Strange Things are Happenin'

It was in the produce department of our local WalMart when I first noticed him. He was walking down the aisle toward me. His clothes were far too big for his skinny frame and were smeared with dirt and oil. His long, black hair was in a scraggly ponytail. Bits of forgotten food clung stubbornly to his unkempt facial hair. I noticed him but I looked away.

A few minutes later, I was at the checkout and I saw the same man walk past. He was ahead of me, walking past the bathrooms at the front of the store. Again, I noticed him but I tried not to. I didn't want to be rude. I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. I looked away.

I made it to my car and unloaded the groceries. I turned to walk the cart to the cart return and there he was again. He was parked on the same row that I was but on the opposite side. He was standing at the driver's side of his car with the door open. The way he was standing seemed...odd, out of place somehow. He was facing the car with his back to me but his feet were set wide apart and his hands were clasped in front of him.

He looked backward over his shoulder at me. The look that he gave me was out of place too. Like he was annoyed that I was there walking in that parking lot. "Get out of my parking lot," he was saying with his eyes. By this time, I had put the cart away and was headed back toward my car. I was hurrying now, I wanted to get away from his unrelenting stare. I heard a faint splashing noise.

That's when I recognised what his posture meant, and added that to the steady trickling I was hearing. That's when I realized why he was looking at me like I was intruding somewhere that I wasn't wanted. And that's when it dawned on me that he was urinating there in the WalMart parking lot, that the bathroom in the store he had walked past 5 minutes earlier hadn't been convenient enough. And once again, I looked away.