The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara Read Online Free PDF

let alone advocating genocide. The fact that he was soft-spoken only added to this misperception.
    Brenda, on the other hand, was obnoxious, insolent, and defiant. Ryan studied this ugly woman. Her long, black hair was stringy with generous streaks of gray and looked as if it were rarely washed. Her wrinkled faceresembled a prune that had been left outside to bake in the sun. Her body was covered with tattoos and the crow-like chatter that came out of her mouth when she spoke made her even uglier and was amplified tenfold when she became agitated.
    Ryan wondered how this woman—once a miniskirt-wearing, hot-to-trot vixen of the radical left—could have devolved into such a sickening bag of rancid flesh. The thought of her being the most sought-after female at Lenin’s Legion orgies made his stomach turn. His mind couldn’t rationalize that aging alone could have caused her to become so repulsive. She was truly the end product of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
    Ryan reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and felt the sharp metal object that he always carried with him. His mind drifted back almost four decades to the day when it first came into his possession.
    His parents never knew about that day in late January, 1974, when he’d cut his third-grade class at Robert Louis Stevenson School on 34th Avenue, hopped the N Judah streetcar, and used his lunch money to travel two miles to the Haight-Ashbury district.
    He got off the streetcar at Carl and Stanyan Streets and walked three blocks north. He passed Kezar Pavilion, entered the east end of Golden Gate Park, and continued walking the final half block to Park Police Station, which was located next to Kezar Stadium. Ryan’s eyes had filled with tears as he remembered the time his grandpa had taken him there to watch the 49ers play the Rams.
    Ryan lost track of time as he stood in the station parking lot watching city workers place bricks over thewindows and erect a cyclone fence around the perimeter. Eventually a police officer approached him and asked why he was crying.
    Ryan sobbed as he told the officer, “My grandpa was killed by a bomb, and he used to work here.”
    The cop knew Ryan was attempting to connect with his grandpa in the only way that a little boy knew how. He picked up the grieving child and carried him into the station. Several cops gathered around and comforted him. They spoke about his grandpa and told him what a great policeman, friend, and mentor he’d been to them.
    One of the officers slipped away and drove the two blocks to Bob’s Drive-In at the corner of Haight and Stanyan Streets. He returned minutes later with a burger, some fries, and a shake. Ryan was grateful. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. The only thing he’d eaten all day was corn flakes at breakfast, and he quickly devoured the food. When he was finished, an officer offered Ryan a ride home. As they were leaving the station, Ryan picked up one of several sharp, U-shaped objects that he saw laying in the parking lot near the newly constructed fence.
    “What are these, officer?” Ryan asked.
    The cop looked uneasy but replied, “Those things were inside the bomb, Ryan. I’m sorry.”
    Ryan shrugged. When the officer looked away, he put the object in his pocket.
    The police officer dropped Ryan off in front of his house, waiting until he was safely inside before driving away. Ryan went to his room and dropped the metal object into his piggy bank, alongside the nickels anddimes he’d saved for candy and other treats. It stayed there until he began carrying it in his wallet many years later.
    Ryan returned to the present and stared disdainfully at Bill and Brenda as his fingers gripped the two-pronged piece of metal. He pulled it from his pocket and held it up.
    “Do either of you know what this is?” he asked. Neither Bill nor Brenda answered. Ryan wasn’t sure if their silence indicated ignorance or if the sight of the U-shaped fence staple had shocked them