SO. METAL.

Y’all. Y’ALL.

Now this is a story all about how . . . my friend Ethan got shot in the arm while minding his business sitting on a balcony.

First, most importantly, he’s all right, considering. Handling it in good spirits. Certainly could’ve been worse. Cops took it very seriously and there are detectives assigned to the case, but honestly I doubt they’ll ever find the shooter. My guess is stupid kids committing random acts of stupidity on rooftops. It sucks, but all the professionals behaved like professionals and they’ve got quite the workload.

The EMS responders also took the injury very seriously—Ethan and I were, in fact, both surprised at how seriously. Stripped him down, rolled him into the trauma bay with multiple IV lines, x-rayed him everywhere, brought in a social worker and a chaplain. This is evidently standard procedure for gunshot wounds.

And he was a pretty good sport about the whole thing. *wolf whistle*

So listen. I’m not here to talk about what a ZOMG DANGEROUS PLACE Chicago is. I don’t really want to hear people’s “cuh-raaazy” stories about their limited city experiences that basically amount to “One time I saw a homeless person yelling.” I’m not here to offer a hot take about gun violence in ‘Murrica because this is complicated and I sure as hell don’t have all the answers.

What I’m here to talk about is money. Ethan is a drummer. He kinda needs that arm. He does live percussion for Chicago Shakespeare Theater and a number of other major theater productions in the area. In addition to the huge hospital bill he’s anticipating, he’s missed a few shows because of this injury, and every show he misses costs him $$$. Evidently drumming is hard with a bullet in your arm. OH HEY, did I mention the bullet is STILL IN HIS ARM? For real. The doctors didn’t wanna dig it out; they figured it would be more traumatic to do so. So now Ethan’s got to wait until it naturally works itself out of him (in a week? A year?) and then put it in an evidence bag. How metal is that??? That’s SO METAL. SO. METAL.

Oh, you know where I’m going with this now, do you?

Yeah, all right. This is a thing we can do to help. You got me, DC Universe?

Find the preorder for SO. METAL. in the DarlingClandestine shop. Guess what; it’s not really gonna smell like metal. You know I don’t take this stuff literally. I’m going for lake breeze at sunset, a cool front moving through baked-brick alleys, the paleta guy packing up his cart, a remnant of locust flower, the tiniest suggestion of chocolate. Because Chicago. True unisex/all gender. Eight bucks for Bitsies, a flat 20 bucks and FREE SHIPPING—even for international orders!—on full sizes.

As most of you know, I’ve recently moved shop and my inventory is depleted. So I’m going to say it’ll be a solid eight weeks before your package will be on its way. So it’s PRETTY METAL of you to make your purchase now. And give Ethan some love in the comments below! AND/OR you can love him up at ethandeppe.com.

Thank you. Love you.