He was a forgotten vet, a warrior without a cause to fight. His broken down body ached in places he didn’t know he had. But this was the life of a disabled combat vet. An austere existence, that included a lot of 40 oz. bottles and packages of ramen noodles. He hadn’t had a woman at his side in years, besides ones he could pay for, and he passed his days with generous helpings of cigarettes, dope, and small time bets on the ponies. Most of the buildings stood vacant on this street, but it seemed to be densely populated by a criminal element. Illicit drug deals, whoring, and the underground weapons trade were the life’s blood of this part of town.

He bled stars and stripes, but it was no use anymore in a land of avaricious plenty. Affluenza afflicted the nation, and the have nots didn’t have a say. The president was a shell of a man who lived by the Bible of unfettered capitalism, and imperialist war. There was a war on at present, but it wasn’t followed much as the everyday lives of pop icons and thespians ruled the zeitgeist. The chattering classes and muckty-mucks wouldn’t haven’t agreed, but who among the commonfolk cared about what they say? Much as the Cultural Revolution tried to eliminate the elite, the America of today seemed to be trying to eradicate the great unwashed mass of men. This was the America of the permanent war economy. What Ike had warned us about, was now real.

Though the nation was perpetually at war with Eurasia, or whoever the mass media villified today, there was nothing left in this country for an old soldier like Jim. The military had no use for his body, ‘cept maybe spare parts, and the only war being fought on the domestic front was against hard workin’ small town folks like Jim. Jim had been in the union, working at the plant, until ‘92, when the plant pulled up stakes and went off to Mexico. No one much cared anymore, anyways, but the latest rumor was the relocated plant down there, was on it’s way to another transit to Vietnam, Thailand, or somewhere where it would be powered by the modern day slave laborers of the periphery.

Unions weren’t any longer widely known, the Republican revolution and its hate radio minions had suceeded in driving them off the economic landscape. Jim had been a union man, but he felt powerless to make any kind of change. The media was only interested in political sex scandals, and the politicians were only out to rob and thieve. Jim was growing sick of just passing the time before death. Today was the day he was going to do something new.

Jim picked up his shotgun, loaded it, and left his room. This was the first time Jim had been out of his apartment in days, and although the city air wasn’t clean, it felt good to breath. Jim thought death was in the air, and today was a good day to accomplish his plan. Jim got on the city bus, and headed out to the ‘burbs. His destination was the mall outside of town, with hundreds of small shops, eight large anchor stores, and an eighteen theatre multi-plex. Jim grew up going to the A and P, and the five and dime, this environment was as foreign to him as could be. Jim thought it represented what America had become, a place where every town looked the same. Where trans-national corporate chains, pervaded the landscape, and not the mom and pops Jim had grown up with.

Jim was off his meds, and today he was going to make history. He would go to the most white-bred department store, and become immortal. He calmly went through the gates of Carson and Steele’s department store, he raised his shotgun and made short work of the cashiers at the gate. He entered the men’s department and plugged a stocky balding man in the chest. Already nine-one-one had been called, and time was of the essence for Jim. He fired a couple rounds at the college boy behind the counter but they missed and ricocheted off a building support pole. Onto sporting goods, and he fricasséed a man looking at the lures. Some one launched a football at Jim, targeting his head, but it missed. Jim swerved around looking for the hurler, but he must have dove out of the aisle. Jim, next, moved to appliances, where the reaper called on a woman surveying the blenders. A neophyte pencil-necked security guard, hands shaky, took two ill advised shots at Jim; Jim wasted him, with a deadeye shot.

Today was not going to be the day of glory that Jim had laid it out to be, the dominos wouldn’t be falling into place, as he’d foreseen. Just over the horizon of where Jim was shooting in the store, a police officer was enjoying a lazy shopping day with his wife. They braced themselves against the store fixtures as the bangs of the shotgun rang out. Officer Crist, figured it would be at least five to ten minutes before the heavy artillery came for the shooter. He knew he had to summon the guts to face him. Officer Crist had never discharged his weapon in the line of duty, his days were passed mostly with traffic violations and domestic squabbles; his heart fluttered as he gripped his gun.

Crist had seen enough Rambo movies to know that any loaded weapon was a ticking bomb. No matter how bad a shot the shooter, he had to be sure a bullet didn’t graze him. He figured he could save some lives today, if only he used his noggin instead of his chutzpah. He wriggled his way over to a large gum ball machine, where he thought he could get a shot off. He discharged his weapon when Jim was standing in front of the toasters, a shot pinged off a toaster’s metal exterior. Jim spun around and fired a couple of rounds back. Luckily Crist was behind the gum ball machine when the shots were fired. Crist thought if he just leapt out fast enough he’d have the time to get an accurate shot. He guessed right, he sprang to action, and Jim took a shot to the left shoulder.

Jim fired back, and clipped Officer Crist in the leg; he staggered toward Jim and missed a shot. Jim would make him pay for this error, as he returned fire and hit Crist in the stomach, just below the chest. Before Crist fell to the ground to wait for the paramedics he got off another shot; dead center, to the heart. Both men laid on the floor in pools of blood. As the last seconds of old Jim’s life flickered out, his lips crimped up; he had accomplished something today that all his life’s work had never achieved. Headlines, TV, morning shows, he now had fame.