Guttersnipe

By Jay Black

"He had excused himself from the world without reluctance, remorse, or the sense that his time on Earth had held a shred of redemptive value."

Enter the life of John Richter. Discharged from the Canadian military due to a base closure and locked out of gainful employment because of affirmative action, he stews in resentment at

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terror House Press, LLC
• Release date: Apr 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781951897444

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Praise for Guttersnipe

"Guttersnipe is a raw, honest depiction of how modern Western countries use, discard, and isolate ordinary men until they finally break. In doing so, it accomplishes for our generation what David Morrell’s novel First Blood did for the Vietnam era. John Richter is a character with whom one can sympathize, until the killing starts. Black’s compelling novella doesn’t merely explore a man’s journey into terrorism, but also one of the great taboos of our times: how Western governments and societies create the very ‘boogiemen’ they seek to eradicate." — T.J. Martinell, author of The Song of Wulfgar and The Pilgrim’s Digress

An ugly, darkly humorous, but ultimately tragic tale of a man driven to extreme ends by extreme circumstances. — Andy Nowicki, author of The Columbine Pilgrim and Heart Killer

"John Richter is the permanent Mr. Hyde and id of the Anglo working-class. In Jay Black’s Guttersnipe, the ex-Canadian soldier Richter tries to find his footing after the forced closure of his base. Cut off from all meaningful existence by the whims of the government, he becomes a rat killer for a company trying to get one over on a sanitation workers’ strike in Vancouver. What follows is a surreal and violent parable about alienation and atomization in a world gone mad. All the pedophilia, sex trafficking, and moral relativism cannot compete with the absurdity of having skilled craftsmen reduced to guarding refuse. Guttersnipe, which was once investigated by the RCMP because of hate literature allegations, is indeed a dangerous book. The danger lies in its unvarnished truth about life at the bottom of the managerialist ecosystem and those who decide to strike back by going postal." — Benjamin Welton, author of Sick Inside the Citadel and PANIC

Also by Jay Black

Blackbird Hollow | Le creux du merle

Copyright © 2021 Jay Black.

First edition published by Black Ink Books, 2004.

Second edition published by Jay Black, 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means (whether electronic or mechanical), including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-951897-44-4

EDITOR

Matt Forney (mattforney.com)

LAYOUT AND COVER DESIGN

Matt Lawrence (mattlawrence.net)

TERROR HOUSE PRESS, LLC

terrorhousepress.com

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Dossier

Chapter 2: Lucky Day

Chapter 3: Career Opportunities

Chapter 4: Desert Rat

Chapter 5: First Night Jitters and Not-So-Crispy Critters

Chapter 6: Veteran Know-How

Chapter 7: Citius, Altius, Fortius

Chapter 8: Come to Papa

Chapter 9: Get Your Facts Straight

Chapter 10: One Shot

Chapter 11: Five-0 at 0500

Chapter 12: The Choices We Make

Chapter 13: Think Fast!

Chapter 14: Shoot the Moon

Chapter 15: Chill, Bro!

Chapter 16: Goodbye, Rat Race

Chapter 17: Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

Chapter 18: Last Supper

Chapter 19: The Defence Rests

Chapter 20: UBC or Bust

Chapter 21: A Day in the Sun

Chapter 22: Coup de Grace

Chapter 23: Tunnel Vision

Afterword

Postscript

For Canada

I love books because you read about somebody else’s life, but it makes you think about your own. That’s the beauty of it. — Oprah Winfrey

Chapter 1: Dossier

Richter exhaled a heavy sigh as he dropped his final employment insurance vouchers into the mailbox at the end of his block. Though he had not made a realistic effort to find work since the permanent closure of Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack had expedited his army discharge a year before, his disgust at the thought of applying for provincial income assistance benefits would inspire him to hunt for what he considered more dignified means of support. What he might find that matched his skillset as a shooting instructor was beyond him.

The anxiety provoked by his uncertainty met with a dusty gust as a junk removal truck loaded with refuse sped by to fill the surrounding air with the stench of a month-long sanitation workers’ strike. He choked back a fast gush of vomit, set a hand on the mailbox to steady himself, and gasped a few breaths before starting back home.

A trio of unsupervised First Nations boys played hide-and-seek amid fetid the garbage bag pyramids stacked along both curbs of his inner city street. A half-block from his place, he glanced up at his open bathroom window, a metre below the apex of the dilapidated, three-storey war-era house he had moved into on vacating the barracks. What had once been a comfortable single family dwelling now accommodated a mix of poor students, the unemployed, and working poor in small, self-contained units from basement to attic. His loft absorbed and intensified the muggy June heat, but he was broke and had nowhere else to be.

As he neared the house, he considered how poorly equipped for participation in the civilian workforce a decade in the army had rendered him. His specialization as a small arms and munitions expert and sharpshooter had left him lacking a viable resume in a competitive job market. Though his service record was as distinguished as a career non-commissioned officer’s who had not seen combat might be, his enlistment after secondary school graduation had left him short on contacts in the wider community.

Richter looked beyond the roof and noticed a dark band of cloud loom in at low altitude. Though proud of the numerous awards and commendations he had received over his ten years of service, he knew his area of expertise would limit meaningful opportunities. Openings in law enforcement had dwindled with the no longer official but ongoing freeze on recruitment of white men, a component of an affirmative action drive sponsored by the city of Vancouver, with special emphasis on its police and fire departments. A telephone inquiry he had made the week before to Royal Canadian Mounted Police human resources informed him detachments in the region were similarly affected. He could not decide which reeked more: the piles of trash that cluttered the walk to his place or what he considered a blatant reverse discrimination policy instituted and enforced by proponents of political correctness.

He had mulled over an offer from a small-time entrepreneur he’d met at a neighbourhood pub to teach beginners gun safety and shooting technique at a suburban range, but dismissed it as beneath him. The prospect of prostituting his small arms mastery to the assortment of bored cowboys he would encounter at such an establishment exacerbated the bouts of nausea he’d experienced since the strike’s third week. For him, shooting was an art, not a recreational pursuit, and he would not debase it as an instructor to those unable to appreciate his proficiency.

A warm drizzle started as he approached his stoop, further dampening his sweat-soaked tank top. He wiped his brow with the back of a hand halfway up the creaky stairs to the loft. A wave of heat greeted his entry. He checked his small refrigerator only to be reminded he had run out iced tea. Ming’s Grocery was around the corner, but the sound of hailstones pelting the Plexiglas dormers led him to wait.

Inside, the stale air clung to his damp clothes. He laid back on the surplus cot he had pilfered from the barracks on moving day, shut his eyes, and listened to the air pistol rap of hail. He rolled onto his side as it faded and reached under the bed for the stained oak case that housed the Colt Woodsman his late grandfather had given him on his 12th birthday. A black-and-white photograph of them, all smiles as they displayed their day’s kill (three brush rabbits and a ring-necked pheasant), was taped under the lid. It reminded him of their weekend trips to the wooded estuary along the Fraser River’s north bank, a few miles from his former base. The tract of regional district-managed hinterland had been a haven to them. It saddened him that the area had since been rezoned and developed into an industrial park for the burgeoning suburban construction trade.

His recollection led him to consider how he would not have acquired his love of shooting, or joined the military—one of few work environments that would further his talent—had it not been for his grandfather’s quiet counsel. Still on the cot, he lifted the long barrel, semiautomatic .22 calibre pistol from its felt-lined case, drew its slide back far enough to inspect the chamber, and then held it in firing position. Its manufacture was stopped in 1977 after 62 years of production, when less finely crafted Chinese knockoffs entered the world market. His was old enough to be classified an antique by collectors, but its sentimental value prevented had him from selling it.

He sat up, ejected the packed ten-round magazine, and tried to recall the last time he had fired the pistol. Its seven-inch barrel and simple automatic blowback mechanism made it the perfect weapon to learn target shooting with. In his eight years as an instructor to reservists and regulars, he had used more than a dozen modern, long-range handgun models replete with useful innovations and accessories, but he could not think of one that felt more natural in his grasp than did the Colt. Its balance and sleek design made it the only gun he had held that felt like an extension of his hand and arm.

Richter inspected the magazine, blew a speck of dust off its top end, and then slid it back into the

Reviews for Guttersnipe

[nikos888-777288 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

John Richter is the unapologetic racist protagonist in this outwardly racist novella penned by Vancouverite Jay Black (a.k.a. The Blackbird). John Richter is an unemployed ex-military sharpshooter living in Vancouver, Canada. He is unable to secure work and his employment insurance benefits are coming to a quick and frugal end. Richter’s racism is apparent very early in the book. He blames his inability to find work on all non-Caucasians who take advantage of affirmative action-like programs and foolish political correctness. Richter vents his spleen on all persons of color. These characters can do no right regardless of their demeanor, actions or motivations; he hates them simply because their skin color is not white. Richter rails and rages against them all and blames them personally for his imagined sufferings. Richter is finally able to secure himself a job on Granville Island as an exterminator hired to shoot rats whose population has exploded due to a municipal garbage strike.It is early in the work that logic, theme, and rational argument become a casualty of immature and undeveloped writing. Jay Black’s “absurdist” disclaimer is merely a smokescreen for the irrational racism that this novella champions. Jay Black’s protagonist and storytelling is not in the least absurdist. John Richter moves through the novella with his own perverse rational motivation. The character is not staggered by the self-realization of the meaningless of an irrational universe where life has no purpose or meaning. He is consciously offended too readily to adhere to any kind of absurdist model. Richter’s racist reactions therefore are puerile and predictable. When he goes to the corner grocery store, he berates the Chinese clerk for bagging his fruit with “filthy hands” and for not remembering his proclivities. Richter psychologically tortures a fellow worker and then kills him outright. When the police arrive, they accept Richter’s “accidental” shooting of the man with a mere wink and nudge. In his growing delusion, Richter convinces himself that he can make a bid for the Canadian Olympic shooting team and convinces himself that he can win a gold medal if he can shoot the elusive “mother of all rats” which he has named Oprah. As if the plot were not thin enough, it begins to tear like wet tracing paper. The dialogue between the police and Richter is so unbelievable and unnatural that it is uncomfortable. The sexualizing of the queen rat, Oprah, is non sequitur and banal; it is used only to further the novella’s racist tack. It is unclear from where Richter’s hatred stems. Jay Black never states or implies this crucial insight. He imbues his character, John Richter, with an ego to help him move through the plot but this ego is as anemic as the author’s rationale. John Richter gets a job from a white executive with not so much as a background check. He is given the freedom to use a firearm in a public place from a white administrator. White police officers dismiss him as a good old boy after he murders a person of color. Who is getting the special treatment here? The obvious logical inconsistencies dash this plot against the literary rocks. In addition, the “suicide by cop” at the end of the story is as predictable and bland as turkey sandwiches the day after Thanksgiving dinner.This novella lacks literary merit. It does not share any insights with the reader. It does not expose any literary richness. It does not expose any psychological observation. It is an immature racist rant written without imagination or craft. There is no sweet song from this Blackbird. The only redeeming quality for the reader and society is that this book is so poorly written that it is essentially unreadable.