Disposable Lives

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Went to a job site on Thursday, on the east side of Buffalo and the guys in the work crew were talking about the day before.

"A dude got shot in the head and was dead on the street about a block from here," one guy said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Two black guys got in a fight I guess," the guy said. "Nine-thirty in the morning, bam, bam, dead."

The guy seemed to be enjoying himself as he told the story. Perhaps, actually hopefully, it was just his way of dealing with it.

"The dead guy's mother was out there too, she didn't seem surprised in the least. She probably knew he'd end up dead."

"That's horrible," I said.

"The life they lead," the guy summarized.

Unfortunately I didn't think too much about it and I guess that's the way it is. Some people do live lives that lead to violence. Who knows what the particulars were - drug-related? gang-related? Walking on the wrong side of the street?

This morning I opened the paper to see that three more people died in one incident on the east side. I wondered if it were related to the murder the day before. The police seemed to be asking for help. Will those murders ever be solved?

I don't have an answer for any of it. The murder count will go up as the weather gets better. Strange but it happens every year. My problem with it is that we seem to just shrug it off.

Bad people killing bad people. Hopefully it will stay out of our neighborhood.

It's a shame that seem people seem to live disposable lives.

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