The Pinwheel

I had met him in my early 20s when I was a working a graveyard shift in a giant grocery store. I had heard about him beforehand as he was the topic of several rumors. The main one was that he was a always part of a worker's compensation fraud. Apparently he would fake a back injury and then go on a claim. While he was collecting money on this claim he would work another job driving truck. He then was burned by a private investigator and his claim was nullified and transferred to my store. He name was Dawson Speaks.

​When he came back to work from his fraudulent claim I was sitting in my car during my break and a vehicle parked beside me. A man got out and quickly walked to the employee door and went inside. Little did I know that the man that crossed the parking lot was the notorious Dawson Speaks. A couple minutes later I went inside as well and he was going up the stairs and all of a sudden he had a heavy limp. I shook my head and as I passed him going up the stairs I introduced myself. He seemed very friendly. I went to the breakroom and sat down as I still had a few minutes left in my break. Dawson then came in and started to rant against the company and management for harassing him.

It was interesting that as he ranted in the breakroom he didn't seem to care that he was over two hours late for his shift. A half hour later he finally made it down to the salesfloor and started working in super slow motion as he was still on modified duties. When my shift ended he was still working. 

The next night he came in three hours late and my supervisor questioned him and Dawson said that he was at the hospital because he stabbed himself in the scrotum with a screwdriver that was in his pocket. Of course this was an area that he couldn't show the supervisor. It was interesting that he was walking with a cane now, but a couple of times he had misplaced it and I saw him walk perfectly normal to find it.

Every night he was late by three or four hours and one time he was late by an unbelievable eight hours. He was the only person that I ever met that arrived for his shift when it was supposed to end. His excuses were outrageous: everything from being detained by the police to his car been stolen. And this seemed to be happening on a nightly basis and everytime he never had proof of what happened. He either lost the doctor's note or the speeding ticket. So my supervisor started to reprimand him for being late. He was down to his last chance. One more late and he was toast.

The next night he came in seven hours late. He said that his girlfriend had driven into a lamppost and her car was totaled. Again he had no proof, but this time he was fired.

The next day I looked in the newspaper and on the fifth page there was a picture of him walking away from a totaled car with his girlfriend. Maybe he wasn't a liar after all.