Shoot it Black, Shoot it Blue

In New York, they call it ‘Tin Pan Alley’, where the steel-bands practiced on Clarkson Avenue, before the Labor Day Carnival started. I walked pass them with my rifle broken down in parts inside a 36 inch army duffle bag. It was calypso time in Brooklyn. The smell of curried goat and the flash of glittery gold and yellow costumes ran up and down Eastern Parkway. I had scoped the area out a week in advance and I had found an abandoned building around the corner just two tenements inside the block. It was a small view with just enough of a window’s peek to the avenue that I needed to hit my mark. After re-assembling the rifle, I stood in the dirty window with its broken glass and its dusty sill, waiting for mayor Mussolini’s float to pass. I was weak and my nerves kept jumping as I peeked through the scope of my Bushmaster .223 rifle, every time a new float came into view. I was in the final chapter of my life and this would be the exclamation point.