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Rufus Ship

Rufus Ship was extremely tired of one embarassing occurrence which had
maddeningly repeated itself throughout his life. He didn't want it to happen
again. It had happened again today. He resolved, that to lessen its impact
on future occasions, he would let his whim decide his actions. That way,
should it happen again, he could simply say, "Oh well, Things are like that,"
and have done with the embarassment. He would pursue only his impulses,
or go crazy trying.

Although he was the manager of Sears in White Oak, Maryland, he was
definitely not the type to take life too seriously. He figured, (with an admi-
rable depth of reason) that when life took the kinds of turns which led to
his present state of affairs, he would have to jump from his easy life of
order to something irrational and possibly destructive. Just for kicks.

Rufus was the type who got into a little trouble now and then, but nothing
ever serious. And nothing even remotely connected to his present plan.
Have a look at his history:

He was born on July 4, 1950. His mother died when he was three. He
lived with his father through school. He didn't go to college. He found
alot of jobs that were nowhere. He found a couple of jobs he liked, but his
conscience wouldn't let him stay too long. Thereby hangs a tale.

He was always a really good-natured kid. He loved living, and in fact,
everything in life and the world. He was prone to boredom, which he tried
to escape throughout his youth. He also fell victim to depression, (as any-
body does) and one way he would bring himself out of it was to find exam-
ples of people, suffering the same kind of depression, who had figured a way
out of it. But there was a particular form of depression he had never been
able to conquer, and it was this that had struck him again and again-even
today.

There was a time in his high school days, when he wasn't understanding
a single thing in life or in school. He had never been in cliques around
school, not that cliques excited him, but the lack of fraternity bothered
him. He was lost in Algebra as well. One afternoon he walked into his
house, dropped his books on the floor, and walked into the bathroom. His
old man was home, pissed off at his fourteenth bad day at work in a row,