“No one’s back there,” the kid said in a twisted yell once he came back from the kitchen. He was still holding his ear. “Can I go now? I’d like to go. Now. I’ll just…”

And he left.

The first guy who was shot was still hitting the floor with his hand. It was soft as a whisper. Slap, slap, slap.

The guy with the gun looked out a window with the blinds up. The sunny day continued. The cars passed on Fry Boulevard. The tires made that sizzling sound.

“Do something,” said a woman in the corner to her boyfriend. “Do something,

Jerry. Look at him.”

She wanted him to be a hero. That was a mistake.

Jerry got up and made it only three steps before he was shot in the chest. A smattering of goo hit against the window with a splat. Behind the balls of blood, the shooter saw a man in the parking lot get out of his car. He saw him look at the restaurant window.

“I got to do it,” the shooter said.

He braced the gun against his shoulder and kept it low while he walked and fired. People scattered, and a few hit the ground. One man with blond hair and a chain that held his wallet to his belt loop crouched behind the dead woman in the yellow sundress and called for his mother.

The shooter straight-line walked and shot on automatic. It looked very easy.

The clip emptied. He reloaded and continued until he was about five feet from the wall.

“Oh, damn,” he said, like he’d forgotten to mail something.

He turned around to face the other group of people and shot a college-aged girl as she ran for the door. She wore a T-shirt, bathing suit bottom and flip-flops; when she fell, the flip-flops slapped against her heel one last time and that was it.

People dove under tables. They kicked and hurled their bodies into tight places. The scratched along the Mexican tiled floor. It was very fast. Everyone moved very fast.

A kid in a corduroy baseball cap looked at him. He held his right ear and just stood there with his mouth open. At first he didn’t move to protect anyone, not even himself. Then he turned to get out of there and tell someone about it.

“Don’t leave.” the shooter told him.

He resumed firing. Shell casings dropped to the floor with hollow clinks.

“Don’t,” he said.

More people fell. Some staggered forward from the impact then fell. Others just sank. It was crazy. The shooter walked a few steps. He looked like his legs had gone to sleep and he wanted to wake them up.

“God, I’m sweating,” he said.

Fascinating story in NYT… “Chaim Grade was the other great postwar Yiddish writer, the one few people outside of scholarly circles have ever heard of. And for that, some people blame his widow.”

The paperback of Chasing Medical Miracles is due out on May 25. There is a newly written foreword about swine flu and the clinical trials process for that. I will excerpt that foreword on this site this week and in the days leading up to the release of the paperback.

Also in August my first novel, Bad Day for the Home Team, will be released by Zumaya Books. The book is about how a very average man in Sierra Vista, Arizona walks into a pizza place, shoots and kills 30 people, then kills himself. He comes back as a ghost and tries to figure out why he did what he did while a cop, his brother, and a reporter try to also unravel the mystery of “Why he done it?”

Short but sweet review of Chasing Medical Miracles on eHealth.com by John W. Sharp that concludes, “I would recommend this book for anyone involved in clinical research, whether in Pharma, medicine or as a patient.”

The editors at Booklist have named Chasing Medical Miracles one of the best adult books of the year for 2009. In their criteria the editors write: “The Adult Books editors have selected the following titles as representative of the year’s outstanding books for public-library collections. Our scope has been intentionally broad, and we have attempted to find books that combine literary, intellectual, and aesthetic excellence with popular appeal.” (More here.)

Medical Miracles was named in the category of Social Sciences. The citation reads: “Clinical trial participant O’Meara chronicles his experience and sweeps through the $24-million-per-annum clinical-trials industry, which generally escapes media scrutiny. Includes an invaluable checklist for prospective trial participants.

This is very cool! Chasing Medical Miracles is given a enthusiastic, informed, and starred review by Booklist (published by the American Library Association) in their June 1 issue:

“The concluding and most valuable chapter contains a checklist for potential participants to consult before signing a clinical-trial consent form. Must reading for anyone considering participating in a clinical trial, whether to test treatment for an illness they have been diagnosed with or not.”

One cannot live on news about clinical trials alone. One must make time to enjoy the stimulating worlds of art and culture. But where to start in this blogged-out, hyper-informationalized world? Start by going to http://scott-timberg.blogspot.com/   The site features insightful writing by an honest, wry, and insightful writer named Scott Timberg, formerly an arts [...]