David Vann - Last Day on Earth - A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter

These are the same graduate students, his friends, who refuse to say anything negative about him even after he becomes a mass murderer.

Steve tries to meet with Lisa for coffee, but she refuses. “It’s a shame that we didn’t meet under different circumstances,” he writes, “but such is life, I suppose.”

Steve switches back to Prozac from Celexa, though only 20 milligrams instead of 50. The Celexa made him tired. And he looks forward to his Thanksgiving vacation, a chance to get away. He’s going with Jessica, since Heather has dumped him and he’s dumped Kelly.

During this Thanksgiving vacation, Steve shows Jessica all his mental-health records before destroying them. He insists she read them. He wants her to know everything.

They’re in Lakeland, Florida, to help his father, who has gone into diabetic shock after a car accident. Steve writes an email to his sister on November 24:

“Susan I just wanted to let you know that our father is alright and that his accident may have been a bit over exaggerated by the family. I was down there, saw the vehicle, and read various reports (police, medical, etc.), and feel as though this incident should not be used to force our father to make decisions that he does not wish to make. When I spoke with you the other day and you brought up the idea of civil commitment, I was shocked and disappointed that something like this would be brought up, to say the least. Despite his accident, he remains both physically active and mentally competent, and I wish that you would stop trying to force his hand in HIS life decisions. He is a grown man and is entirely capable of deciding what he wants to do in the near future. If you EVER try to have him committed when he is both deemed to be medically and mentally competent by professionals, then I will see to it that you lose that battle, and I am willing to take it to court (hearing) if it gets that far. This is not a threat, but simply a reminder that you cannot force people to do something just because you feel it’s in their best interest. As long as our father can carry out a normally live and is mentally competent, let him enjoy his hard earned retirement. The death of our mother is clouding your judgment, regardless of what you may say to the contrary.

“On another note, I saw that you and our mom acted swiftly (along with Russel) in 2005 to ensure that you had total control of Dad’s decisions when he is unable to, (as well as his financials, etc.). Our father informed me of this when we went to the bank and during subsequent conversations. I do not care about the money or property (which you seem to obsess over, and therefore felt the need to go behind my back to gain control of), but I find it reprehensible that you would conspire with others to ensure that I didn’t have any say in the wishes of our father once he passes. Have you no shame?

“While out in Florida, I had several conversations with Dad and learned that Mom never truly forgave me for being a ‘bad/delinquent’ teenager and that she never trusted me. . even after I spent 4 years in college earning near perfect grades. Susan, I have had an epiphany while in Florida and now realize why you have so much pent up hatred again me as well! Punishing people for mistakes they have made in their pasts is shallow and shows a lack of character. I hope that once you obtain control over our father’s property/money, that you get yourself a good therapist to work out these issues. Seriously, I mean that from the depths of my heart. After all, we are bound by blood, regardless of our current relationship (or a seeming lack thereof).

“Additionally, I was disappointed that you didn’t even offer to drive us (Jessica and I) to the airport or offer to watch our cats. Jessica and I spent nearly a week watching your (and Carrie’s) animals and spent our own money (for food and gas) to ensure that they were cared for. This does not even include having to get on my hands and knees to clean up dog crap in the kitchen/dog cage, either. All this, and you never even offered us a dime in return, or even an offer to watch our animals. How ungrateful can you and Carrie be? Obviously, family loyalty means little to you, or perhaps my definition of loyalty was learned somewhere else. Sometimes, I cannot believe that we share the same blood.

“P.S. (In case you’re wondering, I prefer to email you rather than speak with you on the phone, because I have found out over the last few years of speaking with you that you often yell/get angry with me over petty issues; thus, I chose to email you instead). Happy Holidays, Steven Kazmierczak”

On the bright side, Steve’s friend Joe Russo arrives after a couple days and they go with Jessica to Universal Studios. It’s good to see Joe. Steve doesn’t get to see him much anymore. They take goofy pictures, riding a cougar in the Wild West, wearing pigtails. Steve is wearing a black T-shirt that day with a handgun over an American flag. In the photos, he tries on several red, white, and blue hats to go with the shirt, and he also goes down a children’s slide which is the giant skull of a longhorn. Perhaps this is the inspiration for a new tattoo he gets, of a skull with radiation, though Jessica says it was random, picked out by the tattoo artist. He and Jessica and Joe also go to a shooting range. One of his dad’s neighbors, a friend named Joseph Lesek, takes them to Saddle Creek Park Pistol Range in Lakeland and loans them his gun. Lesek will tell police later that Steve “did not act or say anything out of the ordinary,” but the ordinary in this case was to fire a pistol a bunch of times for fun, and the targets were most likely the outline of the upper body of a person. Lakeland a holdout for the Klan, still under a court order in the late eighties to desegregate their schools.

Steve has written a paper this semester titled “(NO) Crazies with Guns!”: “I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead hands. Those words spoken by Charlton Heston, and immortalized by the popular press, have come to symbolize the pro-gun lobby’s arguably firm and unshakeable ideology with respect to their opposition to anti-gun (whether real of perceived) legislation. With that being said, what if those so-called cold, dead hands happen to not only contain a firearm, but also a half-filled bottle of anti-psychotic drugs?” Steve thinks it’s outrageous he’s able to buy a gun.

In December, Steve is excited about AK-47s, which are more plentiful now in the United States. He seems reluctant, though, to buy a firearm illegally. The AK-47 was Purdy’s choice for the schoolchildren in Stockton, California, on January 17, 1989, the day Ted Bundy was going to be electrocuted. A media stunt, stealing Bundy’s fire. Nearly four hundred children were on the playground when Purdy bent his knees, braced the gun against his hip, and started sweeping back and forth with 7.62-millimeter bullets from a seventy-five-round drum magazine. He killed six-year-olds, eight-year-olds. The bullets had enough velocity to blast clear through the walls of the main school building. “They’re just very cool guns,” Steve tells Jessica. He knows about Purdy, and they have some similarities, including a similar racism and libertarianism, fueled by anger at the federal government. They’re both poor, both obsessive-compulsive, violent in the past, run-ins with police, mental health problems, interested in Hezbollah, in horror movies. The similarities go on and on, actually. Mass murderers study each other, learn tips and tricks, help push each other over the edge. Virginia Tech helped prepare Steve, and then there will be another event, an execution-style murder of five in Chicago, that will provide the final turning point for Steve’s shooting at NIU.

Steve and Jessica buy RockBand as an early apartment Christmas gift. They stay up for five hours one night playing it. Good fun.