The Master Plan

I had come upstairs from the laundry room. My wife had a frightened look in her eyes, which bugged out of her head like a pair of extra large hard boiled eggs.

"Didn't you hear me calling you?" she asked.

"No, I guess not," I answered, removing my earbuds. I like to listen to music and podcasts and such while I'm doing laundry.

"There was a man standing out there, he looked like he was probably homeless," she said, gesturing to the kitchen window that looked out into the back yard. "He was right by the garage, leaning on the gate." She hesitated a moment. "He was looking right at me, like he was looking right into my eyes." She paused a moment. "He had dead eyes."

"Where'd he go?"

"I started to open the window and he walked away into the alley."

I decided to take a drive around the block to see if I could find him. Sure enough, I spotted him on my second pass around. He was walking down the alley that ran behind our apartment building. He was a fairly large man, well over 6', 4", easily 230-250 lbs. He wore a navy blue hoody with some kind of red poncho or blanket draped around his shoulders. There was a slow, lumbering gait to his walk. He sauntered into the street that dead ended at the river. Then I saw him sit down on some kind of a post in the cul-de-sac that separated two industrial buildings. It appeared as though he was planning on making himself at home for awhile.

I drove a ways down the street and parked the car. I decided that this may not be a very good situation. There were children in the neighborhood. Who knew what this guy's story was. Was he dangerous? Mentally ill? The little nook where he was sitting was an area that neighborhood kids frequently played at, including my young son. It's best not to risk it, I thought, so I called the police on my cell phone and explained the situation to them. I waited around until they arrived.

I got out of my car when I saw the police cruiser drive to where the homeless man had situated himself so I could see what was happening, but I made sure to keep a safe distance. I was still close enough to overhear the conversation.

"Come on, Carl, you know you can't stay around here," I heard one of the cops say to the homeless man. "You're spooking the neighbors. There are kids here."

"Go to Uptown," said the other cop. "Nobody cares up there. You'll blend in fine."

A few minutes passed as the cops and Carl just stared at each other.

"Fine," Carl finally said, clearly annoyed.

He started to walk away from the cops, but then he saw me. He stopped about ten or fifteen feet from me. Our eyes met. He gave me this huge, weird smile.

"It's all good," he said to me. "It's all part of my master plan, anyways." He chuckled and pointed to his head. "I have a master plan up here. It's very detailed." His chuckle turned into sustained laughter as he walked right past me toward the nearest main street.

As he stumbled on his way, laughing, he turned back to me one last time.

"It's all part of my master plan! You! Them! You're all part of it! You're all part of my master plan!"

As he walked away, his voice echoed and reverberated with "My master plan!' and his boisterous laughter.

"My master plan-an-an-an-an-an...!"

The sound of his laughter slowly died off as he grew smaller with the distance.