A Year Later, ‘The Event’ Lingers in Tucson, Ariz.

A Year Later, ‘The Event’ Lingers in Tucson, Ariz.
January has come again to Tucson. The pleasant days all but demand a hike or a bicycle ride. The cool evenings cast the Santa Catalina Mountains in a mesmerizing magenta. And, for some, the late nights bring to mind a supermarket called Safeway, of all things, and an echoing pop. Pop, pop, pop, pop.

A year later, Nancy Ostromencki, a piano teacher who shops regularly at Safeway, hears them still. She and her husband, Phil, had just checked out at Register 1, with the friendly cashier, Beverly, ringing up their beef, salmon, dog food and Diet Pepsi. Then came those pops, which made her think that another supermarket employee, a known joker, was popping balloons in the floral section. Pop, pop, pop, pop.

Suddenly, her husband, a Vietnam War veteran, was hustling her out a side exit, let’s go, let’s go, no time to greet her friend at the Starbucks counter. As she was being rushed out, she saw another woman pick up two children in soccer uniforms and carry them out like sacks. She also noticed that a hush had replaced the popping, as though life’s soundtrack had been abruptly shut off.

On Jan. 8, 2011, in 16 seconds that will never tick away in Tucson, authorities say that a college dropout with evident mental illness named Jared L. Loughner fired 31 rounds from his 9-millimeter pistol before a few brave citizens subdued him. Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, and 13 others were wounded, several gravely — among them Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who had been holding a Meet Your Congresswoman event just outside the supermarket’s doors.

As Mr. Loughner, 23, undergoes evaluations while awaiting trial, and Ms. Giffords, 41, slowly, miraculously, recovers from a gunshot wound to the head, the City of Tucson is dedicating this weekend to getting beyond those echoing pops. There are festivals of art and celebrations of democracy, a walk through a park named after that 9-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green, and a hike along a trailhead named after another victim, Gabriel Zimmerman. On Sunday night, Ms. Giffords is expected to attend a candlelight vigil.

But others who were directly touched by The Event, as it is sometimes called, will mark the anniversary in their own private ways, reflecting on what has changed, and what has not.

The taxi driver who dropped off Mr. Loughner at the supermarket will drive his cab. The doctor who saw the bloodshed unfold right before him will wonder about the gash in his psyche. And the Safeway customer, Ms. Ostromencki, will stay home and play the piano because, she says, music “has a way of working out the knots.”

The taxi driver, John Marino, 61, now calls himself the “unlucky guy.” But that Saturday morning, he was just another cabbie, picking up another fare — a young man in a hoodie — and driving him five awkward miles to the Safeway.

The man wanted change from his $20 bill for the $14.25 fare, so Mr. Marino escorted him to the supermarket’s service desk and collected a 75-cent tip. When the customer asked to shake his hand goodbye, the cabbie obliged, and received the man’s sweaty palm.

Since then, Mr. Marino has traded in his Ford Crown Victoria for a Chevrolet Impala; better mileage, he says. And, occasionally, a customer will ask, “Aren’t you the ...?”

“Yes, I am,” answers the unlucky cabbie.

Other than that, Mr. Marino’s life is as unchanged as the relaxed gun laws of Arizona. “You got the Wild West out here,” says Mr. Marino, who is originally from Chicago. “They’re not going to give their guns up. And people who are going to do what they’re going to do — they’re going to get a gun.”

Minutes after Mr. Marino left, his customer, Mr. Loughner, opened fire, the police say, tearing apart one of our country’s givens: a simple meet-and-greet with an elected official. Among those who had gone to see Ms. Giffords were Steven Rayle, a former emergency room doctor who had moved on to hospice work, and his companion, Laura Tennen.

Ms. Tennen had spilled gas on her hand while fueling their car — one of those mundane moments that loom large in retrospect — so she had gone through a side entrance at Safeway to get a moist towelette from a complimentary dispenser. Dr. Rayle, meanwhile, was holding their two dogs, Tazzie and Chester, by a double leash, a few feet from Ms. Giffords when — pop, pop, pop.

A man sort of danced into the scene, wearing a weird expression of delight and shooting what the doctor assumed was a fake gun. Must be a political stunt, or a kind of right-wing performance art, the doctor thought at first.