Lookiloos
The gawkers are interesting people. They roll up to scenes of mayhem like a tide. They come and they stay as long as the building is burning, as long as victims are being dug from the wreckage or the violent death is being investigated. They watch in fascinated silence or they speak with anyone who will listen.
Gawkers. Ghouls. Rubberneckers. Lookyloos.
I happen to be one of them. I do it professionally. I get paid to rush out behind the ambulances and cop cars. I write down what I see and whip it into news stories.
I kind of wonder if I’d continue flying to crime scenes if it wasn’t my profession. I have a strange feeling of certainty I would.
You have to ponder what it is that inspires the morbid fascination with tragedy and dark drama. Maybe it’s just how some of us try to put our own mortality in perspective. Seeing the blanket pulled over a body brings home with a clang the idea that we’ll all be under that blanket someday.
Looking on as a teenager is loaded into a hearse surely emphasizes the capriciousness of life and the uncertainty of death. It can happen any time and in any fashion. It can happen to us, and sooner or later it will.
The gawkers. You ask them why they’re out here in the freezing cold watching firefighters trying to stay on top of a tenement fire. They’ll tell you there’s nothing better to do. But that’s bunk. They could be at home watching an action flick or shows about crime scenes and arson investigation.
The gawkers want their action up close and real. They want all the sights and sounds and smells that go with calamity. More adrenaline that way.
Nothing better to do? Bunk. Crowding close to the crime scene tape is exactly what the gawkers want to be doing.
“They turn up everywhere. You’d be surprised how many people show up for this stuff at two or three in the morning,” says Lewiston police Lt. Tom 
Avery. “They come out of nowhere. Sometimes you have to wonder what the attraction is.”
Maybe the attraction is that which compels some to become firemen, police officers, news reporters or paramedics. But gawkers can stand back and just watch, with no real investment in the tragedy and no responsibility at all.
It’s probably human nature. But it isn’t in all of us. A young lady who frequently accompanies me to crime scenes, fires and crashes prefers to stay in the car while I’m out in the middle of the mayhem. She’ll read a novel or crochets while I’m away, content to hear my frantic play-by-play when I get back. I don’t get it. And neither would other serious gawkers.
I’ve been to scenes where parents hoist young children onto their backs so they can get a better look at bleeding victims. I’ve seen families come in cars from miles away because they heard an apartment building was burning and the fire was really going good. I’ve seen people risk arrest because they need to get a little closer, to get a glimpse of the body sprawled in the street.
Gawkers. Some will gather in crowds, expressing shock at the horror show in front of them. But they never look away. Some will make dark jokes and yuck it up with anyone in earshot. Some just stand back from the crowd, alone and staring at the tumult like a crow watching passing traffic from a phone line.
You have to wonder if it’s healthy and sane, this intense fascination with grimness. But when I get to questioning my own indulgence, I reassure myself that it’s better than an even uglier state of mind. It’s better to be indulgent than indifferent when it comes to hard realities and the suffering of others.
December 29th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
The other “lookiloo” phenomenon is weather. Every now and then you hear a warning on the TV weather report about staying away from the beach because of high tides, powerful waves and flooding. When I lived near the ocean (in Lynn, MA) I’d be down there in a heartbeat. Once when there was a huge storm and car-sized chunks of ice were being thrown onto the road, I came home encased in ice from the knees down. My husband was — well, furious. He says that if they ever warned of a tsunami, i would be the first one there. Well, yeah …
And it’s the same with fire. How could you resist going to watch a fire? It’s so powerful, such a life of its own. Hits all the senses. Scary but beautiful.
People dead and hurt — not unless I think I can help, and that’s not often. Once i saw a woman faint in the street downtown, and I took care of her until the ambulance came. That drew a crowd, and I’d rather that people stand four-square and stare, rather than amble past casually pretending they don’t notice while all their body language says “hey, lookit that!”.
December 29th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, I’m with ya on that. I remember just a short time ago seeing a giant piller of smoke going over our apartment, I wnet to see what it was and watched for over an hour while marcos and the two buildings next to it burned. I only went home cause I needed sleep so I could go to work the next day. I think we must get it from our parents … I remember when I was very young my parents took me for a walk in hurricane Gloria. Sweet. I also remember after the ice storm, I had to walk around the neighborhood and see all the ice and damage, I was facinated. I wanted … well, to know. I have always wanted to know, I wanted to know the power of the waves, the heat of the fire, how bad the damage to the car in the accident was. I wanted to know who, what, how, when, where, with whom, and for how many cookies. Curiosity is the darndest thing ….
December 29th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I remember being released from school early the day that the Libby Mill blew up. Most of Auburn showed up for that fire. The bridge was wall to wall people and everyone was nervous when the bridge shook from an explosion. I don’t know how long people stood there watching as the mill burned, but everyone (including myself) was fascinated by the scenes that unfolded in front of us.
One night as we were driving home, we drove by an accident scene twice because we thought that that we recognized the vehicle that had been run over by an 18 wheeler. My sister was out with a friend of hers that night and the driend was driving the same type of vehicle, so we went back to verify that it wasn’t my sister and her friend that night.
It’s human nature to be curious about morbid things like accidents and what not and unfortunately, that will never change.
December 29th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
I remember Gloria too, Mayo. I was in Old Orchard as fast as I could get there. During the ice storm, I was trapped at home for a few days, the powerlines were down, slung over my car under two inches of ice. I took off on foot down Park Ave to see the bending trees draping the road. It was beautiful, but scary. I wondered if we’d ever get power back on again. Fourteen days later, the lights and furnace came back on and the big thaw began. When the big propane leak happened at my house a few weeks ago, there were a bunch of idiots trying to get in my yard so they could see it. People are stupid sometimes. Hey, I’m a gawker like the best of them, but I don’t think I ever really put my life in danger.
Did you guys hear there was another earthquake today on an island off the coast of Maine? Let’s go see…
December 29th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
My next door neighbor is semi retired from Alleghany Power. He was with a crew that came up to Maine after the ice storm to help with repairs. I was there a few months later and was amazed that in some places it still looked like a war zone.
When the Poland Spring Inn burned, my landlord’s son and I parked down on Rte 122 and hiked up the hill to see it. We were far from the only ones. There was a steady stream of people doing the same.
December 29th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
The Ice Storm was positively surreal. Total wasteland. You couldn’t help but be a gawker in that situation. The whole world was coated with ice.
December 29th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I came back to Maine the week after the ice storm. Wasteland is right.
In 1985 my husband moved to New Zealand before I did, and there was a hurricane where I lived, in Massachusetts. My husband heard about it on the news (This was long ago in the shire, children, before email) and he phoned to see if we were OK. Our son told him that I was out walking around the neighborhood, having a look at things. Again with the furious. A tree fell about four inches from my house, which was in escrow (a lucky miss). That may have been the most exciting weather event that I personally experienced. Though I also like a good earthquake as long as nobody gets hurt.
December 30th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
SNOW! finally!
December 30th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I’m with you Brenda. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Speaking of gawking, I gawked at the tv for days after 9-11. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I must have seen those planes hit the towers a thousand times. The only time I watched more tv was during the first gulf war and during the OJ trial. Why do we do that? I always thought I was just nosey, but I guess I’m a gawker. Ha!
December 30th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
I was flued to teh computer in the days of Katrina, but it was a form of wanting to do something to help, not knowing what, wanting to be sure someone was, and it was depressing.
In the city, when something happens, for example a fire or an ambulance, I want to see what happened to who, but I think I care about it, I really do. Even if I can’t do anything. For one thing, I am amazed and reassured to watch the paramedics & firemen & police and see that are helping, to know that they are doing it, and they help us be safer.
After seeing certain videos on the news, such as Rodney King’s beating a while ago in LA (the other LA) and hearing from many people who felt the police were racially profiling, etc, then my belief in the police as existing to help, was damaged, but I have never seen anything in Lewiston yet that was outrageous, concerning the police’ handling & interacting with people.
I think we watch what happens when things go wrong, times of crisis, to reassure ourselves that people around us will help us if we need it.
oh, that reminds me of an existential concept, awareness of our mortality/ limitations, and also the conflicts between power & powerlessness, which could be applied to the subject of lookiloos & crisis situations……
never mind!
lol
December 30th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
flued to teh computer ????
I think that was supposed to be: ‘glued to the computer…..’
December 31st, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I think it was more likely “sniffing glue by the computer”, which would explain a lot for Brenda
December 31st, 2006 at 8:52 pm
haha, so funny. there’s no glue in my house
December 31st, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I’ve been saying that about you now for some time.
December 31st, 2006 at 11:24 pm
“I’m rubber
you’re glue-
bounces off me
& sticks to you!”
how silly.
happy new year