Behold the Battle Axe, Yours for Five Bucks

This battle axe was purchased at the Opa-locka/Hialeah flea market’s plucky Pakistani knife booth for five dollars. “This is a weird store,” said the pleasant girl behind the counter. “You’d be surprised at how often we sell this stuff to weird people like you.”

The owner of the booth was back in his home country of Pakistan. He had worked out some kind of awesome deal, she said, with a weapons factory out there. There were finger knives, Rambo knives, Pakistani ninja stars, a 20-inch blade that straps onto your arm, brass knuckles, belt-buckle knives, and a sword sale ($25, any size).

A young, dour man with a quaffed pompadour perused the aisles of various stabbing items, straightening boxes of Chinese cleavers and making sure the Brazilian machetes were sorted by size. I assumed he was the boss man’s son. But he wouldn’t talk to me.

Especially when I asked about Barack Obama.

Hear this America! The Pakistanis are preparing for Obama’s election with all the speed of a colony of pissed-off fire ants. They’re manufacturing clever shanks and pointy shit like sociopaths in a prison shop. If we start poking around in hills that we don’t belong in, expect one of these babies to come down on the base of our national skull. --Calvin Godfrey