Cream Scene Carnival

Sad Sack

The saddest person I ever met was this guy named Mike Evers. The reason Mike was so sad was that everyone he knew was dead. 

D-E-A-D dead.

All of them. You believe that?

I only knew Mike because we both worked at the Taco Bell in the mall together. I always hated working his shifts because, you know, his eyes contained the breadth of human unhappiness? 

Who the hell wants to work with a guy like that? 

Not me.

But you do what you’ve got to do, right? So in the quiet moments, when nobody else was in the food court, I’d just sit there looking at my phone like I wasn’t ten feet away from this absolute metric ton of human sadness. Meanwhile, Mike would just stand there behind the register staring at God knows what with his big depressing eyes. 

The whole time I’d be thinking “How the hell does everyone you know end up dead anyway?” Cancer? Plane crash? Terrorist attack? None of it made any sense. Any number of things could kill a few people you knew. Maybe even a lot of people. I could see if you came from a war torn country or something, maybe even most of the people you knew could die. 

But everyone?

 Anyway, one day I was sitting there, eating my free shift crunch-wrap, thinking about what on earth killed Mike’s entire social circle, when all the sudden this guy ran up to the counter like he was on fucking fire or something.

“IDIOTS! LOOK AT THIS CHALUPA! THIS CHALUPA IS COVERED IN TOMATOES! THIS CHALUPA IS SWIMMING IN TOMATOES! THIS CHALUPA IS FOR MY PREGNANT WIFE AND MY PREGNANT WIFE IS ALLERGIC TO TOMATOES!”

And poor Mike, who lives in a world of ruin and regret, who’s suffered worse than nearly all humankind, says, “I’m sorry.” 

He seriously says, “I’m so sorry sir.” 

He calls him “sir”.

And the whole time this guy keeps screaming about his chalupas and his tomatoes and his pregnant wife, I find myself getting more and more pissed off. Usually something like this would be funny as shit, but I’m pissed at this guy for being such an asshole. I’m pissed at Mike for being such a doormat. I am pissed on Mike’s behalf. I mean, here’s Mike, this poor sap who had to watch everyone he’d known get killed by the Taliban, or die of a super virus, or sink to the bottom of the ocean. And then in comes this joker who won’t shut the fuck up about his chalupa?

Uh-uh.

No way.

Mike tries to give him his refund but I am over the counter before he can hand him a cent. I take this guy by the knot of his big fat idiot tie and knock him onto his big fat idiot ass. I punch him in the head and start shoving the remains of my crunch-wrap into his big fat idiot mouth.

“YOU FAT PIECE OF SHIT! THIS MAN SAW HIS ENTIRE FAMILY AXED DOWN BY AL-QAEDA! THIS MAN WATCHED HIS WIFE’S GUTS MELT OUT FROM EBOLA! THIS MAN’S BEST FRIENDS WERE ALL BLOWN UP IN 9/11!”

He’s gagging and sputtering and his eyes are bulging out of his skull but I just keep mashing beans and cheese into his face.

“SHUT UP ABOUT CHALUPAS! SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR PREGNANT WIFE! DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS MAN IS? THIS MAN IS MIKE EVERS AND HE HAS BEEN TO HELL AND SEEN THE DEVIL!”

I can’t stop. It feels so good. It feels so right. My brain is screaming at me “YOU ARE ALIVE RIGHT NOW.” I look up briefly from the sputtering, bleeding, chalupa-eating worm of a man beneath my fists, and see before me the beatific face of my co-worker Mike, staring at me with those weary blue orbs, arms on either side of the opened register, palms held outward and up towards the high vaulted ceiling of the Northtown Mall.

This is the last thing I see before three large security guards descend.They hand over to the actual police, who put me in a room split up by a big plastic window with a black phone on either side. My buddy Lyle is on the other side of the window. Lyle also works at Taco Bell but it’s his day off. I can tell Lyle is not happy to be in a police station. He looks like he might be hungover. 

Lyle picks up the phone and says:

“What happened?”

I say, “This asshole was disrespecting Mike over a taco. The man’s whole family is dead.”

Lyle says, “What?”

“It didn’t seem right.”

Lyle says, “Mike’s whole family isn’t dead. That guy lives with his mom. He just has a brain problem or something.”

So, you know…fine. I guess it’s good that not everyone Mike knows is dead. I guess I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone. But I tell you what – I wouldn’t mind if he had just a little bit of that pain. Just a pinch. Like, for a day or so. Even just for an hour.

I mean, that guy kind of ruined my life.