I saw in the news today that Jonathan Joss was killed in a dispute with a neighbor. I didn’t recognize his name, but his face I instantly knew was Ken Hotate’s—and once I realized that I knew he was also John Redcorn. Two characters I loved in their shows, but that’s not really relevant to this.

Some accounts say that Joss had been dealing with mental health issues, and had been lashing out more and more recently. His house burnt down earlier this year. His dogs died in the fire. Other accounts say that the house was lit on fire intentionally, by a neighbor. The account from his husband says that their dog’s skull was placed on the mailbox, and a man confronted them both before opening fire.

I don’t know which is true. Both? Neither? I don’t think it matters, because the indisputable facts are that a man was killed because someone didn’t like who he was. No account says that Joss or his husband were armed. You don’t gun down a neighbor if they’re unarmed. It doesn’t matter if they’re mourning a dog or screaming in the yard at you. This was just conscious cruelty—the explicit desire to hurt. Not just enjoying it, but wanting to inflict pain and suffering. Once again, humanity reminds itself that it is the truth behind all our folklore. There are no demons but ourselves.

This is why so many of us are concerned about not just this administration, but the decades-long lead-up to today. There’s always going to be criminals and those so unhinged they don’t care. But how many people who would’ve felt society’s pressure to keep it contained instead feel emboldened just enough to let their true colors fly, and kill a man in the burned out ruins of his home for no good reason by any worthwhile moral compass?

I’m trying to not assume, because this both does not affect me personally and is still very recent news. However, I can’t help but consider how vulnerable a target a gay couple in Texas are, and how likely that was a motivator, if not the primary motive. More and more, it feels like the voices of division who want there to only be the ‘right’ kind of American are not getting louder, but bolder.

I know that as someone who almost certainly has some form of ADHD, I’m sure as shit not about to get tested or medicated thanks to RFK Jr, our head of HHS expressing a desire to form an Autism registry. As I’ve become more informed about just what my sexuality, my gender expression really is, I’m in no rush to actually be at ease with either because of killings like what happened to Joss. Whatever the events leading up to the shooting may have been, they weren’t worth killing someone over. And there may not have been any events at all.

I know this has been boiling under the surface for years—it never really left. I know this now, even if in my youth I was a lot more sheltered by the South’s cultural ability to ‘just not talk about’ anything outside the norm. I think it’s just hitting harder now because I’ve finally been able to figure things about myself, only to reach an era where hate doesn’t even wear a polite mask and work from the shadows—it’s your neighbor and it guns you down in your own yard. It’s not limited to just us outside the cishet category either. Being browner than a latte or speaking anything other than English is even riskier, because you can’t put your skin or your language in the closet.

I don’t know. It’s the possibility that this neighbor of Joss’ put the dog’s skull on display just to make sure Joss’ last moments were even more miserable. That’s the kind of cruelty I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand. I think you need a lifetime of hate with no one pulling you up until it’s eaten everything that could’ve been good in your soul, until you’re just a vessel for your worst impulses.