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.
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