In Dot, Dorchester, and other uptown areas in general, when someone dies in the streets a shrine usually appears on the spot where they were, most often, shot.
Shrines consist of an odd mix of bric-a-brac: candles in tall glasses with pictures of the virgin and various saints stenciled on the sides, empty liquor bottles, teddy bears, greeting cards, bouquets of flowers, toys, statuettes of the virgin, pillows, balloons, beer bottles. Whatever might be of comfort to the fallen as he ascends, perhaps, to heaven.
The police sometimes leave behind a reminder as well, tracing the outline of the vic for evidential purposes.
The shrine above appeared in front of the big warehouse at the corner of Dudley and Humphreys Street last year. It lasted for months, growing ever larger, before it suddenly disappeared one day.
A fatal shooting this past Sunday in the course of a robbery at the corner convenience store, a hundred feet from my front door, inspired the shrine below. The candles continue flickering in the falling rain.
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