“What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.” (Nietzsche)

When I was seven, I unknowingly witnessed an event that would shape my understanding of the world. My brother and I shared a bedroom, but he was a bully and made my life so unbearable that I moved out. I slept on the living room sofa for the next eleven years. It was there that my very first detailed memory took place, and I started on my quest for the meaning of reality.

Our house was on a dead end street in East LA. Most of my neighbors were hard-working family members, but some were affiliated with the “White Fence” gang. On hot summer nights some of the neighbors who lived at the end of the cul-de-sac would sometimes knock out the streetlights and throw big parties.

During one of those party nights I was startled from my sleep by a loud noise. It took me a few moments to realize the noise was coming from a helicopter hovering just above our roof. The helicopter’s search lights snaked around the curtains, wound through the seams around the front door and became so intense that the shape of the keyhole projected onto the opposite wall.

I ran to the window and pushed back the curtains, and it looked like it was the middle of the day. I saw a bunch of people running up the street and past my house, trying to get away from the scene of the party. The intensity of the expressions on their faces was amazingly clear as they tried to escape the luminosity.

My concentration on the mayhem taking place outside was disrupted by my mother. She wore her old white transparent nightgown that she always wore with another gown underneath because it was so threadbare. My mother told me to get away from the window and go back to sleep.

I immediately went back to my sofa and fell asleep. After what seemed to be a split second, I was again awakened, this time by a yell, “Hey mother fucker!” The voice was coming from the middle of the street outside our house. I slipped out of my “bed” and crawled along the floor, making sure my mother would not catch me this time. As I peeked out the window, I saw a crowd of people in front of our window. They were looking down the street at a smaller group standing on the corner. This smaller band began walking towards the larger, both groups yelling and cursing, until they were within a few feet of each other. One guy at the front of the small group was yelling louder than all the rest.

Then time seemed to shift into slow motion. Back then, gangs used to fight with fists, bats, bottles and chains. Winning usually took place by outnumbering the other guys, so I was amazed to see a hand slowly move up from the side of one of the men in the smaller gang, straight toward the other group. Three bright, quick bursts were projected into the night. Everyone scattered, running for cover. In the chaos of the night, my focus remained on the loudest guy in the larger group. He wasn’t running away. I watched as his body gradually slumped over and slid to the ground. It became a surreal sight; I could only focus on the man on the ground as my mother pulled me away from the window. Then time returned to normal.

In the morning I described to my mother what had happened during the night, but she told me that it was probably a dream and that nothing had really happened. I couldn't understand why my mother told me that what I saw wasn't real. Did I really imagine it? Was it a dream? Was I fabricating an alternate reality? .