It’s a Saturday around ten a.m.

I’m hanging at my girlfriend’s Joans pad.

Eighty five degrees outside. Nothing going on. I’m just sitting here at the dining room table, reading the internet tea leaves. Joan, she’s sitting at her breakfast nook, watching a Trump Rally on her kitchen counter tube. The Trumpster. His nasty voice carries all the way in here.

No big deal. I got the headphones on. I’m reading the Putin news. See how his train wreck is going. Otherwise nothing to do.

I mean there’s plenty I could do. My employment survival is rather sketchy at the moment. I could be looking for a job. Craigslist has job listings. I could be looking on Craigslist for a job. I currently have a job. I’m a Brand Ambassador slinging booze samples for Safeway moochers. But recent developments may well doom my budding career.

mini flashback

Yesterday I’m slinging some real mean Rum when a innocent young man steps forward with his outstretched I.D.. I’m sitting there, reading my phone, ignoring him, until he clears his throat.

“Are we offering samples here?”

I rise like a generous father and look the Lad over. Ah, budding youth.

“Yeah…we are. Would you like a taste?”

“I certainly would.”

His I.D. says he’s in his twenties.

I step behind my table and tap the bottles.

“Well, we’ve got white and dark. The white you’re not going to like.”

“Is that so?”

“Nobody likes the white. The dark, well…”

I’m at the point of telling him this booze is rot gut and not worth serving to a skid row Drunk when he interrupts me.

“I should tell you,” he sez, “I’m actually an officer of the company that makes Ten to One Rum.” He hands me his business card. A very thick card. The kind of thickness that says he means business. “I stopped by today to see how our display is doing….”

He mystery shopped me, the little Bastard.

So what happens next?

The Old Gloomer, he does some fast talking. I’m real good when I want to be. I schmooze him like a dock worker strangling seagulls. I’m making progress but THE WAR IS LOST as General Guderian told Hitler.

The damage is done.

Indifference to the hand that feeds me is a strong suite I’ve always embraced.

That and looking a gift horse in the mouth.

If I was the young Rum Executive and he was me? I’d fire me. I don’t know if he can fire me. He can certainly fire the advertising company I work for. If I was him? I would.

Could be, my company is so wanky they don’t care that I’m bashing a product they were hired to promote.

I get on the horn with my supervisor. I lay it on her just the way it went down. Maybe soften the edges a mite but pretty much the straight story. It’s another schmooze job.

And what’s her response?

“Don’t worry about it, Don,” she says. “At least you showed up.”

The backlash

There may be a backlash. There may not!

If not, it means I can start shoplifting Safeway stores like a dervish on Quaaludes. I’m talking loot the aisles of good shit. Especially the hot counters and deli. Stuff my tote bag with choice morsels. Nobody’ll notice me or even care. Why? Because these Marin Safeways are ignorant of the barbarity in their midst. And the company I work for? They could be a hologram. I’m free to loot the shelves and rape the bins. Ha, ha, ha….

That said, I’ll probably be shit caned next week. Or they’ll just stop offering me shifts. That’s the ticket. Let this Loser go like he was never on board. Cuz he was never on board. Like we’re not on board. We’re just a portal. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha….

Still, the money was real enough.

95 degrees

I’m sitting here staring at my computer screen. I’m typing. Scrolling. Aimlessly. Google’s dragging me around.

Okay, Google says, Look at this shit.

A Body cam video

This is a genuine body cam.

Watch the video.

I watch the video 3 times.

I watch the video a half dozen times.

I keep picking up conversations I missed.

Like just now. A cop asks our body cam cop his name. He says DON.

Did I catch that? He said Don.

My name’s Don.

I watch the video again.

The Perpetrator

Mauricio Martinez Garcia, aged 33, of Northeast Dallas was the shooter.^[33] Garcia had worked as a security guard for at least three companies in preceding years.^[34] During his time working as a security guard, Garcia received firearms training. He had been living in a motel before the shooting. Garcia had no criminal history. During the attack, Garcia wore a patch with the insignia “RWDS” (standing for “Right Wing Death Squad”), a slogan popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacists. On his social media profile on the Russian social media platform Odnoklassniki (OK.ru), Garcia posted neo-Nazi and white supremacist content, and expressed hatred against Jews, women, and racial minorities in the days and weeks leading up to the massacre.^[6][10][40] He posted photos of himself with large Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, the SS lightning bolt logo, and also a tattoo of the anti-Muslim slogan “Deus Vult,” a reference to the Crusades.^[40][41]Garcia’s online posts used anti-Arab and anti-Asian slurs. In different posts, he shared content and posted quotations, from far-right sources, including 4chan, Nick Fuentes,^[34] the Daily Stormer and its founder Andrew Anglin, the Unz Review, and VDARE.^[5] He praised other mass shooters like the perpetrators of the 2023 Nashville school shooting and the 2014 Isla Vista killings; uploaded photographs of the outlet mall site three weeks before the attack (including the entrance where he later opened fire, and screenshots of a page showing peak visiting hours for the mall), and fantasized about race wars and the collapse of society.  In some posts, he identified himself as an “incel.” The account did not have any friends or comments from others, suggesting that he used the account as a diary. Garcia may have selected the platform because it has almost no content moderation.^[42] His final note on the platform, shortly before the mass shooting, bore resemblances to a suicide note; the Washington Post noted that the message “included more than 500 words of violent, hateful fantasies, self-aggrandizement and pop-culture references”^[42] such as references to South Park, other television shows, and films.^[34] Law enforcement said in a press conference that Garcia had “neo-Nazi ideation”.

Wikipedia

Here’s what this spree killer looked like.

Twitter posted his phone number and voice mail greeting.

Here’s what he sounded like:

Mauricio Garcia's (Allen TX mass shooter) Voicemail Audio (odd)

(Voicemail and phone number have been verified) pic.twitter.com/Y1DgsVKwP2

— Austin (@Austin34257619) May 7, 2023

Here’s a shot of him approaching his killing ground.

Here’s a shot of him Dead.

Killed by that Cop.

Don. I think that’s his name.

Everyone ran from this shooter. Don ran toward the shooter.

The Allen Texas Mall mass shooting

That’s what this one is called. You can google it if you like. Check out the statistics. The photos of the 8 souls that lost their lives. I mean, I had forgot the whole deal. Because so many of these mass shootings happen these days. Some of them don’t make the news…maybe a quick flash of news.

I’m thinking about this guy Don the cop.

No pictures of him.

That’s because he’s remaining anonymous. This according to his lawyer. His lawyer calls him a hero and a gentle soul. He needs time to process the tragic event. He needs a Lawyer?

I’m gonna watch the video again.

I don’t know why.

It’s a Saturday afternoon.

Pushing 98 degrees outside.