Remember when we would go on our balconies to make a joyful sound with our neighbors at 8pm every night, or 7pm in some places but in Seattle it was at 8 and this was my favorite moment of the day, every day I would scream as loud as possible we were screaming together for essential workers but also for ourselves, for our neighbors, we were in this pandemic together and I wanted to continue this feeling for as long as I could so I bought a whistle and then when the protests started after the murder of George Floyd the screaming merged with chants of Black Lives Matter and that was just me and a few other people but a few other people is a lot, right, now we were really in this together I mean I didn’t know these neighbors we couldn’t even see one another but we were sharing a moment of resistance and I would start the chant with three rounds of Black Lives Matter, Abolish the Police, and people would wait for the three rounds before making as much noise as possible there was someone with a toy horn, someone with a cowbell, people banging pots and pans and playing music and yelling and cheering and clapping and then I would blow my whistle to the rhythm of Black Lives Mat-ter… Abolish the Police, Black Lives Mat-ter… Abolish the Police, over and over until I couldn’t blow any longer and then that was the end, for a few minutes every day and often these were the few minutes when I felt the most alive.

This went on for several months until one of my neighbors decided that yelling Black Lives Matter was a personal attack, yes she used the word assault, she said it was triggering her PTSD, it made her shake uncontrollably, she said it was so bad she had to go to the hospital and they admitted her they gave her medication and I could not believe the irony of this white woman telling me that yelling Black Lives Matter was triggering her PTSD I mean just join in, you can do it too, you don’t even have to say Black Lives Matter you can just scream out that abusive father I have that father too we can scream together but she said that because of me screaming Black Lives Matter she was experiencing sleep loss and nightmares, appetite loss, 24/7 anxiety, headaches and stomach pain, difficulty concentrating on work, and loss of income. “I feel trapped with a gleeful tormentor,” she wrote to the property management company.

I wonder if she felt more comfortable displacing her racist fears on me because we’re both white. She started a whole intimidation campaign and it got so over-the-top that eventually I went outside for the nightly noisemaking and somehow this satisfied her, even though the noise must have been louder because I was right below her apartment. One time someone threw a bottle at me, and it shattered on the ground right in front of me and I don’t think it was her but she did look out the window. I forgot that sometimes there was a guy across the street that would yell All Lives Matter when I yelled Black Lives Matter, so whenever he started to yell I would take out my whistle and drown him out.

I started bonding with other people who came outside and I offered them whistles too, a few of us would scream together but then sometimes it was just me and it got lonely but I was dedicated, then one time when I was blowing it all out I got a little too excited while I was jumping up and down and forgot about the fire hydrant behind me and I went flying through the air and slammed my head on the ground it was like an electric shock going through me everything went white and diagonal I was on my back on the sidewalk and did I lose consciousness I’m not sure but after that I decided not to go out anymore, at this point it was just me in the rain most of the time anyway but I still have those whistles, in case you want to join me.