Tommy

By Jeffrey Paolano

In Walmart, Tommy finds the input, the content, and the socialization that allows for retention of his lucidity as he thwarts his creeping dementia. A kerfuffle disturbs Tommy’s cogitations. Smartphones flash photographs of a prone body. He straddles the body, yells “Call 9-1-1!”

With his left hand on the cataleptic chest and his right on top of the left, he pumps keeping pace with “Stayin’ Alive.”
Tommy melts into the crowd when the EMTs arrive, avoiding the scribes who, in his cynical opinion, never take action but insist on noting all the details.

Tommy blissfully remains in possession of his chutzpah.