Obama Care
Copyright 2013 Jason Scimitar
All persons and/or their actions in Obama Care are purely fiction. Although Obama is named as President, which is true, all of his speeches and other activities as presented in this novel are fiction.
1
Yancy Stokes drove his 1984 Chevy toward the doctor’s office. Thanks to Obama Care and its affordable health care laws, he could visit his doctor whenever he was sick. So far, so good.
Yancy lived in abject poverty along with the vast majority of America’s retirees. He lived alone, and he did so by choice. Women hadn’t agreed with him much lately. He liked them when he was nineteen years old, but now he steered clear of them for the most part. Besides his three marriages had been busts. Each divorce impoverished him. Each break up cleaned Yancy out a little bit more. Now, everything was gone but the kitchen sink. Eventually, every woman he saw on the street became persona non grata. He wanted nothing to do with them. So, he stayed away.
Yancy hadn’t been feeling well lately which caused him to stay at home a lot more than he should. He wasn’t used to that, and he needed to find the cure.
All the government gave Yancy after fifty-five years of enslavement as both worker and taxpayer was $612 each month. Yancy was not bothered by that. He had lived his entire life on a shoestring. Yancy had never lived the American lie that most people talked about incessantly. It seemed to him that most Americans he met had never experienced the middle class prosperity that the government bragged about. For instance, like most of the nation’s citizens, he had been told that he was part of a middle class society, but everyone he knew was as poor as a church mouse including himself, and he and they knew it. All of them complained about their lack of spending money including himself. These things were par for the course in Yancy’s neck of the woods. It had been that way all of his life.
“I’ve had trouble making ends meet,” Roy Glimmer told him. “Can you buy me a lunch today? I’ll pay you back.”
“Sure,” Yancy would say, but he always knew that Roy would never have enough money ahead to pay him back a dime.
“Thanks, Yancy,” Roy would say. “You are a good Christian man, Mr. Stokes. That’s for sure.”
He lived on hot dogs and beans and never drank or ate out. His house was a tiny urban box of bricks worth about nothing, because no one wanted what Yancy had. That was not a big deal for him. Most of his friends were in the same situation. He considered his house to be another badge signifying the equality of absolute squalor that awaited nearly all of the nation’s people, especially when they retired, because they simply could not work anymore.
“We are all in the same boat together,” Yancy told his buddies when he was out drinking with them. “We’re poor as a church mouse, and we’re going to stay that way. Like my grand daddy who was from Bosnia always said, ‘The rich fuckers get all the pig cheeks,” and he was right. We’re supposed to enjoy what’s left which means we buy only the cheaper cuts of meat if we get any at all and we are supposed be darned happy about it.”
They considered Yancy to be an all right guy, but they understood he was nothing special. Neither were they. Most of them, like Yancy Stokes, had their own lower class panache for measly human trivialities. Like Yancy, they lived as best as they could which meant just barely getting by.
In front of the hospital where his doctor’s office awaited him, Yancy saw a group of protesters carrying signs on sticks. Their signs proclaimed their unhappiness at the present state of things.
Obama Care Death Squads!
Health Insurance?
Don’t Bet Your Life.
They were members of the tea party movement. Their signs were decorated with Lipton tea bags which dangled from dirty strings like lost unkempt children.
They were chanting,
“Death to Obama Care!
Every one beware!”
He found it quaint but somewhat enchanting. Besides, Yancy had always been a free speech supporter.
He parked and entered the medical building. Inside it always smelled like alcohol swabs and a hint of recently cleaned vomit. After an examination, Doctor Mandel Philips, M.D., came back into his room.
“You have heart disease, Yancy,” the doctor told him. “I recommend a bypass to open the blockage in your heart.”
“I’m good for that,” Yancy said. “Check me into the hospital, and we’ll get her done.”
“Normally, I would do that, but at your age, Yancy, Obama Care insurance won’t allow me to open you up and fix it. It’s against the rules.”
“So, what does that mean?” Yancy asked.
“It means you will be treated medically. That’s the new way we do things. With so many older folks there’s not enough beds, operating rooms, or insurance funds to fix everyone.”
“So, what’s going to happen to me?” Yancy asked.
“You may or may not get progressively worse. Eventually, your heart will become exhausted, and you will die. Keep in mind, the same thing might have happened to you even with the bypass. There are no guarantees in life, you know.”
This wasn’t of much comfort to him. In fact, it upset Yancy a great deal. It seemed completely unjust, and Yancy felt like he was being robbed of what should have been his.
“I’ve been paying health insurance all my life, doc. They owe me some sort of care.”
“I know. However, my hands are tied. I can give you blood thinner. You might live a long time. I just cannot operate under these new rules.”
“What else can you do?”
“Nothing. If the blood thinners I can prescribe for you don’t work, your quality of life will become a bit worse every month. Let’s just hope they work.”
“How long do I have?” Yancy asked.
“Not too long. You are basically old. You’ve reached the natural end stage of life. I’d say the way your heart is, you might have one to three months tops. If it gets worse, I’ll keep you comfortable. Here’s a script for several medications.”
“What if I got a bypass? How long would I live then?”
“A lot longer. Maybe one or two decades.”
“Thanks, doctor. I guess I’ll go home and die, then,” Stokes said. “Obviously, the tea party that’s picketing outside today is right. The Obama Care death squad has killed me.”
“There might be a lot of truth to that.”
“I’ll see you, doc,” Yancy said.
“Sorry, I can’t do more, Yancy.”
Yancy left and got into his car. He started it and drove a few blocks, then stopped. He had a great idea. Yancy had decided he wasn’t going to be a good boy.
He wrote a few lines in his notebook. They said,
To Whom It May Concern
I was murdered by Obama Care’s negligence in not treating me for heart disease, and I hold all of the American people responsible. If I could have done so, I would have killed them all. If I can’t live, they do not deserve to live, either. I know now for a fact that America sucks. My death will not be a quiet one.
— Yancy Stokes
He tore out the sheet on which he had written his confession to Murder by Obama Care and put it inside his wallet.
Next, Yancy drove down the boulevard. He knew exactly where he was going. In a few minutes, he was entering his favorite gun shop. All about him, Yancy saw hundreds of pistols and automatic rifles sparkling in their glass cases.
“How can I help you, Yancy?” Bill Quince asked. Bill was the proprietor of the establishment. He had been a pro-gun person all of his life and was proud of it. His National Rifle Association plaque was loudly displayed on the wall behind him.
“Two automatic pistols, light. I’m getting old, and my grip sucks, Bill. Get me something that is easy to ope
rate. I need to squeeze off shells one after the other.”
“I got just the thing.” He handed Yancy a Glock. It was full size standard frame 9mm automatic pistol.
Yancy turned it this way and that.
“Just right,” Stokes said. “Give me your best price for two of them. I also want thirty magazines and three hundred shells to fill ‘em up with.”
“Gotcha, Yancy.”
Fourteen hundred bucks later, Yancy was fully equipped. As Stokes drove away, he was several pounds of guns and ammo heavier, but he felt a lot stronger. Stokes now had several super easy 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistols in his shopping bag. They were jet black. He also owned thirty Glock magazines holding ten shells each, and the three hundred shells he was going to pack them with. “That should be more than enough for what I need to do next,” Yancy whispered to himself as he walked through the parking lot to his car.
Soon, his new Glock nine millimeter pistols were packed under his belt in the crook of his back.
As he drove through town, Yancy felt their deadly metallic fingers pressing into his ribs. He drove to the park where he sat in the car loading all three hundred shells into his newly amassed cache of cartridges. When he had finished testing them for ease of inserting and then dismounting them, he stuffed the cartridges into his pockets, then drove up to the town’s largest restaurant, parked, walked in loaded for bear, and ordered himself a large T-bone steak. It was to be his last meal, and he knew it. Yancy hadn’t had a T-bone steak in several years. In fact, Yancy had no idea how many years ago it was when he’d last had one. It tasted delicious.
As he ate, he thought of his wives and of all the hell they’d given him. That was then, he mused. Today was the last he’d ever think of them.
It was a huge restaurant. He watched the hundreds of people around him enjoying their dinners with their families. They lived in an evil country that cared diddly shit about people like Yancy, and it didn’t care much about anyone else, either. As far as the government was concerned the people inside the restaurant were just little economic units and were in no way human beings with feelings and needs. They were just like any other retail product you’d buy and then discard when you were done with them. When they got worn out and couldn’t work any more, the people would be thrown into the trash like Obama Care had just done to Yancy. Yet, they seemed quite happy with their lot in life. None of them were concerned in the least with the problems of the sick people like Yancy Stokes who were being denied treatment by the government's healthcare insurance buddies on a regular basis.
Yancy finished his steak. Fortified with his last meal, Yancy stood up, reached back, took a deep breath, and pulled out both of his new Glocks. If he was going to go out, it was going to be in a hail of bullets and rage. He was going to make it count. He’d play the anti-hero at the end of his life's movie, and play it better than Brad Pitt, Jack Palance, and Clint Eastwood ever could.
He began firing at the people in front of him and to the sides, one after the other, taking care to aim at their heads and to pull back easy on the trigger. That way, nearly every bullet hit its mark. He watched the holes entering them and the back splash of blood at the other end of their skulls. Minuscule pellets of blood exited each of their tiny wounds and swarmed through air in a gentle spray. It all seemed so clean and innocent. As the dead fell backwards to the floor, those behind them stood up to see what had happened and his bullets found them just as easily. Killing them was even more enjoyable than Yancy had even dreamed. This was fun. Their heads produced the same delicate pellets of blood that peppered the air just before they fell. Within the first two minutes, Yancy had silenced twenty of them. He reloaded carefully by slamming home the next deadly magazines, then carefully fired again and again. He took his time and aimed well. He didn’t want to waste a single shot. As the people fell, the room reached a certain maddening crescendo of screams and moans. The people either tried to run away or fell to the floor to escape Yancy’s deadly aim. By the time he was finished, Yancy figured far more than 200 people were either dead or injured.
For the first time in his deprived life, Yancy felt fully alive. In fact, he felt more excitement than he had ever experienced. Killing these scoundrels was a true rush. By now, almost the entire restaurant was filled with corpses. He slammed home the last two magazines and dispatched another nine people trying to push their way out a side door. He followed the others onto the sidewalk outside in front of the building and shot the last of them on the sidewalk.
Yancy heard sirens approaching him now. The first police car rounded the bend. Its line of fancy flashing lights grimaced at the overwhelming world of hurt where Yancy stood. Yancy shot the driver causing him to slam down on the accelerator. The cop’s flashing car ran up over a curb and spun several times in the air like a wounded fighter jet before crashing head first into the glass window of the restaurant after which it burst into flames. A few seconds later, its exploding gas tank blew out the building's hundreds of feet of glass windows. Yancy watched in amazement as the shattering windows shot their painful pellets into his back and onto the sidewalk. In three minutes, several additional police cars were on the street, with policemen crouching down behind them, using their metallic bodies as protective shields. A cop with a bull horn ordered Yancy to put his gun down, but Yancy refused and pointed his gun in his direction and snarled. All of them fired.
Yancy Stokes fell silent and dead onto the awaiting concrete in the slow motion of a bad dream. He seemed to take forever to reach the pavement. In all, his body had suffered eleven direct bullet hits. Two of the bullets had entered and exited his head in the same puff of red droplets. Yancy Stokes collapsed into an instant death coma in which he instantly perished. His heart problem had been solved once and for all. He fell to the pavement with a wry smile on his face. He was perfectly satisfied. He had done exactly what he wanted to. He had made them pay for what their government had done to him when the doctor told him to just go home and die without what had once been the appropriate treatment.
All in all, his last T-bone steak had been even better than Yancy had ever imagined.
Obama Care Page 1