“Let me pay for my beer and get out of here,” I said, to the woman who had ducked down behind the counter. “The cops’ll be here in a minute.”

The black guy got off the floor back there and flopped over the meat market. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he said. He flopped up against the coolers, leaving big bloody handprints all over the glass. He started flopping up the beer aisle, coming back toward us.

“Come on, lady,” I said. “Shitfire.”

He flopped over a bunch of Vienna sausage and Moon Pies, and then he flopped over the crackers and cookies. Blood was pouring out of his head. I looked down at one of the coolers and saw a big piece of black wool sliding down the glass in some blood. He was tracking it all over the store, getting it everywhere.

I knew what the beer cost. It was about six dollars. I didn’t wait for a sack. But I watched him for a moment longer. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He flopped over the candy and the little bags of potato chips, and across the front, and flopped across the chicken warmer and the ice cream box and the magazine racks. “HAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he said. I put some money up on the counter. Then I went outside.

The guy had shot the whole place up. All the glass in the windows was shattered, and he’d even shot the bricks. He’d even shot the newspaper machines. He’d murdered the hell out of The Oxford Eagle.

When I looked back inside, the guy had flopped up against the counter where the woman was hiding, flopping all over the cash register. Sheila wasn’t dead or murdered either one.

I asked her, “You all right?” She was down in the floorboard. She looked up at me. She didn’t look good.

“I thought you’s dead,” she screamed. “OH, GOD, HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO FOOUSH?”

I set the beer on the back seat and got in. “You better git this sumbitch outa here,” I said. I reached over and got me a beer. I could hear the sirens coming. They were wailing way off in the distance. She latched onto me. “WOULDN’T LEAVE YOU NOW FOR NOTHING,” she screamed. “COULDN’T RUN ME OFF,” she hollered.

“I’m telling you we better get our ass out of here,” I said.

“Look out,” she screamed. I looked. The wounded black guy was flopping through the door where there wasn’t any door anymore. He flopped up beside the car. “WAAAAAAAAAAH!” he said. He was slinging blood all over us. But other than that he seemed harmless.

“What I wanted to say was maybe we should watch more TV together,” she said. “If you just didn’t write so much. …”