Why I Shot Eight People In A Restaurant
Peter J Theis

All I ever wanted was encouragement. My parents would bribe me instead, offer material things with no love or things they thought I needed. Television carried that through to the end, as you know. What can I say? It happened. Now I will never be good enough for them.

It all started when I got up from the sofa--a sofa I made from leftover patio deck boards which I padded with white stuffing and covered with a U-Haul packing blanket. I went to fix myself a sandwich. Right? The problem was, I was watching a movie, so I had to put the movie on pause to go make the sandwich.

When I did this, the VCR made that awful television crackle, and the image poised there became a deadly timer: Charles Bronson frozen with double barrels smoking and his eyes burning. I was famished, but I didn't want the timer to time out, you know? I had to make the sandwich before the pause button went off. Right? My mute button was broken, and the fuck if I was going to turn the volume down or shut everything off just for a stupid sandwich. I just had to do the whole thing quickly, you see?

So I ran to the refrigerator and opened it up.

Weeks before, I'd put my refrigerator into a doorway to keep the junk in the spare bedroom out of view. I had all kinds of stuff in there--old school desks, red oak planks, window frames, an old stove filled with fortune cookies. The fortune cookies said things like: A person will look about if you stare at the back of his head, or: Baldness comes from tight hats, or: Most great men were born of poor parents.

My parents came to visit me once, in Idaho, when I was working for the railroad. They were not there even an hour before we got into a fight. They try to change me, you see? The funny part is that no matter where I went I never got into trouble, but every time I moved back home something would happen.

So, like I was saying, the TV was crackling quietly, and the pause on the VCR would time out soon. So I quickly selected a loaf of French bread, tore off a piece, put that piece on the table and ripped its guts open so that it was like two pieces, then placed a slice of smoked ham on one side and smeared mayonnaise on the other. Then came slices of cucumbers and tomatoes, piles of green olives, good amounts of Louisiana hot sauce, and the wet purple-and-white shavings of a red onion. I moved fast, let me tell you. I was smoking.

I had to wash my hands, too, but I was worried about the timing thing. Then, suddenly, I didn't care about any of it. It was a forced not caring, you know, but I decided come Hell or high water I was going to wash my hands before sitting down to eat.

So I did.

And, believe it or not, the movie didn't continue on without me this time. I sat there, watching, listening, and tried to eat my sandwich. The thing is, I couldn't help but feel that I wasn't eating the sandwich. It was like it was eating me. I mean, try not eating a sandwich, right? Try not eating! Things go into our mouths like worms or amoebas as if they wanted to go there, as if they had the power to make you put them in your mouth. You are no longer the predator then, right? You aren't even symbiotic! It's you being fed upon.

So I said, "Enough of this."

I turned off the television, threw the sandwich in the garbage, and went out for Chinese. I was mumbling something to myself that didn't quite make sense, but then why does everything have to make sense? What the fuck is the point of everything making sense? Right? So I mumbled something like, "What a hoot. That's real funny. That's a hoot." I love that word hoot.

Most everyone--all them stupid talk shows--they think I'm delusional. It's a cute term for their own colored glasses. I have to start thinking hard about some things, now, you know? I have to think hard so that when I get out of here I won't have a clue for what I am doing or what I want to do with my life. Yes, that's reverse from what you'd expect, but in the past everything I had or did went wrong, so apparently I was wrong, too.

So I grab my friend--the sweet little .32 Beretta I keep in my Italian Army satchel, along with extra clips--because you can never have too many friends--and I head out the door. By this time I'm famished.

I get to the restaurant and I eat kung pao chicken until I'm stuffed. Then the mamasan in the red dress tells me it would be two days before they would have fortune cookies to serve. I couldn't fucking believe it. I mean, what rest did I get there? 

Peter J. Theis <mailto:ptheis@ocean.otr.usm.edu> has published fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and interviews in various places, including Product, Cimarron Review, Pinyon Poetry, Aura Literary Arts Review, AWP, and Georgetown Review. He is currently at work on a collection of stories called Cathedral Pines and a novel called Royal St. Andre Hotel.