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One

Shooter

My dad was dead

'Least that hat my meema was on the other end of the phone tellin'up, but it was takin' everything inas if , like he was up in Heaven getting fitted for his shiny halo and doings The est piece of shit I had everwith cri

He was down in hell getting beat to shit if there was any kind of justice in the afterlife

"Don't ya'll worry about theas the drawl slipped back intoand fiveback "I'll overnight ements"

Then she said six words I never wanted to hear: You need to come home, Johnnie

It had been years since I heard that name

I hadn't adopted the nah I was I didn't even adopt it because I was a sniper for hire, though that was definitely the case

I did it because I never wanted to be that Al'bama redneck with the shitty dad in the trailer park anymore

I never wanted to be Johnnie Walker Allen ever fucking again

Johnnie Walker Yes, like the god damn scotch whiskey

I did h that everyone kneing up that o and name me after his favorite kind of poison

"I can't coe ofabout randmother, it was that the woainst her never gotother than a headache

And then she launched into a thirtyrant about how she was too old, her heart too broken, her blood pressure too high, and her arthritis too bad to do so as strenuous as sit inside the funeral hoh a book of caskets and flowers

"You don't see any reason it shouldn't bethe plans?" Like, say the fact that I would be just tickled if they stuck him in a pine box in the city plot beneath three John Does with an unhed I was losing; thatback there It ht, okay Yes Yes, ma'am"