Whatever I was going back outside to wasn’t going to be good. She was bracing herself up to be nasty to me, I could see that. And there wasn’t any need in a bit of it. I could do without all the nastiness. I could take an amicable breakup. All I had to do was hang around inside the store for a while, and she’d probably get tired of waiting for me, and run off and leave me. So I went back toward the rear. The old bag was watching me. She probably thought I was a criminal. All I was doing was sitting back there gnawing my fingernails. But it was no good. I couldn’t stand to know she was out there waiting on me.

So I got back up and went up the beer aisle. I figured I might as well go on and face it. Maybe we’d have a goodbye roll. I got her a sixpack of Schlitz malt liquor and got myself a sixer of Stroh’s in bottles. The old bag was eyeing me with distaste. I still had my trunks on, and flip-flops, and my FireBusters T-shirt. I was red from passing out under the sun.

I could see Miss Sheila out there. I set the beer on the counter just as a black guy pulled up beside her car and got out. I started pulling my money out and another car pulled up beside the first one. It had a black guy in it, too, only this one had a shotgun. The first black guy was up against the door, just coming in, and the second black guy suddenly blew the top of the first black guy’s head off. The first black guy flopped inside.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” he said. “HHHHHHWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” Blood and meat and black hair had flown inside everywhere with him, glass. It stuck to the walls, to the cigarettes in the rack over the counter, to the warming oven where they had the fried chicken. I’d eaten a lot of that fried chicken. The guy flopped down the detergent aisle. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he said.

I just stood there holding my money. I’d been wrong. The top of his head hadn’t been blown off after all. He just didn’t have any hair up there.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he said. He was flopping around like a fish. He flopped down to the end of the aisle, then flopped over a couple of tables where people ate their barbecue at lunchtime, (where I’d been sitting just a few minutes before) and then he flopped over in the floor. I looked outside. The second black guy had gotten back into his car with his shotgun and was backing out of the parking lot. I couldn’t see Miss Sheila.