I shoot people for a living

 Think what you may, I get paid to shoot people.
 I walk into crowded restaurants, four or five nights per week, and shoot them. My style is to go down the row, booth, by booth, table by table, taking the same path, shooting everyone I can. If someone is on the cell phone, I leave them alone. Or if I know them, sometimes I let it pass. But almost everyone else gets shot. I make them sit close and smile when I do it. I shoot them in the face.
 I shoot women, children, old people... I shoot more children in the summertime and more older folks in the fall. People prefer I shoot their children and sometimes ask not to be shot.
 I grant their requests. After all, there are plenty of other folks to shoot.
 After I shoot them in the face at close range, I return to where they sit and take their money. Not a lot. The most money I've ever taken from one table is under $70. I usually get $8 a pop. Sometimes $16.
 But it's enough to make it worth my while and come back to do it again.

September 1, 1991

 Today is September 1, 2011. Twenty years to the day have passed since that day in St. Louis. We'd been together the night before in Kansas City, enjoying a Labor Day Weekend festival. Little River Band was on the stage. There was magic in the late summer night air. There was magic in her voice, in her smile, in the smell of her hair.
 After experiencing the experiences of young love on the west side of my home state, we headed for the east side and took in the St. Louis downtown fare. I took my VHS camcorder and recorded her smile, her sweet voice, the surroundings, the Gateway Arch, the crowds, the kids playing under the spray of water released from a fire hydrant.
 It was my time for young love. Twenty years ago today.
 I dug out the old VHS tape with the date on it "Shannon Sept. 1, 1991" and played it again today, to remember, to the day, what I had, 20 years ago.
 Our lives blended into a marriage less than two years later, and then came the boys... four of them. I treasure my times married to you, my darling. My sweetheart. You used to say to me, "Honey, sweetheart, love of my life..." It was when you wanted something from me, but it was cute.
 I miss you, dearest.
 My heart is as heavy as a rock today. Remembering what I had, crying over what I lost.