Music blared from Yonge-Dundas Square, the sound track for some sort of stationary-bicycle race for dignity; meanwhile, a movie crew idled around the corner, movies being the only shooting we want in this town.

And I was thinking this:

You two-bit thug. You thing. You it. You worse than the scum I scrape off my shoe. The man you targeted is dead. Whether it was drugs, or retaliation, or — sorry, there is no possible reason for a man to die like that.

Innocent people were wounded, and hundreds were scared witless; no reason. You made us observers and participants in your puny little war. No reason.

You lousy s.o.b.

None of us were wearing flak jackets, but all of us were thinking this: why do we have to be brave to come downtown; why should it take guts to sit on a hard chair at an easy-to-wipe table in a lousy little food court; why must we worry when all we want to do is to buy a pair of shoes, get a bite to eat and go home again; and, why, for the love of all that’s holy, should the smell of salt and fat now remind some people of a battlefield?

You worthless chicken.

It doesn’t take any courage to sneak up and take someone by surprise. It takes the opposite of courage.

The way gangs did it once upon a time — unless it was all-out war, and even then — was to take care of business one on one, face to face, man to man, where nobody was going to get hurt except those who were supposed to get hurt.

To open fire in a crowd? To hurt children? To inflict terror upon the innocent? That’s the act of a sick boy, not a man. You’re not a bad-ass, you’re a sad-ass. And, if you have any brains, you’re scared.

Is it a thrill, to be the most-wanted? Do you like hiding under your bed with the lights out, the curtains drawn, the radio turned down low? Do you think, if you get a haircut and a hat, that no one will know who you are when you try to sneak around?

Enjoy the frisson while it lasts.

The history of this stuff, based on the track record of the cops, suggests you don’t have long. The only thing long is the sentence you’ll get when you are caught.

If you had any guts, you’d turn yourself in today and save us all some time.

Your mother’s heart is broken now, and your father’s head is sore. Or, if your mother was one of those bad mothers, and if you father was a crap dad, then it’s even worse because you could have been their redemption.

You sucker.

Now the cops are going to trample you, and there isn’t a civil libertarian in this town who will not look the other way when you show up in court with a broken cheek, a split lip, a splintered rib.

For making life hell for the rest of us, for taking life, and for wrecking lives, screw you.

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The novelist in me wonders about the woman who went into labour, and the child whose impulse toward the light was provoked by bullets in a crowd: What lullabies will that mother sing, and what questions will a child have who heard, in utero, gunshots?

Will that child be a cop, a novelist, a lawyer, a doctor, a food court fry cook, a journalist, a jazz percussionist, or a painter whose themes are public space defined by police tape? I’ve got news: that child will be anything but a thug like you.

Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca