I decided to drive over to the Barton Square Mall on an early Saturday afternoon. I pulled into the long parking rows outside of Dillard’s department store and sharked cautiously up and down for a spot closest to the entrance. It was two weeks before Christmas Day, bright and crisp and blue-skied. The lot was jammed with cars because of the holiday shopping. I was game planning my shopping trip: winter coat, blouses, a look at some watches, a look at some jewelry, then fragrances. That would be plenty. The Mall is always a bit of an ordeal, and I had the energy and willingness to take it on. I was going to Do the Mall solo. But first, I had to park my car. After a bit of weaving, I found a spot about 20 cars deep into the row and was grateful that I didn’t have to park closer to the service road. All cars were sandwiched in. The Mall can be a tough job even before you walk through the doors, but someone has to do it. I tucked my phone and things inside a tote bag, swung it on and walked up the row of parked cars. The sunshine reflected off of the outer doors at Dillard’s. I walked into the airlock vestibule and through the second set of doors.
My first encounter came quickly as I was taking a picture of sale-priced jacket, firing it off to my sister on the east cost to see if it resonated as her style. A round woman with bright auburn lipstick accentuating her thin lips walked my way, asking if I needed help with anything. I let her know that I was shopping for my sister, got some info on sizing, and thanked her for the help. She wobbled away to go help other shoppers.
I walked rack to rack, taking pics and thinking about the boldness of the patterns, wondering if my sister would go for any of it. The saleswoman was talking to an older couple. She was telling them that each year is a blessing and isn’t guaranteed. She mentioned her brother who had died in a motorcycle accident. She talked about “already burying some friends”. She said that we are alive and that to be alive is its own blessing.
I was ok getting a bit of life wisdom from her.
I moved on to the winter coats section, then Housewares. The portal into Housewares was sudden. Christmas music piped into the section merchandised for indoor seasonal cookware, bakeware, linens, tree ornaments, miniature and table top statuary, light-up snow globes and mechanical toys. Glass ornaments and nativity scenes spilled from every surface. Santa winked at me from multiple directions. Charm and glitter, depictions of snowy outdoors and cozy indoors in miniature, themed 8-ft tall trees covered in ornaments, ribbon, and tinsel, stoked the magic of the season like an ethereal bellows. This was immediate intoxication by Representation of The Season. The religious, the secular, the culinary, The Grinch, holly, the wise men, the Baby Jesus, silver bells, a plush crayfish wearing a santa hat and a smirk on the New Orleans-themed tree – it was all there. I almost bought a bedazzled Donut ornament but changed plans when I found a more serious Father Christmas metallic one. He’s carrying a felled evergreen under one arm and a rucksack of toys over the the other. He looks forward with bright blue eyes, slightly wearied. “I got the tree, I got the gifts, I walked miles in the snow. It was not easy. Now I see home in the distance, and I’ll walk the rest of my journey upright. At home the hearth is warm, and I will walk upright. Smoke rises from the chimney, and I will walk upright.” I slapped $20 bucks down. Santa’s peregrinations are going on our Christmas tree.
Walking through the main corridors of the mall was somewhat disorienting but with the feeling of walking on air. I saw the greasy hair and the midriffs and the strollers and purses and families, beards, yoga pants butts, and children fussing. People walking in and out of stores, shopkeepers attending to shoppers. The general tone of the interior mall was festive. There was a live brass band from Hill Country playing Christmas melodies near the food court.
The food court was a happy madhouse. Flocks of teens congregated. Young people experimenting with fashion. Young boys pulling on mom’s purse. Couples carving out a place to dine together. Little families digging through fast food bags to find condiments, lots of chatting. There was a long-haired man whose head was bald on top. He sat with a younger woman with lip piercings and a scowl. They both scowled, typical displeasured scowls that say, “I’m here in the food court, but I will not be defined by the food court.” They ate their Panda Express takeout, scraped the bottom of their styrofoam plates, and silently nodded at each other and left. As soon as a seat was vacated at a table or booth it was immediately filled. Queues were as long at Popeyes as they were at Chick Fil A. People weren’t so much deciding what they wanted to eat as they were choosing the shortest lines.
I got my fast food, ate it sardined between some others, and continued my shopping.
A goth opera singer performed near the entrance to Nordstrom. His tattooed wife sat nearby with their kid. The kid held a large plastic candy cane filled with chocolates. The chocolates spilled onto the table and floor during a dramatic “Ave Maria” from his Goth-soprano dad. The dad wore spiked leather boots and eyeliner. His name is Andrew De Leon, and he was a contestant on America’s Got Talent. But on Saturday, 12/16, he was outside of Nordstrom’s first floor singing for about 30-40 people including those necking out from the second floor. Empathic tears from the eyes in the crowd blurred his CashApp code, He made out with some holiday dough for his vocalizations which were accompanied by soundtracks of strings amplified from his laptop.
It was about 20 minutes after listening to Mr. De Leon when I was browsing the Christmas decor in Dillard’s department store. I had already perused most of it earlier in the day, but I was making a final sweep-through to make sure I hadn’t missed the perfect Santa casserole dish or holly themed linen set for the kitchen. I was deep into the crystal glassware when a suit-jacketed employee said, loudly, over my shoulder, “you better run”. I turned my head over my left shoulder, and he said, “Run.” I turned further to the left, pivoting on my feet, for my eyes to meet where his eyes were fixed. A crowd of women, men and children were running straight towards us from the entrance to the department store. Suddenly they were flooding from the interior of the mall into Dillard’s, and it only took a glance at a couple of faces for me to kick it around to the right and start to hightail it myself towards the exit. No one had to spell it out; danger was lurking, and danger was possibly coming straight for us. I wove through the cookware, took long, full-legged strides through lingerie, felt like I was floating across the floor and above it, felt so tall as I stretched my mind and legs towards the exit – so close and so far away – while conjuring in my imagination all of the possible reasons why the day at the mall had taken this turn. Short women scampered underneath me. Men pulled their girlfriends forward. I heard the snippets of conversations, “keep running”, “a gun”, “we have to get out”, as we poured through Plus size and rounded the corner towards the exit doors. I clutched my tote bag a little tighter and mentally catalogued my belongings: keys: check; parking spot, “where did you park?”: check; phone, check; Running a bit more, it seems so quiet, I can hear all the fast and frightened footsteps and the rustling of clothing. I catch profiles of faces, looks of fear all around. I can see everything clearly and hear all details. Adrenaline had kicked in, and I was out the bank of doors into the almost stupid bright sunlight of the parking lot.
I made a running beeline to my car. People ran past me. One dropped a child’s shoe. One clutched unpaid for dresses and made distressed, whining sounds towards her friend, who dragged her along. I picked up the shoe, found the kid a few strides away, gave the shoe to the mom. Then people were all over the parking lot, crying, yelping, dropping items and leaving them as they dashed to cars. There were lots on cel phones already. Some were yelling “where are you?” Some were saying, “They aren’t answering.” Car alarms sounded all over the place because people couldn’t find their cars. I realized I was one of them. Where is my car? Hit the button for the alarm signal. There it is. It was about 8 feet from me, but I couldn’t see it because my mind was clocking other details: crowd forming by the entrance: they aren’t running, they are gathering. That means we’re probably safe out here for now. But the lot was growing more chaotic as people tried to find each other, jump in cars, and driving into what quickly became backed-up rows of waiting cars, all trying to fight themselves out of the place.
I got in my car, pulled my phone out, called Andy. I remember saying, “You’re not going to believe what just happened” and immediately realizing something more was happening. I gave him the little info I had and let him know that I was not going to try to pull out of the lot in my car because I’d be stuck in traffic. I told him specifically that I felt like there was something more I needed to do, so I was going to walk back up towards the mall, towards JC Penney, where I could see people gathering and hugging and crying, and I was going to see if I could be helpful in any way. I was also curious to know more about the story that we had all suddenly found ourselves in. What was the story? What was going on in there? Was it an active shooter? Was it open? Were people dead? “I’m just going to see if I can be helpful, ” I said to Andy. He agreed that was a good idea, told me to be careful. Said our I love you’s.
I stepped out of my car. A tall, red-faced man was yelling at his wife, “I know! I know! But I have to go!” as he threw a coat at her and his keys, and he ran towards the west, his cell phone against his ear. I followed him, trying to keep up. He was yelling in his phone, “I’m Agent…and…we need units here Now! ……I need choppers in the air! I need Fire! I need EMS, Now!”
Whoa, I thought. Holy shit. What’s actually going on? He ran on. I paused. I scanned the lot again. Still people running, more traffic building, more stuff left on the ground. I took a deep breath, walked past the discarded bags, shirt, another shoe, and made my way towards a group of teens comforting each other. I was listening in every direction, trying to make sense of a story. A man with a mullet and a button up shirt and dress trousers lit a cigarette. A preteen couple sat on a brick wall, “I mean, I’m, like, scared but I’m not scared like I’m normally scared.” “I don’t know, I guess I’m scared. I’m not really scared, but I have a lot of fear. I mean, I feel so weird right now.”
The mullet cigarette guy and I spotted her at the same time. She and her daughter seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. I saw her silhouette in a floor length cotton, green dress that cinched at the waist. She had long brown hair. She had a kid with her. They looked like they’d had more of an ordeal than others. “2 years old?” I thought. I took steps towards her. Mullet guy did, too. We walked up to her as she held her cell phone to her ear. “Are you ok? Do you need help?” Mullet asked. He exhaled some cigarette smoke. “Do you need help?” I asked.
I learned later that her name is Claudia. She explained that her husband’s arm had been broken in the mall chaos, that her car was parked near the end of the parking rows, and that they were stuck there because of the traffic jam. She said she needed police to help her get out, but 9-1-1 was jammed. I pulled out my phone and called. Jammed. Mullet ran into the side entrance of JC Penney – I think he may have worked there? – trying to find an officer. I don’t recall if he ever came back. I just remember his cigarette. Claudia explained again that her husband’s arm was broken and that the same arm had a tumor in it. She was getting a little wild-eyed. I could see, I could feel the fear. I looked down at her sweet daughter, who was wearing cute white sandals. “Where is your husband?” He’s in the car. “Have you administered first aid?” Not yet. They had run the distance of a football field to come for help. “Where are you parked?” Down there. “We need to administer first aid.”
Claudia led the way. Her sandaled girl ran beside her, dress ever beautiful, ready for a picture with Santa but running through jammed cars in the Dillard’s parking lot. She was doing her best to keep up. Her mom realized our pace, turned to her right and effortless lifted her daughter and kept the pace, jogging us back to the car where her husband waited for some relief to his agonizing pain. The problem was that it was hard to find the car. We ran towards the area of the car, bisecting the parking lot, making our way through rows of parked and stalled cars, people glancing up at us through their windows. “What kind of car is it? Is it that one?” We kept our jog. She spotted the car. She had wisely left the hazard lights blinking and the front of the car pointed away from the expected direction. Almost there, we made it.
He was in a lot of pain. I passed along the message to ask him to keep it still and pressed close to the body. Claudia was able to get her daughter into the back carseat while carrying on a conversation with her husband and with her phone pressed to her ear. She had gotten through to police and was explaining the situation to them. The sun was just beginning to set towards the west. She was shaking so much and the scene so disorienting that she needed support. She thrust her cell phone at me. “Talk to them.” I explained to the police exactly where we were (thank goodness the parking lot was labeled in sections), the make and model of the car, the license plate number, and what I thought may be the best way to reach us in the bumper to bumper traffic of fleeing shoppers. I handed her back the phone. The EMT was on the way. I doubted they could find us in sea of cars. I looked at Claudia. “Do you have ice?” I asked.
She didn’t have any ice. Why would she? They weren’t out for the day on a picnic, cooler full of juice and cheeses. They were out at the mall enjoying the holiday vibes. Now they were here at the edge of the parking lot, quite literally stuck in the middle of a tangle of cars, everyone still in mode to flee from whatever hell was going on in the mall. Her husband sat in their passenger seat with the door open, wincing in pain and holding onto his left arm. Their little girl fussed in the back seat, trying her best to hang in there. The afternoon sun hanging in the western sky fixed a glow on car windows and windshields. We were surrounded by people in cars and trucks. Maybe someone had ice. “I’m going to go ask for ice.” I decided I would start at the nearest pickup truck. It was a stretch of logic, but I thought: Trucks, Texas, Camping, Hunting, Cooler, Ice. If anyone had ice it would be someone in a truck, I reasoned. I hurried over to the first truck. They hesitated to lower the window as I gestured for them to do so. “Do you happen to have any ice?” “No, sorry.”
I ran up the row, stopping at each truck asking the same question. No, sorry. No one had ice. I ran over to the next row. “Do you have ice? There’s an emergency.” No, sorry. I shuttled to the next truck. Same thing. There were some guys sitting on top of their van. I asked them for ice and realized they didn’t speak English. I racked my brain for the Spanish word for ice. I said it as best I could, and they understood. They said no. I ran to the next truck, and the next. Then I started asking the people in cars. One of the Mexican dudes from several cars back called for me, he was jogging towards me so I jogged towards him. He held out a jar of mentholated crema. He was providing the “ice” that we needed. I was touched by his resourcefulness, told him “no, thank you” and pressed on. I turned back and gave him my version of the gratitude bat signal – just a palm to the heart. I went for a couple more cars for ice – hundreds of cars were still stuck in the bumper to bumper gridlock of their own making. I had done a long loop up a row and back down the aisle beside it. I found myself back at Claudia. She was tending to her husband. I almost gave up on running around on what was starting to feel like a fool’s mission. But there was one more pickup truck that caught my eye. It was one of those big cab, two rows of seats pickup trucks that you see around especially if you’re in Texas or Oklahoma or something like that. I hustled over to it, passenger rolled the tinted window down. Thin, tall white men, older gentlemen, inn the front seats. Man and woman in the back, middle aged, eyes squinting in the bright setting sun light as the window rolled down. “Do you happen to have any ice?” “No..we don’t. Sorry.” I say thanks and begin to turn away. Passenger says, “Well, we got this if you want it. This has ice.” There were two big styrofoam cups in the cupholders, and each was half-full of semi-melted ice fro, Sonic Drive-In. I told them, yes, I’ll take it, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Ice, broken arm, Claudia’s husband, baby in the back seat. I hustled back to their car. Claudia and I drained the ice to separate it from the soda, and she held a blanket out to catch the chunk of Sonic ice leftover. She tied it efficiently and help her husband apply the cold pack to his pained arm.
Next thing was guiding the ambulance through the sea of congested cars. Well, not so much guiding as beaconing by standing up big and tall – once on a bumper – to wave the EMS towards us. We had heard their sirens a couple of minutes back. Once they were visible to us, we needed to make ourselves visible to them.
There’s a moment when you’re in excruciating pain and the sound of help on the way is the sweetest toll of the bell.
Once the ambulance was able to fight its way through most of the traffic that blocked Claudia’s husband from them, 2 of the staff of the rolling support hopped off with their gear. An Austin Police Department officer and an EMT approached. The EMT talked to and worked with the husband while Claudia gave information to the police officer. He asked some standard questions to establish a report. I’d never seen an officer work in tandem with EMTs before this, and it’s unclear whether it’s common or whether the officer had caught a ride through the traffic.
The EMT helped a wincing husband from the seat of the car. The child fussed just a little in the backseat, the officer started to wrap-up his questions. We could see the EMTs guiding the husband into the ambulance and begin to work on him on a table inside. I noticed the sun was starting to set into richer oranges and hints of blue and purple. Cars still gridlocked, I just hung around to try and comfort the baby, mostly by poking my head in a couple of time and telling her – in 2 year old language – what was going on: “Mommy’s coming soon.” Or, “Daddy’s good, daddy’s ok.”
She said, “Daddy’s arm?”
When Claudia finished with the officer, she turned to me, let out a half-sigh and looked towards the ambulance that still sat. She quickly looked back at me and asked if I would ride with her to the hospital. That was the moment when I felt so much grace that day. I felt very strongly that there was a purpose for my Day at the Mall besides the ornament and other items I bought, the fragrance testing, the lunch with my fellow shoppers, the stroll through Furniture and Housewares, the goth opera singer and the brass band from the west hills. My cup did runneth over. Of course I’d ride along and be the second pair of eyes and hands in the car. There were numbers to look up and people to call. And there was navigation to be done through the chaos of the sea of cars, and a post-adrenaline-rush drive through to the nearest emergency room.
Claudia, with her long dark hair, and her green dress. She managed to drive, soothe her child, keep close to her husband’s ambulance, keeping her eyes on him through the back doors while also guiding me to make calls to doctors and family members.
We got to the emergency room, parked, talked a little about what happened and what might happen. More calls were made; she had to handle logistics. I played with the child – she held a cardboard tube and I held one. She liked to gently tap them back and forth. Her sandal came off, and I put that back on. I tried to distract her with her own art work, which was on the back seat, probably fresh from preschool or a visit to the library.
Claudia and I said our goodbyes, and I called an Uber to take me back to the mall. It didn’t seem right for us to part, but it didn’t seem right to continue as a little bubble. We had been through something together. We exchanged numbers. I got the Uber, crashed on the way to the mall from dehydration and hunger, but managed to enjoy the conversation with my driver. He was cute, and we were in a brand new Tesla. He dropped me back off at the mall where my car was still parked. As we approached, something looked odd to me, and I couldn’t quite figure it out. Then it suddenly struck me.
“The mall is back open!” I said.
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