A man in a button-up shirt sat in the driver’s seat of his Olive Green, 1970 Dodge Dart. He was parked on the side of the road in a dusty suburb. The mid-day sun beat down on the pavement. No clouds were in the sky. More than once, the man had considered untucking his shirt that day, but it still remained neatly tucked into his jeans. Though a hot day, it was a dry heat, which was tolerable from the shade.

The soft breeze blew through his car, occasionally carrying some dust. A wind chime’s lazy jingling was the only consistent noise. The man watched the wind chime wistfully through the open window of his driver’s side door, looking forward to washing his car by hand later. His eyes drifted up to the sky’s endless blue. Before long, his attention returned to the house and its lone wind chime.

The homes in this neighborhood were spaced closely together with small, dirt front yards. The man surveyed the block, there didn’t seem to be a single plant growing. No grass, no trees, only a single cactus a few houses back. Straightening his posture, he looked at the car parked in front of him. It was a beige, 1983 Volvo 240 with a Reagan/Bush ’84 bumper sticker. Below the sticker was the New Mexican license plate. The man glanced around at the dirt lawns of the neighborhood again. “Land of Enchantment, my ass,” he muttered before his eyes returned to the house with the wind chime.

Leaning over, the man reached into his glove box and pulled out an open box of Quaker Chewy Bars. There was one left. Tossing the empty box on the floor of his car, he held up the last granola bar. He looked carefully at the logo, then the wrapper, and sighed. “Now comes the hardest part.” Grabbing the edge of the wrapper, he twisted and pulled down. The piece split and tore off prematurely. A small corner of the granola bar was exposed.

The man grabbed the other corner, twisted and pulled. Another small piece of wrapper tore off leaving both corners of the top exposed but not creating a wide enough opening to release the snack. Turning the bar upside down in this hands, he used both hands to carefully split the bottom of the wrapper in the middle. With a swift tug, he pulled the wrapper in half, down the length of the granola bar.

With a grin, he bit off a piece of the bar and looked back at the wind chime. A motor sounded an approaching car. The man’s eyes peered down to the road and saw what looked like a red, 1984 Nissan Maxima. The car slowed and parked on the side of the street in front of the house he had been watching.

The man gently set the rest of the granola bar on his passenger seat and reached down on the floor and pulled up a sawed-off shotgun. Checking both cartridges quickly, he snapped the double barrel together. The car door squeaked open and the heels of the man’s cowboy boots clicked on the pavement as he crossed the street toward the Nissan.

The Nissan’s driver was locking his car as the cowboy boots clicked toward him. The man held the shotgun just behind his leg as he strode, waiving with his other hand. “Anton? That you?” He saw fear pass into the Nissan driver’s eyes. That was enough, he had the right person. The shotgun swung up to hip level and both barrels emptied. Two cartridges of buckshot tore into Anton pushing him into the car door and shattered the car’s window. Anton dropped onto the pavement with blood pouring from his chest as the car alarm went off.

The thunder of the gunshot echoed into the distance. The assailant calmly turned and walked back to his car, his boots clicking with each step. The car door squeaked as it opened, and the man flopped back into the driver’s seat, tossing the shotgun next to the empty granola box on the floor. He stuffed what was left of the Chewy bar in his mouth, placed his key in the ignition, and started the car. The Dodge Dart roared up and hummed down the street as the sounds of dogs barking and the whine of the car alarm faded into the distance.