Killing a Homeless Veteran in the Alley: The Fourth of July Story

• 54:07Tim catalogs the emptiness of American suburbs: vape shops, ketamine clinics, Carl's Jr., acupuncture studios, Pilates gyms, psychics, tire shops, churches, strip malls with financial advisors.
• 55:09A family scenario: father tells kids in the car it's just 'one of our fellow citizens' who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, instructs them to stop asking questions and eat their ice cream.
• 55:42A creature lurches from behind a dumpster toward the car as the family debates whether to drive slowly and answer thirty minutes of difficult questions or accelerate.
• 58:13The father begins accelerating down the alley at full speed; the wife grabs his arm not to stop him but to signal solidarity with what he's about to do.
• 59:05The kids shout 'Faster, faster' as they see the father driving toward the man at full speed; the daughter yells 'Kill him, daddy, kill him.'
• 1:00:03Before impact, the father sees the man's face asking to be killed, making the murder feel justified and awakening desire in his wife for the first time in years.
• 1:00:27After hitting the veteran and watching him fly over the car, the kids get a look in their eyes that no fireworks display could inspire—true happiness and togetherness for the first time.
• 1:02:10The family drives home without speaking; the children are already on their phones and will forget by morning if it was real, and nobody will investigate one dead guy in an alley.
• 1:03:43The next morning, the father watches the sun rise, tells himself 'Life's good, this is a great country,' and prepares breakfast for his fat little kids who saw their first murder—but it won't be their last.

Operation Iraqi FreedomCleveland, Ohio