People killed other family members, or close friends, over the most trivial disputes. The previous Thanksgiving a father had killed his son over a turkey leg. Ryan’s personal “favorite” was a homicide over a crab cake—not so much a matter of amusement as hyperbole. In all such cases the contributing factors were usually alcohol and a bleak life that transformed ordinarily petty disputes into matters of great import. I didn’t mean it was the phrase most often heard afterwards, followed by some variation of why didn’t he just back off a little? The sadness of such events was like a slow-acting
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