Thursday, January 27, 2005

murder most foul

I like to say I grew up in Chicago’s fairest suburb, Evanston, but it’s just as true that I grew up in nearby Edgewater, the 2nd most northeasterly neighborhood of the city. It’s a mostly quiet, residential chunk of Chicago, but apparently there’ve been lots of killings there lately. I remember walking down a street in the hood and seeing cops examining the corpse of a guy who’d been thrown from a moving car a couple of years ago. I mean it is a big city. But apparently they’ve discovered three murder victims in the last two months. Three. Two in the same apartment building. It happens to be my friend and co-worker Shawn’s building. I’ve been in his apartment. It’s nice. The first victim was a janitor. The second a 21 year old girl from Evanston. The crimes are said to be unrelated, although I’d call them, you know, thematically linked. The theme being this great big story of brutality that’s been unfolding since that unpleasantness in the Garden of Eden. Shawn knew both of them slightly. Like he’d say hi to them in the elevator and such. What happens when the background characters in your life get ripped away? I mean they usually fade away and you tend not to notice. But you notice death.

Sorry, your time’s up and you don’t get to be here anymore. You think you get to loiter around here forever?

Move along.

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