One Bad Day

      Right before I felt the pinch and the pressure, I remembered something a psychology professor said to me in college. I laughed a little, because it was so true and so sad. That last chuckle probably convinced them they were doing the right thing. 

      “We are all just one bad day away from crazy.” Three years, six months, and twenty seven days earlier I had my bad day.

      I had a good life. I had a wife who loved me, a couple of awesome kids, and a decent job. In this economy, I had it better than so many other people. This particular day was five days past payday--which meant we were two days past broke--but the bills were paid for the most part.

      All except that one bill, the one they'd been after for a couple of months. Now that I was in a position to pay a little on it at a time, they weren't interested in payments anymore. The calls amped up, and the threats of court action started coming. I laughed it off, and told them getting blood from a turnip would be a neat trick.

      So there I was, sitting in my living room on my day off, after my wife and I had a little bit of a spat before she went to gym. Typical stuff: she wasn’t communicating well, I was playing too many videos games. Same things we had been fighting about for our three brief years of marriage. I was flipping through a boot camp year book that was lying on the table, thinking about the guys I had known in Iraq and before.

      My youngest was screaming, her older sister wanting attention loudly. All I really wanted was to get them both to go to sleep and get on my computer. Instead, I got up and checked the mail. More damn bills, along with a couple of credit card offers. The teases; they were never going to give me a credit card. Even if the right loan would have simplified everything, would have made it where I could actually pay my bills. I set my four-month-old on the couch with a bottle propped up on a pillow where she could drink it, and I wouldn’t have to hold her--my wife hated it when I fed her like that--then I turned on a movie and gave the toddler some cookies to occupy her for a few minutes.

     I sat down at my computer in the other room and got on my social networking page. There was nothing there, just stupid, insipid attempts at humor by people who really didn’t get it, coupled with a few likes and no comments on something I had put time and effort into writing. Frustrated in general I pulled up my favorite porn site and hunted a clean sock. I found a great looking video of a blond who looked younger than she was, having things done to her I wasn’t going to be doing to anyone anytime soon.

      Three fucking pop-ups. Jesus Christ. 

      All I wanted to do was jack off in my moment of peace and try to relax, but now my damn computer was frozen, and probably infected with a virus too. So while my computer was restarting I went to the fridge and got a drink. Looking into the alley behind my house I saw some freaking lowlife selling little pills to kids half my age. I put the glass down on the table; condensation rolled down the side on to the table. There is no way I am going to let some shithead sell drugs in my damn backyard. Doesn’t this punk know whose house he is behind? He is about to find out.

      I stepped into my bedroom and picked up my father’s 30-30 Marlin--one of the few things of his I had left. I fed four shells into the magazine, wracked the lever, and loaded another. Shoving a box of ammo into the cargo pocket of my shorts, I stepped out the back. Little shit isn’t even looking over here. I took careful aim, settling my cheek onto the stock and leveling out my breathing. Every time the front sight blade stopped on his left knee I took up a little trigger slack. The third or fourth time the sights settled, my rifle coughed fire and hurled a lead and copper rocket. It was a beautiful shot: blew his lower leg almost off, decimating the knee.

      The two kids he was selling to took off running, their backs making excellent targets. Lever down and up, sights align; rinse and repeat, two more little shits down. A bullet to the head shut up the guy screaming about his knee. I reached into my pocket and fed four more rounds into my rifle. 

      This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. Without my rifle I am useless. I will use my rifle to kill the enemy. I will shoot him before he shoots me.

      A late model sedan with gaudy wheels and tinted windows pulled up to the alley. As the doors opened and gun-waving idiots got out, intent on avenging their boy, I sent five shots into the car full of bangers as fast as I could. I ducked behind a dumpster and reloaded, then stepped back out into the alley. There were bullets flying all around me. These guys have to be the worst shots ever. Look at the way that asshat is holding his pistol. Down he went with a 30-30 bullet to the chest. The other two were already down, shot in the shoulder and stomach. I used the last two bullets in my rifle to execute the low-lives bleeding in my alley.

      Two blocks away, there was a house tagged with their stupid gang graffiti. I got behind the wheel of their car and reloaded my rifle. When I pulled up in front of the crack house they were expecting anything but me to get out. I opened up on the three guys on the porch and then reloaded behind the car. I was out of ammo, now; the last five rounds were in my rifle. I killed the two wounded guys on the porch and finally limped home.

      I didn’t realize I was bleeding until I was sitting on the couch burping my little girl, spit up all over her new onesie. That is how the cops found me, holding my beautiful little girl, blood seeping into the couch and carpet with my rifle leaning on the furniture next to me. 

      Between the cops, the lawyers, and my hysterical wife, the next several months were a blur. Guilty as charged was the verdict: Six counts of first degree murder, and one count of second. Guess they weren't as mad about the first drug dealer I killed. 

      The families of the two kids who were buying drugs showed up for my sentencing. They made a sad sight. Probably the first time they have come to anything for their kids. Too busy with whatever. That’s the reason their brats were buying drugs in my alley to begin with. They sentence me to death by lethal injection.

      I was put in general population. Two weeks later they moved me to solitary after I strangled one banger to death while his friends almost beat me into a coma. Then solitary confinement.

      I chuckled, the guy in the white coat flinched, and then I felt the pinch and the pressure. I wond...