Logan’s Lament Revisited

I got a call around two in the morning, from a Baltimore number. Who the hell in Baltimore would want me for anything, never mind at that hour?

It was Paul, using his fiancee's cellphone. He was robbed at gunpoint, his wallet and iPhone taken. Paul didn't carry his money in one of the usual places this time, but the other guy was even dumber, having a number of distinctive features, including unnatural hair coloring. Oh, and apparently he was on a roll, with the police getting additional calls about the guy even as they were taking Paul's information.

Inman Park is one of the safer neighborhoods in Atlanta, but it's near one of the less safer ones. Paul's phone can be replaced, and by this time tomorrow, he'll have it. Paul cannot be. That was when I remembered the speech given by Chief Logan, one that every eighth-grader in Ohio had to memorize back in the day. It was after he was betrayed by the white man, who killed his only son, that the chieftain, once a peaceful man, went for revenge and killed many. But it changed nothing, for ...

There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature ... Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.

The man was probably desperate for drug money. He would have hocked the phone, which would be traced anyway, and gotten a couple hundred in ill-gotten gain, all for one lousy fix. For this he was willing to kill my only son.

They will probably catch him. In that event, I told Paul to "go for the throat" against this guy. Full restitution, and that's just for starters. It's not about the money. It's about the value we place on a life, and the consequences when a member of society sees fit to act otherwise.