The Danforth endures, but death marked it
On Monday, looking at the news for the first time since the Danforth shooting the night before, my eye was caught by reports about newspapers in New York. The New York Daily News had announced a major downsizing, laying off some 50 per cent of its staff.
The Daily Beast had the story, quoting staffers who described the layoff as “a massacre” and “a bloodbath.”
Not literally. Our exaggerated metaphors sting when the reality is before us. The Daily News would know that better than most, covering as it does more violence than we do here. Amongst those laid off were the editor in chief, the managing editor, the city editor, most of the photographers, two dozen reporters and editors from the sports section, a crime reporter and one Edgar Sandoval, the “immigration and mass shooting beat reporter.”
The Daily News had its own mass shootings beat. There were not so many mass shootings that Mr. Sandoval could devote himself entirely to covering them; he divided his time by covering immigration as well. But still. It is noteworthy that when the generic crime beat doesn’t get the job done, a specialist in mass shootings is required.
The mass shooting — whether terrorist inspired, gang related or driven by the distress of mental disturbance — is now a regular part of contemporary life. The Danforth shooting seems to be of the third kind, but other factors may have been at play as well.
As part of contemporary life, there are public rituals to be observed. It’s easy to dismiss, or even mock, the mayor on the scene pushing a legislative response, or the fundraising drives set up for the victims, or the Facebook status alerts indicating that one is “safe,” or the #TorontoStrong invocations, or the journalists who wander the scene taking careful note of passersby bravely quaffing a beer or ordering a slice, proving that life moves on.
It always does. But we need ways to attribute meaning and cope with such evil, and those public rituals, from politics to philanthropy, can meet that need.
On such occasions, I am struck by the primacy given to a sense of place. Much of life today is meant to reduce the importance of place. You can stream the news, or the game, or a television show wherever you are. You can
WE MARK GRAVES WITH FAR GREATER CARE THAN THE PLACES WHERE PEOPLE LIVED.
be reached by someone from across the street or around the world in the same manner. Going to the bank, or the department of motor vehicles, or the cinema, or even to work or to campus is less necessary. It can all be done at a distance.
Yet when the mass shooting occurs, place returns to prominence. Commentators mention that they lived three blocks or three kilometres away, or were on that very street just three days ago. They grew up there or sometimes used the nearby subway stop. There are makeshift memorials like the wooden crosses on the side of the highway. And the place itself is pronounced to be strong, resilient, proved in the testing.
There is something about death and place. We mark graves with far greater care than the places where people lived. An unmarked grave offends; we make monuments for those whose resting places are unknown.
That section of the Danforth, like Yonge and Sheppard a few weeks back, will be known now for the deaths that took place there rather than the thousands who live there.
The words of the psalmist come to mind: “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more (Psalm 103:15-16).”
It is true. The places in which we live remember us not after we pass through. The place is taken up by someone else eventually, sometimes quite soon. But death marks a place in a way that life does not.
Within 24 hours, the glaziers were replacing the bulletpierced windows, the police were removing their crimescene tape, the civic workers were power-washing the blood off the pavement. The marks of the shooting were removed quickly, but the mark will remain.
Part of the public ritual is the insistence that Toronto will not be changed by this latest eruption of violence randomly visited upon the innocent. That’s not the real Toronto, respectable voices repeat. But it is a real part of Toronto; not all of it, but part of it. We do not yet need a “mass shootings” reporter, but the place remembers what happened. People have already returned to the Danforth, as they did to Yonge Street after the van attack.
Life does go on, but the place remembers the death, as it should.