Last Day on Earth by David Vann

was struck down, voted against by DeKalb’s own representative.
    Cho killed thirty-two people, wounded another twenty-three, then killed himself before police arrived. The deadliest rampage by a single gunman in U.S. history, and the whole thing was just stupid. There’s nothing cool or interesting about Cho’s “methodology.” Buy a Glock 19, buy some extra clips, walk up to a classroom and shoot people. We still have nothing in place to stop anyone from doing this. It’s an American right.

TWO MONTHS AFTER the Virginia Tech massacre, in June 2007, Steve and Jessica move to Champaign, rent an apartment together. Separate bedrooms. They’re not a couple anymore. Relationships just don’t work out for him. And renting an apartment with her is probably a bad idea. He feels awkward bringing other women over because Jessica gets jealous, but they save on rent, they can share books, and she’s a good friend.
    He’s falling apart, though. He knows it, and Jessica knows it. He checks five times to make sure the car is locked, three times for the apartment door, checks the stove. He and Jessica drive somewhere, but he has to turn around, drive back to check again that the door is locked. He washes his hands twenty times a day, has to wash the remote for the TV if anyone else touches it, has to wash if Jessica’s cat touches him, hates all the hair everywhere. He can’t sleep, gets up to check again that he’s paid all his bills, checks the alarm clock three times. He’s anxious and worried about everything, paranoid. He doesn’t feel safe. Misses his friends at NIU, misses Jim’s office, misses the sociology lab. He has these mood swings, totally out of control, and he gets really irritable, picks fights with Jessica.
    “You have to see someone,” she tells him. “You need a mood stabilizer.”
    August 3, 2007, he checks himself in to McKinley Health Center on campus at the U of I. He’s worried about confidentiality. He doesn’t want this on his record. And he’s not going to tell them much. He doesn’t mention the mood swings. Or the suicide attempts. Or Prozac. Or the group home, or lying to his psychiatrists or hating therapy. He doesn’t tell them much of anything. Just some anxiety, insomnia, checking behaviors. He says he’s interested in medications, worried about weight gain. Doesn’t mention his bulimia, though Jessica knows. She’s noticed the cuts on his finger from stuffing it down his throat.
    The next day, he realizes McKinley was a big mistake. It really will go on his FOID card, even with the way he’s downplayed his history. He won’t be able to buy guns anymore. He drives to Tony’s Guns and Ammo, which is just Tony’s house. Tony’s black, which makes Steve uncomfortable, but he seems alright. Steve trades in his Glock .45, which is too big a caliber, too hard to handle if you want to get off a lot of shots and actually hit something. He also trades in his .22 caliber pistol, which is far too small (Cho used one, but it wasn’t as effective as the other pistol), and his 20-gauge shotgun, which is wimpy compared to the 12-gauge shotgun he’ll end up using. He buys a Sig-Sauer .380, one of the guns he’ll later use in Cole Hall. It’s powerful enough, but more importantly, it’s reliable. It won’t jam, he probably thinks. It’s also fast. It’s a police weapon.
    He tells Jessica, “One day I might just disappear and nobody will ever find me.” He’s already told her, “If anything happens, don’t tell anyone about me.” If she weren’t mentally ill herself, she might make some connections at this point. The spooky comments, the obsession over guns and killers, the time spent at the shooting range, the mental health problems. What does a mass murderer have to do to get noticed?
    Steve debates returning to McKinley two days later, on August 6, but he really is falling apart, so he goes, tells a psychiatrist about all his “checking behaviors,” how threes speak to him,