Hassan and how you can never make anything right ever again...

Hassan was from Egypt.

He was tiny. He was like a doll, in that he was perfect in every way, very delicate, tiny brows, lovely deer-in-the-headlight eyes, he always looked a bit startled. I could estimate he stood about five feet two or three. Delicate. He hardly came up to my shoulder and I am five-nine.

His older brother helped him get here. His older brother drove his little brother into a marriage that had been more or less arranged by the family.

Hassan was ok with it. He seemed to love her. And soon produced three children whom he loved ultimately.

And because he wanted to provide for those children.... he soon had three jobs, and I don't know how or when that young man ever slept.

And one night... late in the middle of the morning.... in a country which never sleeps, really, you see lit windows everywhere all hours of the night... and that is a true statement... that night, Hassan delivered newspapers, just to top off his weekly income.

He was just a couple of blocks up from my house delivering papers.... and some incredibly drunk racist local asshole KNIFED him in a building... because he was different.

Hassan didn't die, thank whomever.

And he didn't lose that equanimity that made him exceptional. But he did lose his main job. The Austrian bastard cut a major nerve in his shoulder, and he couldn't work in the restaurant any more.

I tried to stay in touch... but I wasn't 'kin' or 'family'.

And our government is beginning to do to us what they did to him. Death by ignoring. and cutting your paid in money to the bone, whereupon comes the saying 'too little to live on, too much to die on...'

I'm really fed up.