CLACKAMAS, OR—Driven to homicidal rage by mounting job-related frustrations, third-shift Stop 'N' Shop clerk Justin Fonseca, 27, shot and killed 12 customers in his imagination Monday. Stop 'N' Shop clerk Justin Fonseca

The mass slaying, the 63rd to take place in Fonseca's mind since he began working at the Portland-area convenience store last August, was the worst since Mar. 17, when he visualized himself fatally stabbing 22 intoxicated St. Patrick's Day revelers with their own broken beer bottles.

Fonseca began his mental rampage at approximately 10 p.m., when he was approached by a Stop 'N' Shop regular known as "Pays-With-Pennies Guy."

"I was the only guy working and was totally swamped, when in walks Pays-With-Pennies Guy, who has to be one of our worst customers ever," Fonseca said. "He's this really mean old fucker who always gets cough syrup and a pack of smokes, and pays for it with a Ziploc bag full of pennies he dumps on the counter and makes me count for him. So, as I'm counting his fucking pennies, some fat bastard starts ringing the deli bell. Just then, this moron who always needs help with the microwave starts yelling at me to come over. I just fuckin' lost it."

Mentally arming himself with a pump-action 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun advertised in an issue of Guns magazine he'd been flipping through, Fonseca pictured himself grabbing Pays-With-Pennies Guy's hair and sticking the barrel of the shotgun in his mouth. Fonseca then imagined himself pulling the trigger, blowing off the back of Pays-With-Pennies Guy's head and showering the trio of Diet Coke-Buying Bitches behind him with blood, brains, and bone fragments.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2003

Answers

Continuing his fantasy rampage, Fonseca thrust the shotgun deeper into Pays-With-Pennies Guy's mouth, causing the muzzle to protrude through the smoking exit wound in the back of his skull. He then cocked the shotgun's pump action by working the slide against Pays-With-Pennies Guy's lower jaw and aimed the weapon at the Diet Coke-Buying Bitches. The wealthy sorority sisters stood paralyzed by the sheer force of personality of Fonseca's daydream-avatar, a fierce version of Fonseca with whom people do not fuck. Fonseca fired once, and the single bullet, an exotic 2.5-ounce rifled anti-personnel slug the cashier had previously employed in several undercover-Mossad-agent fantasy scenarios, pierced all three of the Diet Coke-Buying Bitches' skulls, killing them instantly and causing them to slump to the floor in a grisly, tank-topped heap.

Fonseca then abandoned the image of the shotgun and drew a pair of matte black high-capacity .50-caliber Desert Eagle automatic pistols from his memories of playing Tomb Raider. Emerging from behind the counter, he walked toward the deli case and cornered the Deli-Bell-Ringing Fat-Ass, a Stop 'N' Shop regular whose insistence on immediate service and precise sandwich assemblage had for months meant hellish Sunday nights for Fonseca.

In his mind, Fonseca then shot Deli-Bell-Ringing Fat-Ass in two-handed, double-gun, John Woo-style, driving the bullets into his victim's gut with such force that the Deli-Bell-Ringing Fat-Ass was propelled over the glass deli case, forming a helical trail of blood behind him as he twisted through the air and came to rest face down on the Stop 'N' Shop's Hobart-brand automatic rotary slicer. The impact activated the slicer, which had been left on the thinnest setting, and Deli-Bell-Ringing Fat-Ass' face was shaved into ribbons.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2003

Guns in hand, Fonseca proceeded to take a cathartic, imaginary march through the store. Heading first to the coolers, he encountered three of his least favorite customers, Individual-Sticks-Of-Margarine Woman, Underage Dude Who Always Tries To Buy Beer Even Though We Always Fucking Card Him, and Guy In The Bathrobe And Flip-Flops Who Comes In Like Three Times A Night To Buy Ben & Jerry's. Employing Matrix-style rotating slow-motion and Wild Bunch-inspired multiple viewing angles, Fonseca pictured himself firing dozens of shots into each of the three, smiling slightly as they flew back through the glass doors of the cooler cases, their bullet-riddled bodies animated in a grisly dance as electricity and freon coursed through them.

Fonseca then rounded the corner and walked toward the magazine rack, where he found Entire-Issue-Of-Car Craft-Reading Dirtball. He then dreamed of shooting the regular non-paying magazine reader at point-blank range through the special Car Craft camshaft issue he was holding to his face.

At the nearby rotating greeting-card rack, Fonseca encountered Baby-Smacking Guy, a first-time customer who carried his infant son under his arm and smacked him whenever he made a noise. Baby-Smacking Guy was rummaging through the rack for remaining Mother's Day cards and striking his child when a volley of Fonseca's imagined shots struck him in the stomach, causing him to reflexively throw the child into the air. Fonseca caught him in the crook of his arm and placed him atop the greeting-card rack. The heroic Fonseca then spun the rack, causing the child to laugh with delight.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2003

Seconds later, Fonseca's attention was turned toward Help-Me-With-The-Microwave Guy, who had brought another one of his cheese sandwiches from home and, as usual, needed assistance heating it in the ancient microwave on the front counter. Visualizing himself taking careful aim and squeezing the trigger, Fonseca relished the fantasy of two expanding hollow-point slugs vaporizing Help-Me-With-The-Microwave Guy's third through sixth cervical vertebrae, decapitating him and launching his severed head into the open microwave as rivers of blood spurted from his neck.

Before Fonseca could turn on the microwave to melt the head, he noticed That Camaro Fucker Who Always Parks Across Three Spaces pulling up to the store. Using the same magnesium-tipped explosive rounds he often fires from his index finger to incinerate night manager Carla Simons, Fonseca emptied his guns into the Camaro's gas tank, igniting a massive fireball and catapulting the burning corpse of That Camaro Fucker Who Always Parks Across Three Spaces through the store's front window.

Fonseca then imagined himself dramatically pausing for a moment before dropping the empty pistols from his outstretched hands and taking a cigarette from the bullet-ridden Marlboro display. After a brisk patting of his pockets failed to produce a lighter, Fonseca lit the cigarette with That Camaro Fucker Who Always Parks Across Three Spaces' burning body. Fonseca then strode nonchalantly from the burning store, which exploded into a thousand-foot pillar of fire.

A romantic ending involving The Cute Blonde With The Freckles On Her Shoulders Who Sometimes Comes In At Bar Time was prevented by the real-life interruption of Pays-With-Pennies Guy, who, sensing that Fonseca's attention had momentarily drifted, demanded that the clerk start counting his pennies all over again.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2003

"Sorry," Fonseca told Pays-With-Pennies Guy, who had added a stick of beef jerky to his purchases while he and 11 others were being mentally slain. "Lost my place there. Sorry."

"Sir," said Fonseca, addressing the overweight man at the deli case whose bell-ringing had continued unabated, "I'll be with you in a minute."

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2003