Empty bottles could be seen laying about. And one half full one near him. He casually reached out, grabbed it roughly, and took a swig of it. He let it drop to the floor, and it glug glugged out, all over the already dirty carpet.
It had been six months. Six months since the incident that had sent him into this spiral. One minute everything fine, the next minute - well, it was just that fast, you know? No one expects it to happen to them. You pull into a parking lot, you expect to just be shopping, but some guy has another plan. And he's going to make sure his plan takes precedence, and damn the consequences to you or yours.
As a veteran, Frank should have been prepared for the unexpected, but who expects such things to happen back home, state side, with no guns shooting, no bombs dropping? Frank hadn't seen it coming. His wife, in the passenger seat of their specially modified van hadn't seen it coming. She had just been glad that Frank had finally left the house, had finally agreed to try out the van designed for people like him who could no longer use their legs.
How quickly the smile had fled her face when he pulled into the parking lot. She had known even before him, he learned. Learned before the tragedy of it had caused her to give up on him. But then, she'd been with him for a year before he took her out to the store. She no doubt figured that she'd been there for him long enough. How she put up with his reclusiveness for a year, he had no idea.
Enough! He thought as he roused himself. Stubbing out his cigarette, and making more of a mess as he did so, he scootched himself over to his wheelchair on the side of his bed. His well muscled arms easily got him into the chair, and he was around the bed and out the door in no time. It was time for more punishment.
He passed the elevator, and recklessly rolled down the open stairs to the parking lot. His wife might have left him, but it had been in sadness, not anger, and while she'd kept the house, for the kids, she left him the van, and didn't fuss about child support. Not that he didn't pay it, just that sometimes he'd let time slip by, and then realize that he was a few days late.
So much rage in him. So much hate. But he still loved Kathy and the kids.
He was long past the stages of the personal and private revenge against the one who had originally done him wrong. That one had long since been dealt with. But there were others out there, others who could be of use in quenching his unquenchable urge for meting out justice. For delivering punishment. As only he could.
The first parking lot he pulled into bore no fruit. But he knew he'd find his target soon enough. With steely eyed determination he exited that parking lot and drove to the local organic grocery store. Yep, sure enough. Some Save the Earth waste of space was doing it! Doing it right there in front of him!
Frank applied the brakes with his hands, put it in park, and picked up his iPhone from the passenger seat. He took a pic, of the man locking his car, then the man walking away from his car. No limp, no hobble, no nothing. Frank shook his head. Probably case closed, but best to be sure.
The man was all the way into the store. Frank set his iPhone down and drove up to just behind the man's car. He ducked down a bit to look through his side window, through the man's back window and all the way up to the man's rearview mirror.
No handicap dangler. He leaned back up a bit and looked at the plates. No handicapped plates. His trusty iPhone snapped another couple of pictures. Then he pulled forward a bit, and snapped a pic of the sign that said, "Handicapped Parking Only $250 Fine".
A fine never imposed, as he well knew. He had tried the law first. Long ago, on that first day. The 911 dispatcher had scolded him. The dispatcher at the non-emergency number had laughed at him and hung up. Well, no one was laughing now.
The man came out, just as Frank was repositioning his van right behind the man's car. He looked inquiringly at Frank, but Frank just stared ahead. The man lifted his arms in a wtf gesture. Frank stonily looked ahead. The man looked puzzled, but went over and opened his car's back door, put the bag of his soda and chips inside, then shut the door and looked over at Frank again.
Frank still did not look back.
Finally the man walked over to the driver's side door of Frank's van. When Frank still ignored him, the man yelled, "Hey, buddy! Gonna need you to move, okay?" Only then did Frank turn his head to look at the man. The man was a pleasant enough looking average suburbanite. Not tough, not wimpy, just a guy. Dressed in a manner that suggested upper middle class, without being obvious. Probably an office worker.
Frank rolled down his window.
"You're parked in a handicapped zone.", Frank said, in a deadly calm voice.
"Yeah, I know buddy, but I'm leaving now, soon as you move.", the man replied.
"You don't look handicapped.", Frank said in the same eerily dead voice.
"Yeah, yeah, seriously, I'm sorry, I get it, but come on, what is this crap? I just ducked into to get some snacks for me and my wife, it's movie night for us, she already got the videos, I just wasn't thinking. My bad, okay?", the man said, still keeping his temper, but starting to clench his teeth, like he was trying hard to.
"I'm handicapped.", said Frank. "I lost the use of my legs over in Iraq so that pieces of crap like you could drive your fancy hybrid with your stupid anti-war stickers on the back."
Instantly the man's face went from frustrated and annoyed to surprised and sad. "Oh, hey, look man, I'm truly sorry. I mean, really, that was seriously inconsiderate of me. You're absolutely right, and I swear, I'll never do that again. Hey, my wife and I appreciate your service, you know? You guys are heroes, and I'm sorry for this, really."
Frank looked at him, as he'd look at some insurgent coming at him and his buddies. With a thousand yard stare that saw right through the man, and all the weakness and hypocrisy he stood for.
"You can take that sorry", Frank said, "and shove it up your khaki clad ass. Now I'll tell you what. It would have took you 40 extra seconds if you had parked back where you were supposed to. So you're going to get into your car, and I'm going to count to 40, then your violation of the parking code will have been balanced out. You'll not have profited from your crime."
The man shook his head slowly, "Dude, I really am sorry, but you need to get some serious help."
Frank said, "Okay, we'll make it fifty seconds - care to smart off again and make it a minute?"
The man said, "If you won't move, I'll just call the police. I am sorry, but this is a bit much."
"Oh, a bit much is it", Frank mocked in the start of what grew into a whining falsetto. "Oh, me oh my, are you to have to actually suffer consequences for your own inconsiderate actions?" Frank dropped his voice back down to it's usual chilly tones and continued, "Well, I'll tell you what champ, we'll make it one minute. And if I see you on the phone trying to call the police, we'll make it two - you know why? Because it'll take them 12 minutes to get out here, minimum! So you just trot your yuppie ass back into your car and settle in. In a minute - or ten if you haven't learned your lesson - you'll be able to go home and whine about getting caught!"
The man looked like he wanted to say something more, but something in Frank's eyes made him just get back into his car. No phone was seen, Frank ducked down to look. After a minute, the man looked inquiringly into his rear view mirror. Frank waved.
Frank pulled away. The man nearly squealed out of the parking space. Then, peeling out, the man exited the parking lot, but with his left hand out the driver's side window, his middle finger raised high, and blaring on his horn.
Ahh, a pity, Frank thought. Some take their medicine, and it can be left at that. But some never learn. Having half expected this, Frank was already parked appropriately. His Winchester was raised and balanced on the passenger window that Frank had lowered just the right amount. He acquired the back of the driver's head in seconds, and a second later to inhale and slightly exhale, then gently hold his breath and squeeze the trigger, and he could watch in satisfaction as the car careened out of control, coming to rest half in the window of a cafe across the street.
Screams were coming from both sides of the street, and Frank could see the shocked look of a mother and child who had exited the organic food store and witnessed the whole thing, without hesitation Frank then - a horn blared.
Huh? Frank thought. Oh, he was still in the parking lot. What had he been doing? Oh, he had tried to punish a man, but the man rejected his punishment. He had stalled the man for a minute, but after that punishment, the man had flipped him off while driving away. He had been fantasizing then about shooting him, but the Winchester was safely in the back seat, under a blanket, out of easy reach.
His wife - well, his ex-wife - had told him that even to think such thoughts was an overkill. And so far he'd always just dreamed of it, never done it. But she was wrong, he thought. Handicapped Parking rules weren't took seriously enough. Bad enough that every lard ass out there thought those spaces - and the Walmart go-carts - were for their fat assess. But to suffer even the healthiest of people making use of those spaces?
I lost my legs, but that's not enough, I have to put up with the extra distance to the store? My buddies do, too?
Not on my watch, thought Frank. And drove to the mall across town. There were always those in need of punishment, there.
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