October was a bad month for consumer confidence.

Analysts feared "pump shock" induced by rising fuel prices and the images of American poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina would cause a disastrous holiday shopping season. This would inevitably hurt the American economy and, as a consequence, the global economy, which has an unhealthy dependency on American consumer debt. "In order to avoid a blue Christmas," said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center, an organization that monitors the mood of the American consumer, "retailers will need to lure shoppers with sales and discounts." To improve the Present Situation Index and the Expectation Index, oil prices partially dropped and unbelievable shopping deals were advertised. The trick worked: Consumer confidence jumped up to go shopping, the stock market rallied, and the world economy breathed a sigh of relief.

While big-box stores were preparing for a flood of holiday cash to come through their doors, one young man was preparing to walk into Tacoma Mall and spread something other than cash. Instead of wanting to share with the world his money, of which he had very little, he wanted to share his pain, of which he had a lot. He planned to take his MAK-90, a Chinese version of the AK-47 (the weapon of choice for Third-World liberation movements), to the mall and open fire.

And that's just what he did—allegedly, always allegedly.

Dominick Sergio Maldonado's alleged shooting spree, which began at noon on Sunday, November 20, and injured six people (one seriously), was the very last thing retailers across America wanted to see on TV. But there he was on NBC, CNN, CBS, Fox News, ABC—you name it, Maldonado was on it. And the next day his name was in all of the newspapers. And on Tuesday, he was back in the papers again, standing before a judge and pleading not guilty. The shooting spree took place just days before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is known as the busiest shopping day of the year.

Maldonado's timing was impeccable; during any other part of the year, much, much less of the world would have heard about his troubled upbringing, his history of petty crimes, his dead father, his broken heart. But by shooting at random customers at the very start of the holiday shopping season, in Tacoma's most visible mall, during a time when everyone is trying their best to put a happy face on things and not be nervous about the future, about their jobs, about all of the money that's bleeding into Iraq—this combination proved to be a dynamite story for the mass media. In a matter of hours, Maldonado became Tacoma's most famous resident since the last time a Tacoma resident opened fire on innocents. When Maldonado's celebrity finally cooled on Wednesday, the big question for Tacoma Mall was this: What kind of impact would this highly publicized incident have on the day that cash registers are supposed to sing their loudest? Would Maldonando's desperate act destroy Black Friday?

Completed in October 1965, and located on the south side of the city, Tacoma Mall is the ugliest mall in the Pacific Northwest. This is not faint praise. When you consider how ugly malls are in general, winning in the "ugliest mall" category is no easy distinction. Moderate in size (1.4 million square feet), and anchored by Nordstrom, Macy's, Sears, and JCPenney, the mall caters primarily to the working class—those who are in the army, or retired from the army, or in a service business that's in some way tied to Tacoma's bread and butter: military spending. The front entrance—the one Maldonando used on that dreadful day—faces Interstate 5, and the length of the mall can be traversed in 10 minutes. Being inside of the mall is much like being inside the ossified rib cage of some giant prehistoric snake or lizard that died on its back—its bones fused by millions of years of nothingness.

I enter this ugly mall at 9:00 a.m. on Black Friday.

In front of me as I enter is an information kiosk that's at the edge of a forest of pillars. Two women man the kiosk—one is young and bored, the other is young and busy. I ask the bored one how business is doing on America's busiest shopping day, and she looks up at me (she has a ring in one of her eyebrows) and says, with no emotion whatsoever, "Fine." I ask her to define fine, and she looks at the colleague sitting next to her—the colleague is too lost in paperwork to answer her puzzled look—then turns back to me and says, with raised shoulders, "Everything is just fine."

Under her breath I can almost hear her say, "Considering you-know-what."

I let the young bored woman be and walk to a Comcast promotion stall that has two plasma TVs. In one screen, martial arts master Jackie Chan is running away from a pack of English constables; in the other, Jackie Chan is fighting Arab-looking hoodlums in a busy open market. The stand's attendant approaches me and asks if I'd like to become a subscriber; I look into her eyes for signs of worry and stress but find nothing but the happiness of being at work. I decline her offer and proceed to the center court. The mall is busy. Not outrageously busy, but lots of people are shopping, carrying bags in and out of businesses, and dealing with their noisy children. I merge with the stream of humans heading to the west side of the mall.

This is from a transcript of CNN Live on the day of the shooting:

"Sanchez: Witnesses had thought it was an AK-47 just because of the way it sounded. Police say they can at least confirm that it's an assault rifle.

"Lin: Nicole Sanchez, thank you so much for the latest breaking news from the Tacoma Mall. We are staying on top of that story throughout the night. So stay with us... [A] gunman inside the Tacoma Mall right now [has] two to three hostages. They are hunkered down in the Sam Goody store. And hostage-negotiating teams are in contact with this gunman. So, we're going to bring you the latest as soon as we get it. And this just in to CNN: It is possible, just possible, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is among the dead after a U.S. assault in Iraq yesterday."

That's how big a deal the shooting in Tacoma Mall was. Maldonado had not only reached CNN but entered for a moment the same sphere of fame inhabited by super-terrorist Zarqawi.

Unfortunately, the only time Tacoma makes national news is when one of its citizens opens fire on innocent people. CNN was nowhere to be found when the Museum of Glass opened in July 2002, but the whole world was in town three months later to see the backyards in which the D.C. snipers (John Allen Muhammad and his Jamaican sidekick, John Lee Malvo) perfected their deadly art. CNN was also back in town two years ago when the city's police chief, David Brame, gunned down his wife in a parking lot and then blew his brains out—their kids saw everything. CNN returned on Sunday, November 20, to report on the biggest story of the day: Maldonado's machine gun mayhem. Indeed, the 21st century has not been kind to the City of Destiny.

Some time ago the owners of Tacoma Mall, Simon Property Group, replaced the mall's hard benches with comfy couches. They were copying the Starbucks concept of a third place, a place that is between home and work, between the public and private. Benches represent the outside, the streets, the parks, the public places that people fear. ("A rout of savage teens... rule the parks and prowl the streets," complained a Tacoma women in the blog Democratic Underground.) Couches, on the other hand, are supposed to make the shopper feel like she has not left the security of her home. While sitting on one of these safe couches—which are slickish, leatherish, blackish, and don't match the mall's fossilized ribs—a woman bursts through the doors of an entrance that's just behind me, and says in a loud and angry voice, "I hate this mall!" Before I can stand up and ask her why, she gives the answer to the friend she's with: "I can never figure out how to get in here." I'm impressed: At least one shopper is more worried about getting into the mall than getting out of it alive, which, less than a week ago, was a real concern for hundreds of screaming people.

At around 10:00 a.m., I leave the couch area and look for the Sam Goody music store in which Maldonado barricaded himself with three hostages. One of the hostages, Joe Hudson, is a veteran of Iraq, and according to the Tacoma News Tribune, he "...was more frightened inside the store than he ever was in Iraq." While making my way to this record store, I come upon the strangest sight: a lean and young security officer patrolling the mall on a Segway. His head, which is protected by a silver bicycle helmet, cuts above the surrounding shoppers, and his Segway has spinners on its wheels bearing the logo of the security firm, IPC International. I spot another security officer standing near the passageway that leads to the food court.

"We just got them this week," the other officer says when I ask him what the deal is with the Segway. I ask him if their sudden arrival has anything to do with the shooting, but he doesn't answer my question. "Corporate headquarters thought it would be nice if they sent two Segways to this mall. It makes things easier for us."

I leave the stationary security officer, who has a rather mean looking tattoo, and follow the officer on the machine. He stops at a stall near the mouth of the Sam Goody store. Foot traffic has weakened at this point in the day, and most of the stores appear to be doing only so-so business. I walk into the music store to experience, to feel, to see, to smell the very place where Maldonando ended his rampage. Excuse me: his alleged rampage. It's long and brightly lit, and has posters of pop stars and racks upon racks of chart music—no wonder that ex-soldier preferred Iraq to this place; spending the last hours of your life in the ruins of an ancient city is far better than spending them here, in a hole packed with pop junk.

During my 15 walks through the mall, between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., I fail to hear even one mention of the shooting. I can understand why mall employees are keeping their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves, but is there any good reason why the shoppers are doing the same?

I go and stand on the very spot where Maldonando began his brief reign of terror. The T-Mobile stand is in front of me, and shoppers are streaming by. Nothing in their faces, which come in every color, reflect the fact that five days ago bullets exploded the window of the Disney Store over there (the window is now repaired). And over here men, women, and children screamed as they ran into that Victoria's Secret to hide among packages of expensive undergarments manufactured in the world's poorest countries. Depressed by the oppressive silence, I walk to the Starbucks at center court and join a long line that's inching toward the cashier. Says the middle-aged woman ahead of me to her friend: "Yes, I got these glasses for $100. It was such a deal. It's so hard to find glasses that fit the shape of my face"; the young women behind me, into her cell phone: "I really got here fast. I'm proud of myself. I usually take a long time to get to the mall. But today, no problem. And there was parking."

I want to scream.

Most disturbing of all, though, is the young man I find in a dark and seedy video arcade near the south entrance of the mall. He is holding a black sniper rifle and shooting at video-game images of men creeping about on the tops of downtown buildings. He is an excellent shot. One bullet hits a man right in the face; another bullet hits a man in the back (he moans in pain as he falls to his death); another bullet strikes and kills a man creeping around a ventilation shaft. I can't help myself—I ask the young man if he has heard about the shooting. White, pimply, with gelled black hair, he says, without looking at me, the digital killing spree commanding all of his attention, "If I had been there I would have smoked his ass." The back of another video-game man explodes into gore and blood.

On that fateful day, not far from this gloomy arcade, the assistant manager of Excalibur Cutlery and Gifts, Brendan "Dan" McKown, was presented with an opportunity to smoke some ass. Maldonado had a gun and was shooting innocent people; McKown also had a gun, a concealed weapon, and could now use it to defend the lives of innocent people. This was the confrontation of a lifetime, the one NRA members dream about: a chance to prove to the world, to soft lefties, why gun ownership in America is necessary. Without this weapon in his pocket, what chance did McKown have against Maldonando? He would be running scared like the others. McKown drew his gun, but before he could fire even one bullet, Maldonado mercilessly cut him down with multiple bullets—one severing McKown's bowel and the other shattering his spinal cord. The assistant manager of Excalibur survived the injuries, but he may never walk again.

If only life were like the video games in a dark arcade.