just in time

Sometimes on the way home from work, Karim drove past her house to visit the vigil at Just-in-Time Recreation—the first of two locations where the shootings had taken place.

At some point, I took up the strange ritual of driving north, often at night, along familiar back roads, through the rural neighborhood where the shooter lived, past Just-in-Time Recreation, down Main Street, following the bend of the Androscoggin River, to Schemengees Bar and Grille, where the second shooting had taken place.

On one of these drives, I clocked the distance between Just-in-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille, perhaps to bring numerical order to a piece of history that otherwise defied sense.

One of the reasons for fasting, Fazla told me, was to feel more connected to the suffering of other people; to that end, he planned to visit the vigil in front of Just-in-Time Recreation that afternoon to pay his respects.

When we arrived at the former location of Schemengees Bar and Grille, the sign on the outside of the building stood in stark contrast to the signage in front of Just-in-Time Recreation Center.