"You ever notice how as soon as you buy a truck shaped like a ham sandwich, then you notice them all over?"

"Heh nice dude. Check out the blonde driving it, I'd impregnate the fuck out of her!"

"Back in Soviet Russia, we had hot blondes as well. They lived in Chernobyl!"

"Dude."

"They were not much up for impregnations, however! I made love to a woman from Chernobyl one time. Our genitals fused together, as in cruel joke from the heavens!"

My fellow stock boy walked away shaking his head, back towards the front of the store.

Vlad was a former Russian soldier who fought in Afghanistan, worked as a butcher in the meat department, and had four fingers. He always had horrifying stories of the Soviets whenever more than one person was standing around talking. Except most of them were likely false as he contradicted himself all the time, and I knew for a fact his name wasn't really Vladimir. I saw his paycheck once. It said "Joseph".

"Am I right? You get joke, yes?"

"Yeah I get it."

"Alright, high four!"

Once upon a time. "Say Vlad, what happened to your finger?"

Vlad, normally smiling, got extra serious. "I was in shack with family. My brother, he come running home one day. Shopkeepers were chasing him for stealing bread. Only they not really shopkeepers, understand? One grab me, demand to know where is my brother. He was hiding in ditch in field. I refuse tell him, I say, my brother he has not been here all day. BAM!" Vlad slammed a butcher's knife into a pork butt. "He chop off my finger."

Everyone was terrified. Vlad was staring at his hand, head hung low. It was so quiet you could hear the value of rubles drop. Then he smiled, and looked up. "But I deserve it for insolence! I never tell another lie in my life!" He went back to chopping meat, and everyone stared wide eyed at each other. Except me.

Another time, I was smoking out back with a couple of the other guys, about some lame party I'd gotten roped into going to the next night. Vlad came outside, apron covered in blood. "Hello fellows, mind if I join in with you in a cigarette?"

"Oh .. no, go ahead."

"Do you have one I can borrow? I will pay you back well."

"Here you go."

We stood silently for a few minutes, staring into thin air across the alley. Vlad turned toward us. "My break is over now, I must get back to work. Farewell, men!" Then he put the cigarette out on his arm.

The other guys stared slack jawed at him. Everyone was in awe of this man, this beast, this demonic alien. No one could wrap their heads around him. What had he gone through to turn into such a thing, no less a man than an animal? Ration lines? Starvation? Torture? No one could concoct a scenario where a child grows from an innocent creature to an unstoppable force of nature; gravity, electromagnetism. Vladimir.

But I knew better. And I smiled at them knowingly, never daring to smash his pedestal. I liked being in on the secret. If you met Bigfoot, but he hid and cowered – would you turn him in? I wouldn't. I'd wave and turn around. I always was more observant than everyone else.

After all, I knew he'd never even lit the thing in the first place.

I stared at his hand without moving mine. "Don't you get sick of that high four joke?"

His wide toothed smile disappeared, then turned into a genuine grin. This was the first time I thought he had ever told me the truth. "Sometimes I do, yes, but people always leave me alone afterwards. A man can never have too much peace. Do you understand?"

I nodded. I could have used more of it myself.

"Hey, where the SHIT are all my stock boys? Get your asses in gear!!"

The manager was yelling at us again. A box of fruit cups had an urgent need to be on grocery shelves immediately, you understand. Never mind that the shelf was already three fourths full of them. "I swear, I should fire every one of you useless dumbasses right now. My goddamned pet goat could do your jobs. BRIAN! I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

He rounded the corner, and saw I was having a chat with Vlad. "Oh. Uh, anyway, just get working on those canned goods next."

"Yeah boss, I'll get right on that." He turned and gave me a dirty look as he kept walking.

"That guy is a royal jackass."

"Do not worry, my American friend. In my country, we have a term for such men."

"What's that?"

"Virgins!"

I laughed, and went to put fruit cups on the shelves. I managed to fit five of them in.