zachary fletcher

by roger "pegleg" wilson

zachary fletcher was born in h---- kansas on january 18, 1967. his dad was a cab driver who drank somewhat heavily and.also did odd jobs and his mom was a stay at home mom who chain smoked. he was a below average student, and had only a few semi-friends, whom he lost touch with after he graduated and they left town. what he particularly disliked about school was having to read books and do book reports. however he did read the books and wrote the reports himself as best he could and never paid another student to do them, as that was not his way. he never read a book after he left school. zachary graduated from high school in 1984.and got a job at a local drugstore. the drugstore was purchased by a chain in 1988. zachary kept his job at the drug store for four and a half years but then the drug store closed. zachary was a sincere patriot and a volunteer for the local republican party. in 1997 he married a woman named shirley who five years older than himself who also worked for the republican party. they had always gotten along at the party headquarters but the marriage did not work out and she left him for another man. they never bothered to go through with the paperwork of a divorce. zachary always daydreamed about having children, a boy whom he would take hunting and fishing and a girl who would be his “little princess”. he never confided these fantasies to anyone, least of all shirley, who professed a horror of children, whom she referred to as “anklebiters”. zachary liked to read hunting and fishing magazines but did not actually indulge in these pastimes all that much himself. he liked to play poker and watched poker shows in cable tv but did not find many people to play with, fortunately for himself , as he was not very good at it. he was not much of a sports fan, and never bet on sporting events. after shirley left him he began putting on weight, mostly from cheeseburgers and hungry man dinners and marie callender pies. he never went to doctors - except to a dentist if he had a totrhache - or had regular physical checkups. he never broke the law or was arrested. he had a high opinion of the police, and always defended them - though not very heatedly - if he heard them criticized in any way. he also had a good opinion of firemen, especially after september 11, 2001, on march 5, 2007, zachary had a heart attack at the republican headquarters. he never fully recovered and died ten months later.