Shooter

In his diary, which Len calls a “die-ary,” (170) he refers to his thoughts as “scurrying little rats” that go “wherever they want” as he listens to “their squealing little rat songs […]” (169).

He has an enemies list, with Brad Williams as number one. He refers to Brad several times throughout the diary, including one incident at a ranch, when he says Brad called him a “faggot” and another when Brad called him a “worm.”

Len also mentions his father several times. In one passage, he writes: “He started the year off at the top of his game, telling me how I couldn’t do anything right and how great he had been when he was my age” (171).

He describes his mother advising him to “lighten up” (173). Then he writes: “What should I cut off to make myself lighter? Maybe a leg or an arm?” (173).

He recalls telling Cameron that he felt isolated. He talks about pills, one of many references in the diary to drugs. He mentions looking up the drug Traz (Trazadone) on the Internet.

He writes about visiting a recruiting office and wanting to join the Army, where he envisions himself “killing the enemies of the United States of America” (194). He regrets not telling the recruiter that the reason he wants to join the Army is to kill people. He ponders being an army sniper and writes: “SNIPER = Penis R us!” (183). Later in the diary, he contemplates going to a gun show and buying a “deadly maiden” (186), meaning a Kalashnikov rifle. He writes about one of his guns lying under his bed “like a secret lover” and his plans to be a killing machine (192).

The diary recounts two incidents involving his father verbally and physically abusing his mother. In the first incident, his father was “screaming at the top of his stupid lungs,” (188) and his mother was crying. In the second, his father slapped his mother, causing her eye to bleed.