Beloved local convenience store owner Donald Schauser, 56, died today in his shop. Schauser was known for his time served in Vietnam as a medic and for his “exact change only” policy.
His wife, Elizabeth Schauser, announced that his death was likely a result of complications from being shot several minutes beforehand.
“Oh my God, oh my God, what have you done? What have you done to my husband?” Elizabeth said recently in an interview.
Donald was born in Perryville, a small Missouri town of approximately 8,000. He met his soon-to-be wife Elizabeth and they planned to marry, but he was drafted in 1971. Before leaving, they exchanged promises to always stay together.
“He was so sweet when he was alive,” reported Elizabeth, rocking her dead husband’s head, “Oh, my Donald.”
Schauser returned from Vietnam a changed man. He had seen things that no man should see. He married Elizabeth and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he was forced to steal from local shops to support his wife and his family. Donald lived in shame every day, incredible shame. The kind of shame that attracts people interested in looking at the dregs of humanity. That's when Donald met a friend who would make life far more interesting for him.
“What? How did you know that? We never told anybody about the stealing. Nobody knew!” said Elizabeth in her interview.
Soon Donald realized that he could earn more by actually working at a convenience store than by stealing from them. After getting his conveniencer’s license he applied for a job. His dark past was over. Whitewashed. Everything bad was to be whitewashed for Donald Schauser. Donald's new friend knew that that was no good.
There was an evil little man lurking inside Schauser. One that desperately needed to get out. Only his new friend knew how to get him to do it, and he did. Donald began sneaking out late nights to go to bars, to sleep with other women. He would spend nights in small rooms with strange women in beds next to open windows that just about anybody could look through. His life was debauchery and incredible pain. It was truly the most delicious part of his story.
“Wait, don't I recognize you? Yes! You were the one who he met under the bridge! I always knew you were no good!” cried Elizabeth in exquisite agony.
And so Donald spent his years in drudgery and despondency, truly a prize for the connoisseurs of the human condition. Only recently did he begin to stay in more, to recant for his sins, to sit on his bed and recite to who he must have thought was nobody, “I love my wife; I need to make myself better.”
“Please, let me go. I promise not to tell anybody. Please just let me go, you’ve already taken my Donald,” said Elizabeth in the concluding words of her interview.
Donald’s death by a mystery assailant is likely the result of some admirer who wanted to make sure his life of misery was not tainted by the forces of redemption and regret. Truly Donald's best friend is also his greatest savior.
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