I kidded "C" - the woman across the aisle from me about burning vacation days.
I wish I hadn't.
She was taking two days to go to a wake and a funeral. Her friend, her mechanic, had died on Sunday.
He was maybe forty one.
He was married.
He had four children - an 18, a 16, and 13 year old twins.
He had recent good news. He had been hired by the local vo-tech to teach auto mechanics and was to start next semester.
It was around 10:30 at night.
The surveillance cameras spotted him first.
He was lying on the sidewalk.
It was a bad block in an otherwise good section of the city.
He had been murdered - senselessly shot in what might have been a holdup.
They caught the guy that did it - almost immediately. He was picked up on a something else and confessed to this one as well.
In a way, that doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything.
My co-worker had cried with his widow.
The widow kept saying, "This is a bad dream and he'll come walking through the door."
"C" had to keep telling her, "No, it's not a dream, he's gone."
What can you say?
I don't know.
I do know that I had considered living there. It's a city in transition, for the better, "gentrification" is the word they use. It's opportunity to get in at a less then expensive price.
I rejected the idea.
I dislike the dirt, smells, fire trap hundred year old row houses, no place to park, grit, the noise - especially the sirens.
.... and then there are the random acts of violence.
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I was going to disable comments, but that's against my normal policy. Really though the only things to say are those I've written. I needed to give word to emotion.
