Holiday Noir

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

I woke up early Bloody Wednesday. I could hear the alarm on my Sig Sauer Smartshot pleading for attention. It’s automatic loader had failed and the diagnostics were blinking error 1037, error 1037, error 1037…

Of all days, Bloody Wednesday, Christmas Eve, my companion gun’s auto-feed goes manual. I’m going to lose precious seconds loading and reloading manually at the mall.

I’ll have no advantage over the last-minute shoppers who’d put off shopping until the last minute for no good reason. Me, I wait, not just because you get the best for less on Bloody Thursday, but because I like blowing up anyone in the crowds stupid enough to get all chippy with me when I quick-step in front of them at the Subway (Two For One! Have One Now and One Christmas Morning!) or in Target’s appliance department (APPs special; Everything from Slim Jim Roaster to Skin Safe Warpaint Half Off!!!).

I get to my Ram Charger Recon (5.26 L., expedition suspension and armored glass) and see that somebody has scraped off my “Try and Take It” decal from the rear window – the one that I picked up at the Phoenix Raceway Gun Show that’s illustrated with the outline of an AK47? – and replaced it with a Vegan sticker. I figure it was the nerdy hipster living on the floor above me. I make a mental note and pitch my FlashGrab ammo pouch onto the seat.

On the way to the I-17 my Smartshot beeps and my AMMO app tells me Herb’s Ballistics has a sale on 9 mm Steel Penetrators (With Proof of Citizenship). Damn, I’ve left my passport home. Sort of ashamed I even have one, as if I’d get a kick out of going to some place where they don’t speak English and I don’t understand the language or the laws. I’ve only got two clips for my companion gun and I might need more.

But it’s okay, my pal, Sandra, orders the munitions for Valley Forge Private Security’s force (it’s named after some casino in Pennsylvania?) and she’ll fill my ammo bag with those sweet lead candies I can give the amateur shoppers when they step on my foot.

I tell Sandra I can’t take her with me; this is no job for a woman.

Once I get on the freeway I switch on AM 1310 because I know they’re having a special show in honor of the holidays. You can call in and get discount codes (At Selected Stores. Call Before 9 AM). I dial them up and a woman tells me I’m the third in line! and squeals, like those girls in the Bud commercial?
It’s hosted by some new guy who’s just been released from state prison after his 10-year sentence for a series of daylight arsons at private schools was commuted because he could prove that he thought they were public schools.

“How ya doin’,” he says, “Who’m I talkin’ to?” I don’t give out my name in public but I have an Arizona password and pin that the station recognizes ‘cause they know what’s up, and he asks me to name three conservative radio hosts on the WarRoom’s list of the most important 25.

I figure anyone can name Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh — even puke-stained liberal college kids and Marxist ABC, CBS and NBC news anchors – so I name G. Gordon Libby, who actually was part of the communist movement in government once long ago (but now the WarRoom says he “has brought unique insights about government and the world to more than 1 million talk radio listeners”). Then I think of Mike Gallagher (who says, “Liberal lunatics have surrounded us with their agenda-driven ideology”).

But after that I can’t remember anyone who isn’t famous, so I give up and name Hannity. I don’t much like him because he looks wrong, but the WarRoom says he “appeals to conservative listeners seeking certitude and a gladiator champion for their political beliefs.” To tell you the truth I don’t know what certitude means but it sounds good.

At any rate, I’m surprised that I-17 is so abandoned. I thought it would be chockfull of cars of people headed to the big malls in west Phoenix. When I get to the Arpaio exit to the Desert Battleship Mall I can see the parking lot is almost empty. A few ambulances and firetrucks and squad cars are around a couple outlet malls, mopping up and I realize this place was open 24 hours. I missed the fun.