RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o3. knife vs gun..

Maturing is realizing how many people one has to be in a lifetime in order to catch up to the rollercoaster called life. It's a dangerous ride from which very few remember all the faces they have been forced to claim as their own. Therefore, at the very end, there are only three stages which stand out of the matrix: the person when alone, the person when surrounded by a public with expectations and the person as seen through rumors and assumptions.

The Chechens, the Bolivians, the Burmese, three big LA gangs have been massacred in a bloodbath last night and today's news have made the life of so many police officers so much more interesting. Media, as always, went crazy over anything remotely dangerous which would scare the living out of the normal watchers or listeners. Every time calamities happened, the community's core reaction and instinct is to spread panic: solidarity through fear.

Adelaide brushed her teeth in a small, rusted mirror, while on call was Yahir and George, thrilled to know the city was experience a rise in crime and that the unsolved murders have made the majority of news announce a supposed hard time ahead. "Isn't that fantastic news for you?" George beamed into his phone, his mouth far too close to that speaker. His breathing was louder than his actual voice.

"She should still stay safe," Yahir tried to interfere, but without actually doing anything in his try to distance the phone, because everything could still be heard, George slapped his partner's hand away.

"Don't be a fucking pussy. I am not telling her to join a gang, obviously, but she better get out of the house more often."

"But these are dangerous people," Yahir frowned.

"I got this covered," Adelaide talked after having spit the toothpaste turned to foam into the sink. From her shaking hands, for she seemed not to be able to calm them since she listened to the news that morning, the brush escaped over a swinging fall into the sink's curve. Her eyes stopped on those shivering hands as she grabbed the cold margins, from the few spots not disgusting to touch. 

"See, idiot, Addie is grown up now," George laughed. "Addie" has been an adult for a long time, but they never seemed to quite get that part. She wasn't petite, nor did she consider herself too childlike, but whenever she was in that particular entourage, she definitely did become this small obedient girl who would nod along anything.

The adult Adelaide was the one after closing that call, cursing her way through an unpacked suitcase of clothes, panicking over not finding her keys and driving cautiously while her speakers blasted violent words. Her violence and rage has always been expressed in art, never in person, so she found it fascinatingly terrifying that Barry seemed to find it hard to switch it around.

"Shit," Adelaide pulled into a parking lot only to realize it has been structured on lines. Parallel parking was fine with her, but going in reverse was a pain. On top of her morning routine, she now had to add the ten minutes walk from a better parking spot, to the place she needed to reach. Barry's talk about an acting group has given her an idea already: apart from action, her book will need human interaction and there was nothing better for her to observe than actors, for they definitely would come up with the craziest scenarios, from which she could pick up gestures and caricatures of tropes.

She booked her place that very early morning rise to join a lesson downtown during the afternoon at Cousineau's. Adelaide certainly did not expect the LA's stage to be this small that she would end up seeing Barry Berkman on stage. A tension she could not understand built up in the room she entered silently and unobserved, taking a seat in the shadow of the wall. Every actor there was either uncomfortable, bored or absolutely exhausted with the drama.

Three faces stood out: an apologetic blonde lady, a glaring old man and the unexpected side of Barry Adelaide guessed, but never expected to meet. Surely, the number of casualty voiced on the news excited her to near heart attack on fright, but the person she saw in that class was wide eyed, scared and intimidated by his surroundings.