Lawrence's Lovely Coconut

         Lawrence has been fantasizing about this day for weeks. He saw the advertisement in the back of a tropical vacation magazine and couldn't get the thought out of his mind. The ad offered the sale of fresh coconuts, shipped anywhere in the world for a flat rate of five dollars. Lawrence couldn't pass up the good deal. So he ordered one.

         Having lived his entire life in North Dakota, Lawrence had never actually seen a coconut. Sure he had eaten coconut before. In pie, on cookies and on dessert bars, but never fresh. It would take a week to arrive and Lawrence literally tingled with excitement.

         It came on a Thursday afternoon, when Lawrence was cutting out the Garfield comic from the newspaper for his collection. The mailman rang the doorbell and hand delivered the medium size package to Lawrence's eager, sweaty hands. Lawrence sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the unopened box for a few moments. He carefully cut open the packing tape and removed the still chilled coconut from its Styrofoam inner lining. He rolled it over in his hands, feeling the cool hairiness. But then an even stranger thought came into Lawrence swirling thoughts. "What if I dropped this out of a high window onto somebody's head?" It was then that the plan started to form.

         This was no small feat for Lawrence. Being somewhat of a simpleton, Lawrence had to plan carefully for the plan required several complex movements. The first Wednesday of the month has just passed, so his mother's monthly trip to the grocery warehouse over in Minot had just come and gone. Lawrence would have to wait until next month for the next trip. Living in Devils Lake, North Dakota had its advantages. Lawrence wasn't exactly sure what they were, but that's always what his father told him. It has its disadvantages as well. For one, there were no buildings over two stories tall, and Lawrence needed at least three stories for his plan to work. So Lawrence would agonize over the next three and a half weeks and formulate his plan.

         He would ride with his mother into Minot for groceries and then go for a walk while she got her nails done after groceries. He would sneak down to the Hyatt House Hotel and sneak up to the fourth floor. He would find an open window and wait for someone to walk by. Lawrence thought the plan was perfect. So he waited.

         The days that crept by were agonizing, but the day finally came. Lawrence had kept the coconut in the fridge and carefully wrapped it up for the trip. He put it in his backpack and hoped his mother didn't ask too many questions. She didn't. He fretted as they casually strolled through the store. He strummed his fingers and figeted as they packed the groceries into the car and drove across town to Mrs. Chang's Nails. Lawrence couldn't start his walk soon enough. Finally his mother went into the parlor and Lawrence went down the sidewalk towards the hotel.

         He arrived, with luck, to the hotel, just as a busload unloaded. Lawrence straggled in with the group and successfully blended in. Making it to the fourth floor, Lawrence roamed the halls, unawares of any observation and eventually found an unlocked window overlooking a busy sidewalk. The time had come.

         Lawrence randomly chose an extremely, morbidly, grotesquely overweight middle aged man as a target. The man walked beneath within a small group of others and paused, remarkably so, directly beneath Lawrence's window. The time had come. He took careful aim and let it go. In eager anticipation, Lawrence watched as the coconut made perfect contact, striking the fat man directly on top of his balding head. The sound was unmistakably hollow and the man staggered, dropping to his knees and then onto his face. Lawrence almost started cheering. The contact and subsequent "display" was better than he even imagined. A crowd gathered around the man, now sitting up on the curb, a small trickle of blood running down the side of his bright red head. An older woman had picked up the coconut and looking confused, began looking around. Lawrence pulled back into the window and had to muffle his laughter. He hoped the lady had not seen him.

         Making his way back down to the main floor lobby, Lawrence could hear small snippets of conversation about the man and the falling coconut. By the time Lawrence stepped outside, an ambulance had arrived and the EMT's were checking the man's vitals. Everything seemed okay.

         It wasn't until Lawrence was six blocks away when they police stopped him and returned to the hotel, Lawrence in tow. It was the conversation with his mother that Lawrence feared the most.

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