The Chronicles of Crazy Eddie

Part 1

Crazy Eddie wasn't really crazy.

Merely misunderstood.

He was defined by the strange twitch in his left eye and the bulging in his right. He laughed at odd times in a conversation and filled the pauses with a strange humming noise. He muttered strange words under his breath and held debates with the cats that sat on the stone walls of the sardine factory. He purchased a carton of milk for a dollar everyday at exactly two pm at Milton's Grocery Store. On holidays he would simply break in and leave the money on the counter. He would sometimes walk down the streets barefoot at night and blame it on his old battle wound, despite the fact he had never served in war. He often played checkers with himself and couldn't understand how he kept winning.

He lived in the dusty attic of an old boarding house. He had an intense fear that the keeper's wife would murder him in his sleep; therefore, he devised a creative system of jumping out of the window every night and sleeping on the roof.

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Crazy Eddie visited with his friends on Sundays at exactly seven pm at Milo's Bar. This process would have been made far less complicated if he had any friends. He would start out by ordering a beer, which Milo would uneasily supply to him. Crazy Eddie would then send the glass back, asking for scotch instead. After his order was fulfilled, he would change his mind and require that the glass must have whisky in it. He would continue in this fashion, ordering and re-ordering every drink possible and never taking a sip.

Exactly thirteen minutes into this process, Milo would grab Crazy Eddie by the scruff of his scrawny neck, look him in his twitching bulging eyes and tell him to get out. Crazy Eddie timed it just perfectly so that it was always exactly seven- thirteen pm when he was removed from Milo's Bar.

Crazy Eddie was a man of strange timing and lived in a world that didn't always keep pace with his own.

But Crazy Eddie wasn't crazy.

Merely misunderstood.