Nice

I thought he was nice.

Oh, that word.

But, yeah, it seemed to fit.

At first, I thought he was just lazy. A slacker.

He, along with my friend's nephew, were supposed to show up at 10 AM to help me move. The nephew called at 10:30. 

"Uh, J is still sleeping. He doesn't like getting up early. I'll keep trying him."

11:45 AM: "He's awake! We should be there by 12:30."

12:30 PM: "J is moving kind of slow. But we'll be there by 1:00."

This was a 26-year-old man, not a 17-year-old kid. Three hours late? Seriously, who does that? It's not like I was asking them to work for free. I was paying each of them $30 an hour. I worried that once he did finally show up, he'd be worthless.

But he wasn't. He was articulate, polite, worked hard, and afterwards when I treated them to beer and munchies, he played lovingly with my cat and the kitten I was fostering. 

A week ago he shot a black man in the face, after letting loose some extremely not nice racial slurs. When the cops stopped him the next day, he shot one of them in the arm. They opened fire, and now J, who turned 27 days before, is dead.

Some people contain a seemingly fixed, high percentage of nice. Others act nice when they are in a good mood and / or their needs are met. 

An imbalance of nice plus guns that grow on American trees equals one senseless death after another.

The country is now thick with gun forests, with more trees being planted every day.

Seems a lot of Americans like it that way.

They crow about their second amendment rights.

Then they tell you to have a nice day.

Nice.