"Black Friday" at a Wal-Mart

The day after Thanksgiving, the doors and the staff of a Wal-Mart in Valley Streem, N.Y. awaited, without being fully aware of the seriousness at hand, the full assault of a mob of would-be shoppers. At the appointed opening time the mob could no longer restrain itself and, like a human battering ram, it pressed against the sliding glass doors with such force that the doors fell over, toppling a temporary worker who lacked the necessary wings on his feet, and the front ranks surged inside, while some themselves fell and were piled on and trampled in turn, and several other store workers were likewise assaulted by the consumer eagerness. People were hurt, and the first worker, the one at the bottom of the pile, expired.

I have been through Valley Stream several times. It's way out on Long Island, and it's one of the important turn-off points on the drive to Hempstead, where a couple of my cousins used to live. I always liked the name. I thought it was too good a name for that part of New York.

Since then I have managed to get through a good many more years of life while having been in a Wal-Mart maybe eight times tops. But based on that extensive experience, my question is, what could possibly be in one that would cause people to be that hungry to get inside, and especially while stomping others in the process? I didn't think those kinds of things ever happened anywhere in the U.S.

In answer to my question, my wife instantly scrunched up her face into a very uncharacteristic and wildly hostile expression and yelled, "Not a damn thing!"

Now the police are studying the store videos, but they're not confident of identifying any of the Wal-Mart Tramplers.

But by now most of them -- or at least several -- must have descended from those heights of insanity long enough to know who they are. Meanwhile I wonder how they felt as they went on to shop and as they went through the checkout counter, and what they're thinking now, as they sit at home, watching the TV and desperately hoping that nothing in the video will allow them to be identified, while realizing that they were actually full-fledged accomplices in a group murder, and all for something in a Wal-Mart.