Gone

I've been meaning to write about this for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been able to. Tom did on his blog... but every time I think about it my chest starts to hurt...

One of Tom's co-workers got shot in the head a couple of weeks ago. He died, needless to say. He was Tom's age. He had a wife my age. And a son LB's age. I'd seen the guy at the last company Christmas party, seen him, and his wife, and his son had come over to play with LB. Now his son doesn't have a Daddy anymore. He got shot outside of a strip club. What he was doing there, I don't know. The newspaper article refers to him as a "gang associate". I just remember him as a big burly Russian with lots of facial hair. He looked like a friendly bear to me, the way his grin flashed out every now and then. I didn't talk to him or his wife at the party, I don't think. I'm just shy like that I guess.

He was murdered, and the cops apparently have no leads, even though there were lots of witnesses. I think about it all sometimes, and imagine being in his wife's place, like I imagined being in Michelle William's place when Heath Ledger died. It's heartbreaking... to think of those little kids never getting to know their Daddy.

And it's frightening to me, to think that I was that close to him, hell, Tom worked with him... and someone killed him. Gang violence is on the rise here, and I've been clueless. It was only once I met Tom and he pointed it out to me that I started noticing drug deals going down. Now I see them in my neighbourhood all the time. I was walking through the park this weekend with Lily and there were 2 guys at a picnic table with mean looking dogs OFF their leashes. We're talking pit bull-bull dog mixes or something. To me, youngish guys acting shifty who have mean-looking dogs just scream "dealer". Or dealer-wannabe anyway.

And I could go right into how I had to confront another guy and his girlfriend who had a huge rottweiler off it's leash right by the playground where around 15 little kids were running around screaming and playing. She was sneering at all the older folks who were looking at them in disgust as they lounged on a picnic table and let the dog wander. So I called her on it and said that having such a large dog off it's leash so close to a playground makes us parents nervous for our kids. The dude just shrugged and said "people stereotype". Hello? Don't those dogs have a tendency towards vicious behaviour? And you never can tell what could set a dog off.. really, with all the demand for dogs and all the inbreeding... we never knew our dog had epilepsy till he bit me. Bah. Stupid people. I told him there was lots more space farther up the park where there weren't kids and he made a motion like he hadn't heard me so I repeated myself and he just shrugged and said we'll only be here for a few more minutes. I said again that it made us nervous for our kids (just to get some kind of lame last word in)... trying to sound mature when I really just wanted to tear the guy a new asshole. But I can never do that in the heat of the moment. It's always after I'm home that I start to shake and all these things I should have said come to me. But they did keep the dog closer to them, maybe by stepping on his leash, and they left about 10 minutes later.

I try to be peaceful and nice to others and just treat others the way I'd want to be treated and sometimes I wonder what's the point if so many others are just out to get what they can and don't care who they hurt in the process, don't care how they make others feel as long as they protect their image.