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. …”

The cops screamed into the parking lot. They had their shotguns poking out the windows before they even stopped. Five or six cruisers. Blue uniforms and neat ties and shiny brass. They’d taken their hats off. They had shiny sunglasses. You could tell that they were itching to shoot somebody, now that they’d locked and loaded. The black guy was leaning against the car, heaving. I knew I wouldn’t get to finish my beer. I heard them shuck their pumps. I raised my hands and my beer. I pointed to Miss Sheila.

“She did it,” I said.