fiction: Outsider

 

In most of rural Pennsylvania shooting a person in the leg is considered a prank. Even the police raise a chuckle. "Did you see

 the look on Mike's face? He don't need no crutches. Them's for people who have a job."

It's considered lucky to have a job waxing floors at the court house. If you need two good legs to run a buffer it's proof of congenital character problems. There's only a few cities in the so called 'Keystone State,' and people think differently in those hornet nests of sin. Shoot someone with so much as a paint ball gun and they go to pieces over it.

It's a total waste of time explaining to people in Pittsburgh that pain is a ten percent discount on your ticket to Heaven. That aside, it's a town full of non-violent criminals. They screw people over all the time, lie, cheat and steal all the time, and they are all best of friends. And they don't want anyone owning guns, because it escapes their wispy conscience that they have been inflicting harm. They love their own, and have to keep strangers from getting a foothold on their eroding turf. As if they were the illegitimate babies of Mr. Spock from Star Trek, they are entitled to live well and prosper. Not one lying, corrupt jet of gaslight deserves to face the consequence of their vile behavior. My right leg aches when I think about it.