Mad Chad came roaring into town in his beat-up old pickup. Mad Chad always came roaring into town. His truck didn’t have a muffler. It also didn’t have a bumper, had one headlight, and one taillight and that was a sometime thing. The rest didn’t matter. It was the no muffler that got the notice.

     The Chief of Police, who was also the entire police force, let it go. His thinking was that it was only a noise and Mad Chad only came to town on Saturday night. The chief didn’t want to have to deal with Mad Chad any more than he had to. Mad Chad wasn’t’t called Mad for nothing. There were good valid reasons.

     Mad Chad was deaf in one ear and mostly deaf in the other. He’d hear people talking in a normal tone of voice and think they were whispering ... about him.

     “Hey, whatcha whisperin’ about?”, he ask.

     “Not whispering, Chad.”

     “There! You’re doin’ it again.”

     “Wasn’t whispering, Chad. You’re getting goofier and goofier, you know that?”

     Well, no, he didn’t. Chad thought he was the one who was all right. It was everyone else that was a little off. Somehow that didn’t seem right to him but that was the way it seemed. That’s why he lived way out in the boonies with his dogs and goats. They never whispered.

     He only came into town once a week. It was all he could stand these people, what with they’re bitching about his truck and whispering behind his back. He ought to take his beer home and drink it but Daddy always said a man who drank alone was a drunk. Mad Chad didn’t want to be known as a drunk. He’d drink his share here in town, sleep it off in the truck, and then go on home. He always slept it off. It wasn’t right, he thought, to drink and drive. Not that he got drunk, exactly. Just sort of drunk.

     Mad Chad wasn’t married. Everyone in town was thankful for that. Not because they wanted Chad to be lonely but because they didn’t want any little Chads running around, making noise and such as that. Chad didn’t want to be married either. He remembered how much his momma fussed with his Daddy.

     “Get a job, you bum.”, she used to yell at him.

     Chad ordered his usual beer. He didn’t speak and neither did the bartender. Just as well since the bartender was another whisperer. As Chad lifted his beer he looked in the mirror. He reached up and rubbed his chin. Dang, he thought, forgot to shave after taking my bath. Sniff. Double dang! Forgot to take a bath. Gonna be awful ripe come next Saturday night. Pretty ripe now.

     When Chad drank enough he went out to sleep in the back of the truck. He had a dream where everyone spoke in a normal tone of voice instead of whispering. He then felt a thud on his foot. That’s not part of the dream, dang it. He felt the thud again and opened his eyes expecting to see the sky. What he saw was the underside of his truck. He twisted his head to see the Chief of Police looking at him.

     “GO HOME!”, the Chief ordered him.

     “I will. It’s nice to hear someone talk to me in a normal tone of voice for a change instead of whispering.”

     “I WAS YELLING AT YOU, CHAD!!”

     Yea, nice to hear a regular voice instead of those danged whispers.