The author, a homeless novelist, was shopping in the Dollar Tree on Foster in Portland, Oregon on Monday, March 1, 2021 at 12:34 pm when he saw two women and a man attack and beat a homeless man for the crime of not wearing a mask during the only respiratory disease out-break in human history.

As an unapologetic creep, the author wondered at such violence in the absence of bodies being stacked like cord-wood in bedsheets on city sidewalks. But then, after leaving the store and taking down his mask, walking in the clear virus-killing sunshine, he noticed various, much younger, much healthier folk glaring at him, stepping into speeding traffic to avoid him, huddling in fear, cringing, even crying with mouths hanging a-yawn under their masks. The homeless man was not capable of fighting back and fared poorly. It being obvious that building hysteria would eventually result in his own victimization for not masking outside, the author wondered, “How would I fare before the mob?”

Dollar Joe is the transcript of a tactical fantasy written in one man’s mind during a 9-block walk.