length, gelled-back hair showed up to the memorial. He talked liking guns. Like,liking them. He wouldn’t say his name or what he does for a living, but he’d come here to proselytize. Tensions escalated mid-soliloquy after he shouted, “David Duke supported Hillary!”
Juárez-El Paso is home to the largest bilingual, binational work force in the Western Hemisphere. The two cities face each other, separated by a few hundred yards, a narrow stretch of riverbed, and a brown fence. It’s a symbiotic relationship; their cultural and economic identities are inextricably linked. This is how it’s always been. A gas station in El Paso just past the Paso del Norte bridge displays a sign advertising that it accepts pesos and gives dollars in return.
Buster was very concerned. He made me sit down and wrote out instructions for sunburn treatment on a napkin: apple-cider vinegar and ice water. Chaplain Tony Dickey, who had driven in from Alabama, would pinch-hit for Buster when talking about the shooting became too much. Dickey, like Greg Zanis the cross-maker, goes to every mass shooting. He told me the people at Hooters stepped up in a way he’d never seen at a mass-murder site.
Another chaplain, who, according to his T-shirt, was with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, sat on a blanket in the grass with four young children and their parents, who were crying. They were staring at the crosses, bewildered, not talking much. He stayed with them for an hour. I wish some of the cameras that left when Trump did had stayed for that.
She has tried to keep herself together, to be strong for her kids. “Because they need to also understand not everyone in this country just goes around and shoots people. But it’s just tough because kids don’t understand why anyone would go there.”and the broken baseball bat. The man kneeling over it was Ray Attaguile, and I asked him if he knew the subject of this particular memorial. “He’s my brother-in-law,” he said.
“I was scared and not sure I could do it,” Ray said. He confided in David, who was steadfast in his encouragement. “He helped me understand the importance of giving children in bad situations a second chance,” said Ray. There’s something else out there for these kids, David told him, something better than what they were taken from.
Proud of my city and my university, proud of my friends who still live in El Paso. Beautiful mountain city, peaceful home of sunny days.
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Thank you for this ElPasoStrong
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