Head Case

   

He was abrupt with people. Many people didn’t like him because he was so abrupt. He answered questions with a hatchet. He urged you to stop wasting his time.  His name was Karl and he was eighty-seven years old and he worked as a greeter at the local Wal-Mart. He was abrupt with the customers.  “Yeah, just get in.” “Okay. Great.” “Keep walking.” He had a metal plate in his skull (he’d incurred a serious head injury in Vietnam) and had been struck by lightning four times in his long arduous life. He blamed the metal in his head for attracting electricity and for his abruptitude.

     “Does it hurt to get struck by lightning?”

     With deep rich sarcasm, “No.” 

     Karl died on the job. Cerebral hemorrhage. He expired in the store. Those who saw him collapse swore that sparks shot out of his eyes. Davey Jones (23), a nearby cashier still maintains that his wristwatch stopped the second Karl’s brain misfired. Davey likes to tell his coworkers his dreams. He dreams a lot. The night after Karl’s collapse he dreamed of meeting a beautiful woman in a grocery store. “I like my men tortured,” she told him, standing next to the grapes.

     “I’m tortured,” he said.

     “Then you’re for me, sweetie.”

     She enveloped him in a warm hug.

   He awoke from the damp dream feeling jagged pangs of loss and futility and disgust.

     He went to work anyway.

    They’d already stopped talking about Karl. Davey manned his station. He wanted to tell people about his dream but the fact that it had ended with a nocturnal emission left him with a feeling of deep shame.

     So he kept it to himself, hoping guiltily for a sequel that night. He was in love with a dream girl. His shift couldn’t end soon enough. He ate grapes for lunch.