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Will wandered the alleyways of Wherever, trawling for scraps in garbage cans, collecting empty bottles for recycling and diving for his dreams (diving into a dumpster that looked particularly stuffed with food). He would cram his findings into his cart with a schizophrenic look from his left to right and muter, "You never know, do you?" His whole life world would ramble off in four big plastic bags stuffed into his old Snaafe-Co cart.
The Snaafe-Co cart had been with Will for so long that it had more twisted metal bars than straight ones, some rusting, and some bars partially tied together with rope, tape, and rags. In the front of the cart was a plastic sign that had an advertisement on it. Originally it said "CHUNKY-LOU TUNA, IT'S IN THE RED CAN." All that was left were the words, "IT'S IN THE CAN."
Will was so emotionally attached to the cart that he actually saw it as a person. He called it "MY FREE WILL." The card was his constant companion through cold rain or blistering heat or a hurried escape to under a bridge down by the river. He would talk to his cart, mumbling words to it that made sense only to Will. He would end every ramble with one clear sentence, "FREE WILL, IT'S IN THE CAN."
Will divided his world, as he had come to know it, into two large groups; THE ZEROS and THE ONES. He preferred neither group. Within his own set of impulses he was very afraid of the ONES but felt an odd a compulsion toward the ZEROS. Here's why...
The ONES would always assault him with a mean exclamation or question that they would direct straight at Will, things like "JITBAG!" or "What's your problem?" or "Out of my way, stink-ball!" or "You drunk, sober up!" or "Get a job!" They made Will feel alive.
The ZEROS on the other hand would pretend not to see Will. They would look away from Will or glance quickly by him or walk toward him looking just over his head or at his kneecaps. For a while Will thought he had become invisible, he would test his idea by running up to a car stopped at a traffic light, leap onto the hood and rub his face on their windshield. A true ZERO would look away, a ONE would scream a loud exclamation. He even took to pasting funny signs on his kneecaps and his rotten baseball cap, things like, DA KING, or JITBAG, MR. CEO 2U, or HI BOZO. A true Zero would resist any reaction to even Will's most outrageous kneecap and forehead signs.
Time, on the other hand, had no meaning to Will except when he would ramble by the old clock in the town square. He would see the clock, yell out loud, and point, throwing his hands straight in the air and yell, "I'm free, I am free!" or "You can't touch this, Bozo!" as he would grab his crotch. Will would try to make his way to the town square on sunny days because he learned how to turn Zero's into One's. He would yell at the clock, "You can't touch this, Bozo!" while grabbing his crotch. Usually the same guys with pens stuffed into their shirt pockets would bust apart laughing and almost choke on their Big Rudee hamburgers whenever Will would do that. Some of them would give him a quarter or a dime or two. Like a trained circus pet, Will began to perform this ritual on regular basis. It made him feel alive and connect.
Part of Will's daily journey to the clock involved crossing a busy street. He had many close calls rambling from the alleyway on a diagonal toward the town square. No matter how fast he would run it was usually to late or he was too slow. One Sunday he and his cart got caught right in the middle of the street, Will saw the small white truck coming and he yelled "JITBAG!" as loud as he could but he took the front of the truck like novice bull fighter takes the bull. He was launched into the air and knocked to the curb, his art was mortally dented and his head felt light and incredibly goofy. The world slowed down and it went squarely and sidewise and very gray.
The man driving the truck was incensed, he was definitely a ONE Will mumbled because he ranted and raved, pointed at Will and made many exclamations to the point that Will thought he was speaking another language. The man looked at Will's cart and Will pointed at it with a very crooked finger and mumbled, "MY FREE WILL." The ONE definitely noticed this and he attacked Will's cart and started to kick it, he stood on it and jumped up and down on it and threw it around.
Will tried to get up but he fell over and landed in the street. The man with the white trucked grabbed Will's mangled cart and threw it in the back of his truck. Will yelled to him, "Don't take my FREE WILL." Before the ONE jumped into his truck he looked right past Will and snarled and stuffed a card into Will's dirty pocked. It said, "JERRY GEE'S DRIVE THROUGH INSURANCE. FULL COVERAGE IN 60 SECONDS, BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW!" Jerry Gee's smiling face was the last thing Will saw as his cart was taken away.
Jerry laughed all the way to the city recycling yard. He dumped the cart at a huge metal melting pot and drove away laughing harder than he had ever laughed in his life. The scrap yard crushed and then melted down Will's cart and sold it as a billet of metal to the Sol Kanter Company from Irontown, Ohio. The company reincarnated Will's cart as a pallet of Chunky Lou Tuna cans on sale at the Low Cost Warehouse.
One evening Will was diving for dreams in an alleyway. He found a half eaten can of Chunky Lou Tuna (the one in the red can). He started to laugh out loud, so loud that two teenagers walking by stopped and kicked the dumpster yelling, "Come out with your hand up!"
Will emerged laughing uproariously, holding the tuna can and howling out lout his favorite expression, "You can't touch this, Bozo!" The teenagers looked from side to side up and down the alley like they were ignoring Will. He yelled, "You big ZEROS, you can't touch this!" while he waived the can of tuna. The teenagers beat Will to death.
They claimed self defense, that Will assaulted them yelling scary nonsense about touching them and trying to slash them with the jagged edge of the tuna can. The guys with pens in their pockets testified that Will was insane, often yelling at the town clock. Jerry Gee even testified that Will tried to run hum down with his shopping cart. They were each given an accommodation. Their smiling pictures appeared in the paper, "TEEN HEROES IN FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES."
You never know, do you...