All I can remember is the look in his eyes, the feeling of loss, the tears he tried to fight, the way his hands clenched in rage and despair. I learned years later that Jeremy had been abused. He was poor, living in a loveless home, and struggling to get by in life. He loved his bird. I wanted to be popular.
People have a capacity to be hateful, for the pure sake of being hateful.
Its a term commonly used but rarely explained. Chalk it up to human nature. Its all human nature. Often I've succumbed to this scapegoat, but, thinking back, a single event shaped my life like no other before or since. I considered it a simple fact of human nature.