The Man Who Ate Books // Chapter Four: Part 1 // Original Fiction // Ongoing Serialization

Wally’s been at PACE awhile now.

To Wally, everything is the same from town to town. I mean, I guess that’s not just for Wally, but with him, it’s a little different. The McDonald’s in Stockton is the McDonald's he worked at thirty years ago, and he gets free food and drinks there.Part of my job, it turns out, is to help manage this delusion. So the times Wally was trying to score comps, before he could make a scene, my job was to pass a gift card to the cashier.

I understand this, right?

“You understand this, right?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Because you’ve got this look like you don’t understand, and I don’t want to get calls in the middle of dinner because Wally knocked the shit out of some poor cashier at the McDonald’s.”

“Why don’t we just tell him the truth?”

“The truth? What do you mean tell him the truth? You mean, ‘Hey Wally, you got fucked up in the head, got some tumors and got in an accident. Your wife took your daughter and left you. Now you’re in a care home and you’re going to die. That's what you want me to tell him? Just give the card to the cashier, and don't cause a problem. Look, Wally will be fine. Just do your job. And don’t cause a problem.”

Wally is always in that same place, even though everything is always changing around him. You might even call him lucky on the days he has more of his wits. He stays in that perfect place that he remembers before the brain injury. Stasis. No sprawl; no change; no degradation of the sacred drugstores of youth where high school kids are arrested for stealing cigarettes.

Once we tried to take Wally to the mall. He went to the help desk and told the attendant to call the police because we stole his wife and daughter. We had to convince her not to call the police--and she was about to because Wally is just believable enough that you want to help him.

In some ways, that's part of our job. To keep his hair combed and his beard trimmed and his clothes nice, so he doesn't look like a complete nut job from the skids pushing a shopping cart full of empty bottles of catsup. On the good days, he passes as normal enough.