"Why did I live through my shooting when other people didn’t?"
A survivor shares his harrowing story and the shocking discrimination he found in its fallout
L-R: John D Morant and Antonius Wiriadjaja (Courtesy of the author)
This essay was originally written for the Rally Reading Series, a monthly reading series that takes place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
By: Antonius Wiriadjaja
It was the day after Independence Day in 2013. I was walking to the Nostrand Avenue Subway stop in Bed Stuy, around 2 in the afternoon. Most people had the day off, myself included. Kids were playing in the street, soaking up the summer sun. Their parents watched, trying to stay cool in the shade despite the 90 degree heat. One block away from my apartment, I heard what I thought were fireworks. But when I looked down I saw blood pouring out from my chest.
The shooter was aiming for a pregnant woman walking just ahead. I didn’t know either of them. He shot the woman twice in the leg and she fell. But he kept pulling the trigger.
The next bullet was meant for her head, but it hit me between the ribs on my left side. It missed my heart by an inch.
The pain was beyond words. I pressed against my wound, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood. Every breath I took felt like shards of glass were piercing my chest. I had to summon every ounce of strength to drag myself behind a nearby stoop, seeking refuge from the bullets.
Meanwhile, just a block away, a barber named John D Morant was cutting hair in his shop. He heard the noise and he knew they weren’t fireworks. So he went out to look for survivors. That’s when he spotted me, leaning against a brick wall with my hand on my chest. He placed his hand over mine and pushed down. He asked me, “What do you taste?” He was asking because he wanted to see if I tasted iron and if I was bleeding internally.
I struggled to speak, but I managed to groan: “Peach cobbler.” I had leftovers that morning. John D smiled. “You’re going to make it,” he said.
John D had experience treating people with bullet wounds because he himself had been shot. When he was fourteen years old, he later told me, he jumped in front of a friend to save him from a shootout with the police — because that’s the kind of guy John is. The bullet entered his chest on the right side. His scars mirrored mine.
John D stayed with me until the ambulance arrived. But the police came before the paramedics did. They told him to leave because he was interrupting a scene of a crime. He refused. They threatened to arrest him. He again refused.
I could no longer say anything at that point. I tried to stay awake, but it was so hard because whenever I closed my eyes it felt so incredibly peaceful. I looked up at the sky. It was calm again. Birds were chirping in the branches above. I watched the tree branches sway in the wind.
I started to think about the day before, and how I celebrated America’s birthday. I biked to the beach. I felt the ocean beneath my feet. I went out to a gay club with my friends, and I made out with someone random. I thought to myself, I lived a pretty good life.
But then I had to shake myself out of it. No. This is not going to be the way I go. I have people who love me. I have so many more things I want to do, so many things left undone. And at that moment I said out loud, “I don’t want to die.” But the choice wasn’t mine anymore.
“He’s not breathing,” somebody said. I snapped back into reality and I was already in the Emergency Room. The doctors and nurses were looking down at me. I started to panic and began to vomit. The peach cobbler I had that morning was spilling out of my mouth. They had to clear my throat and placed me into a medically induced coma.
I woke up four days later.
It was the happiest day of my life. It was also the angriest I had ever felt. More than anything, I was just so confused. Confused at the senselessness of what had happened. Confused about the big red scar that ran from my chest to below my belly button. And confused about how I was going to contact this guy who had asked me out the day before the shooting. While I was in a coma, I stood him up on a date.
Two weeks later, I was discharged from the hospital. Three months passed by, and I learned how to walk again. A half a year since the shooting, and I was back to work teaching students at my school.
The world had moved on, and in all outward appearances I looked like any other person walking down the street. But I would never be the same again.
I was diagnosed with PTSD, and I continue to struggle with it today. I actually didn’t know if I was going to make it here because every time I tell my story I relive the shooting in my mind.
My bullet wounds may have healed into scars that you can see and touch, but there is nothing I can do to explain the silent battle I live through each day.
I tried to keep in touch with everyone who helped me recover, especially John D the barber. Less than a year after my shooting, John D confided that he was having trouble financially and needed to do odd jobs for his family. He went down to South Carolina. I called him up while he was down there to check in and see when he was coming back to New York. But instead I found out that he had been killed. John D Morant was gunned down in South Carolina.
The hero who saved my life was shot and killed. And the only thing I could find in the news was this: A black man. Shot in the back. Uncooperative with the police. Died on the way to the hospital. He did not receive the attention that I received. He saved my life, but I wasn’t there to save his.
John D died with people thinking he was a thug, but I remember him as the man who saved my life while his own was in danger. I remember him as a good man who embraced his brother’s son as his own, stepping into the role of a parent, determined to keep his family out of poverty by any means, taking whatever odd jobs he could, no matter how dangerous, just to keep them safe — because that is who he is.
We live in a world where some victims receive greater sympathy than others.
But there is no difference between myself, John D the barber, and the pregnant woman who was the intended target of my shooting. We are all victims of a terrible epidemic that gets worse each day because of how easy it is to access guns in this country.
I only met the intended target of my shooting once. We were facing a Grand Jury and had to testify on what happened. I had to lift up my shirt and show my scars. I testified to the best of my ability. She spoke in detail about her relationship with the shooter. I was surprised at the questions they threw at her. Who was she pregnant with? Why didn’t she know the full name of the shooter? What did she do to make him attack her?
The detective and the district attorney of my case had to remind the jury that she was a victim as well.
Some people, before they hear my full story, think I was mugged. That I put myself into this situation because I moved into a dangerous neighborhood. One nurse even told me that I should have minded my own business because she thought I was trying to interrupt a scene of domestic violence. Then there are the anonymous trolls who feel every time I tell my story I am attacking their ideologies on a personal level. They blame me for not having a gun of my own to protect myself from the shooter.
They ask me the race of my shooter, because there is a hierarchy of violence as well. Violence done by black men is somehow considered different from violence done by white men. Violence against some women is appropriate because some women are asking for it. This line of questioning and thinking is not unique to me. Many other victims are subjected to it, and each time a seed of doubt takes root within me.
I start believing that somehow the shooting was my fault. And I relive the moments before the shooting, and I question every choice I made that day. Why didn’t I leave my home earlier? Why did I go towards the A train instead of the G train? What’s worse is the inevitable question every survivor ends up asking: Why did I survive? Why did I live through my shooting when other people didn’t?
Every day in the United States, an average of 109 people die from gun violence. And when you double that number, that’s how many survive a shooting per day.
Behind each of these numbers is a person, a story waiting to be told. John D, the barber who saved my life. The woman who had been shot in front of me. Her unborn baby. They are all people. So I invite you to at least acknowledge this. His name was John D. Morant, and he saved my life. Please say his name.
If there’s one thing you can take from my story it’s this: When human beings see human beings hurt, we want to protect them. Whether you’re a big black barber in Brooklyn, a pregnant woman hanging out on her stoop, or just another guy walking down the street — human lives are worth protecting from senseless gun violence. It’s up to us to take up the fight.
Antonius Wiriadjaja is a multimedia artist based in New York City. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and currently teaches in the Art and Design department of Queens College. Also known as foodmasku, his artwork has been showcased globally at events like Paris Photo Week, Miami Art Basel, the TED Conference, and the United Nations. A board member of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, he is dedicated to activism after surviving a shooting near his Brooklyn apartment in 2013, advocating fervently for gun violence prevention.
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing. 💔