Reply #33: Chams' Kwickie Mart

[Spoonerian]

My favorite Makram Chams story is the one that Hopsicker attibutes to the psychiatrist who worked at the Venice Hospital a few blocks south of Chams' "Kwickie Mart"--which apparently performed the same function for the Venice Airport Mafia that Satriale's Meat Market provided Tony Soprano and his crew.

http://www.madcowprod.com/05172006.html

“Nokomis Ave runs right behind the hospital in Venice,” stated the psychiatrist. "Each day as I left the hospital for the office I'd head north on Nokomis. At the corner of Nokomis and Miami there was this little (Kwik-Chek) convenience store run by middle-eastern types.”

“Half the time I'd be late for the office and I'd stop in there and grab something awful for lunch. A woman and a large man were usually behind the counter. Some days I'd go in there and no one would be behind the counter but there would be loud talking in the back.”

“A few times I saw Atta in there, hanging around. Once I made eye contact with him—dead on! Emphasis on "dead" because when we locked eyes a chill went through me and I thought: "He's got 'dead' eyes."

“When you become a shrink you sometimes get attuned to what might be going on with a person just from seeing how they look—their faces and eyes—on the street or in public. The chill I got when I saw Atta was not the chill of fear. It was a chill about how sick he looked. He looked to be one of the most depressed persons I'd ever laid eyes on.”

“He looked so depressed that it was as if he was already gone. In retrospect I feel he may have been just as happy to die for the sake of ending it all as he was to die for Allah.”

“A couple of weeks after 9/11 the convenience store closed up,” stated the psychiatrist, who has since moved out of state. “I was down there last summer visiting the old psych unit crew, nurses and staff, at a yearly reunion at Sharkey's, and the store was still closed up. I found a reference to the store on the TERRORLAND website, and it got me thinking.”

“I wish I'd paid more attention back then… but who knew?”

Hopefully enough people sent Hopsicker's lawyer some money so that he can deposition Chams.

Hopsicker's got a new report out today where he says that "they" arrested Bohringer, but released him forthwith after he flashed his get-out-of-jail-free card.