Welcome to Wal-Mart

by Michael Frissore

STORY SUMMARY:
A trip to a department store turns deadly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Frissore lives in Leominster, MA with his wife. In addition to Nuvein, he has been published in Black-Listed Magazine and The WRIToracle, where he also writes a quarterly column. Among his favorite writers are Woody Allen, David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, John Kennedy Toole and Michael J. Nelson. Mike is obsessed with pro-wrestler deaths, and enjoys Chinese food, time travel and referring to himself in the third person. He often tells people he's a matador.

My wife Ann and I, and her 26-year-old brother, Stu, were walking through Wal-Mart, looking for household items for us and CDs and DVDs for Stu. It was 2:00 in the afternoon, so Stu was already a little buzzed and loud, even for him. He asked every store employee we passed where the gun section was so he could shoot and kill the yellow rollback character in the Wal-Mart advertisements. Several threatened to call security, but we were able to portray Stu as a harmless oaf.

Just as Stu had given up and admitted that there were no weapons in this particular Wal-Mart store, someone made an announcement on the loudspeaker that there would be a steak knife demonstration in the toy section of the store.

“Steak knives!” Stu said. “I want to cut things.”

“No steak knives, Stewart,” Ann said.

“Come on,” he replied. “I can cut around a penny and make it a corkscrew. Let me show you.”

“Yeah, with scissors,” I said. “Not a steak knife.”

He bolted for the toy department, knocking over display after display, children and the elderly alike indiscriminately. We walked after him slowly, like Pepe Le Pew nonchalantly chasing after a mistaken female skunk.

By the time we arrived in the toy department, children were screaming in terror as Stu has taken a carving knife to a stuffed Care Bear doll, oddly enough “Good Luck Bear.” After a few minutes of violent stabbing and ear-piercing screams, Wal-Mart security (or the two 80-year-old men who greeted us at the door when we came in) were on the scene and demanded we pay for the bear and exit the premises. We high-tailed it out of there before the real police came and planned on going home.

At least that’s what Ann and I had planned; Stu insisted that we each don a disguise and re-enter the store so he can scare children in the electronics department. We went to the party goods store next door, where Ann and I inexplicably purchased hats (hers a purple and white striped witches hat, mine a naval officer hat) and sunglasses. Stu, being the little handful that he is, decided his disguise would be to grab a Schick Slim Twin disposable from the backseat of my car and shave his goatee, eyebrows and portions of his head. Whether the “portions” part was his initial idea or just him giving up, he looked not only absolutely ridiculous, but criminally insane.

We re-entered Wal-Mart and Stu darted for the toy section. Ann and I speed walked to follow him and were happy that the steak knife table had been removed. Stu began weeping while looking for something with which to stab aggressively. He calmed down when he happened upon a group of toy swords, one medieval with “wicked cool designs,” Stu exclaimed; a Turkish sword, which looked much like the medieval one except it was curved, prompting Stu to throw it across the store like a boomerang; and a ninja sword, which Stu became quite frustrated with as he couldn’t remove it from the holder.

So Stu armed himself with the medieval sword and swung it at us like a demented Jedi Knight.

“Stewart, be careful,” Ann told him.

“I’m a ninja,” Stu said. “I’m Storm Shadow and I’m gonna destroy G.I. Joe.”

“Stuie,” I corrected him. “That’s a medieval sword; you threw the ninja sword atx”

“I’m a ninja!” he demanded, and began prancing around, trying to emulate the characters in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which he quite liked, despite not following the “crazy language” the characters were speaking.

I had decided that enough was enough and tried to grab the sword away from Stu. He resisted, of course, turning around and wielding his weapon wildly. So wildly, in fact, that when a Wal-Mart employee passed by, Stu unintentionally swung at him and stabbed him right in the chest. Ann and I stood in equals parts horror and amazement that Stu had apparently murdered a Wal-Mart worker with a children’s toy. Ann checked to make sure that the man (Bill, according to his name tag) was surely dead.

“Oh, my God, Stewart,” Ann said. “You killed him.”

“He’s dead?” I asked. “What the hell is the name of the manufacturer of that damn sword?”

“Look,” Ann said, “It doesn’t matter right now. We have to do something.”

“It sure as hell does matter,” I said. “You’re not supposed to be able to kill someone with a toy sword. That’s insanity.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Stu said.

“Excellent defense, Stu,” I said. “Be sure to use that in court.”

“Will you leave him alone?” Ann demanded.

“Leave him alone?”

“He couldn’t have known the thing would kill anybody.”

“He’s been swinging it around like frigging Jade Fox; he had to know the strength of it.”

“All right, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “What do we do?”

“I think,” I said, thinking, “I saw trash cans a couple departments away. Let’s stash him in there.”

Ann looked at me in shock for few seconds, then said. “Good idea.”

So Stu and I helped Bill over to the garbage cans like we were in Weekend at Bernie’s III, with Ann acting as our lookout. We stripped Bill of his nametag and Wal-Mart jacket (replacing it with my jacket to cover the stab wound) and gave him Ann’s sunglasses, telling passers-by that he was a customer who had merely passed out during the unpleasantness of the steak knife demonstration.

Ann maintained lookout as Stu and I tried to pack Bill into one of the Wal-Mart plastic trash cans. It was not working; Bill was a tall feller. Stu lifted his leg and tried to stomp Bill in with his foot, like Bill was a pile of leaves.

“This isn’t working,” I said.

“Maybe there’s some kind of furniture department,” Ann said. “We can stuff him inside a long drawer.”

“Brilliant!” I said, as Stu and I lifted Bill out of the can and helped him to the furniture section of the store. Wal-Mart isn’t the best place to go for large dressers with drawers people can sleep in; so, we were immediately thwarted. We tried a bottom drawer of the largest dresser to no avail. Stu and I then continued our ridiculous walk from department to department, as Stu had the idea to disguise Bill as a mannequin. Ann and I were desperate enough to try it.

Stu immediately began undressing a female mannequin, a bit to happily, but you can’t go too long in a Wal-Mart clothing department undressing mannequins, male or female, before someone looks at you funny. We decided it might be better to just detach the mannequin into pieces and stuff her somewhere, then try to prop Bill up. That wasn’t working; the deceased are quite difficult to balance.

“Wait,” Ann said. “Do they sell hardware supplies here?”

“What?” I said. “What are you suggesting?”

“Maybe we can cut him into pieces and place him throughout the store.”

“Ann,” I said. “We’re pushing it with the suspiciousness already; I think if we started sawing human beings in the hardware department, people wouldn’t mistake it for a magic trick.”

“Hey!” Stu yelled. “I want to be a magician! I want to saw Bill in half.”

I calmed Stu down and thought about it. At the moment it wasn’t the most ridiculous thing to do, but it was an all or nothing situation that, as I saw it, had a one hundred percent chance of turning out badly. We would essentially be giving ourselves up, and I was not ready for that just yet.

“The fitting rooms!” I said. “We can place him one of the fitting rooms and leave.”

“You know, Bill,” Ann said. “I think we’re missing the big picture here. I don’t think we can just leave him. We may have to take him with us and ditch him elsewhere.”

“Great,” I said. “Now you say that. Do you think we’ll make it out? He is an employee here. Someone’s bound to recognize him, sunglasses or not.”

“It’s busy and there’s only two old men in the front,” she said. “I think we can make it.”

“And then what?” I asked her.

“And then,” she replied, “We put him in the trunk and drive to a secluded place and dump him.”

“Should we buy a shovel?” Stu asked.

“We can’t go buying stuff here,” I said. “We’ll have to get a shovel elsewhere. I have one at home.”

As we exited the store, I realized we needed to at least get the sword, which had Stu’s fingerprints on it. We sent him back to get it as Ann and I discussed what we should do about the sword. Should be purchase it or try to sneak out with it? Either choice could get us caught instantly.

When we decided that Stu was taking entirely too long, Ann and I each made a move to go after him, temporarily forgetting about poor Bill. Just then, two men came running towards us from the right. Ann screamed and held tightly onto her purse, thinking that’s what the men were after. As they passed us, we turned around and saw that they were carrying Bill with them. Two men had now kidnapped what they will soon realize is a dead man. Ann and I went into a full panic. What would these men do when they saw he was dead? How do they know Bill? Would they just try to ditch him, not wanting a dead man on their hands? Or would they come back to the store and identify Ann and me as the people walking around Wal-Mart with a deceased worker?

Stu came running towards us now, holding not only the medieval sword, but also an Xbox video gaming system. We told him he couldn’t get it and walked quickly out of the store to find the men who kidnapped Bill.

“Where’s Bill?” Stu asked.

“He went out with some friends, Stuie,” I told him.

We looked out at the parking lot and saw Bill lying on the concrete. Soon after, a car ran right over him and out of the lot.

“Dead Lord,” I said.

“Come on,” Ann said to us. We followed her as she ran towards Bill.

“What are we doing, Ann?” I asked her.

“We’re people who saw this stranger lying on the ground,” she said. “We didn’t witness anything; we just saw him and started yelling for help.”

Smart girl, that Ann. We stuck around, looking helpful and concerned, especially once the police came. We were in the clear; Stu had literally gotten away with murder. We gave our statements, which were that we saw nothing, just a man lying in the middle of the lot, dead. Several employees from the store came out to see what was happening and give their statements. One of them recognized Stu.

“Hey,” she said. “That’s the guy that was stabbing the Care Bear in Toys.”

“Who, miss?” an officer asked.

“Him,” she said, pointing to Stu. “He had a steak knife and was stabbing at a Care Bear in front of all these kids.”

“Is she telling the truth,” the officer said asked Stu.

“No, I didn’t stab this guy,” Stu said, pointing at Bill’s corpse.

“Stewart,” Ann said, “She means the bear in the store.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Stu said.

“Woah, woah, woah,” the officer said. “No one’s saying anyone killed anyone else.”

The officer tried to calm Stu down by placing his hand on Stu’s shoulder. Stu screamed and backed off, brandishing his medieval sword, and aiming it at the officer. When the toy hit the officer in chest, it pierced his skin and he went down, holding his bloody chest. When the other policemen saw this, they produced their guns and aimed them at Stu.

“Freeze!” one of them yelled. But Stu wouldn’t. He held his sword in the air and began slowly walking forward. The cops fired their weapons at Stu to the horror of everyone, especially Ann and me.

“Stuart!” Ann screamed.

When it was all over, Ann knelt over Stu’s dead body, yelling at the police. It would take a while for me to get her to see that it wasn’t their fault. They were doing their job.

The officer survived the stabbing, but Stu was found to be responsible for Bill, the Wal-Mart employee’s, death. Ann, and the families of Bill and the stabbed officer sued the manufacturer of the medieval sword for millions and won. And Ann and I lived happily (except for the her brother dying part) ever after.