Invisoman
When the police arrived at Macy’s, Invisoman was sweeping up pieces of broken glass from the floor of the bridal department with a whisk broom. Stark naked and staggering, he had careened into a shelf filled with Waterford stemware and sent thousands of dollars of goblets, champagne flutes, wine glasses, water glasses and sherry glasses crashing to the linoleum, shattering them into quality crystal shards and wrecking the dreams of hundreds of hopeful brides and wealthy alcoholics. Invisoman was drunk as a bicycle. His wife of twenty years was divorcing him after long months of complaining to friends, “I can see right through him.” Invisoman thought she was speaking literally; she was speaking figuratively. She threw him out of their house on his invisible ear. After drowning his sorrows at a bar down the street, Invisoman went to Macy’s hoping he’d find a gift to assuage her and buy him some time. He believed he was invisible. The police (and gaping onlookers) assured him he was not.
Sgt. Patterson, the senior of the two arresting officers, telephoned Invisoman’s wife, who told him in terse conversation, “His name is Herb Lumpkin. We’re going through a divorce. He isn’t taking it very well.” Sgt. Patterson assumed Invisoman was a candidate for Bellevue, and he radioed his conclusion to his superiors, who enthusiastically agreed. He and the younger officer, Patrolman Patrick O’Malley, were escorting Mr. Lumpkin to their patrol car when Invisoman began vibrating.
Now, as even freshman physics students understand, things in the physical world are perceived by the human eye because light reflects off them, vibrating at different wavelengths, and is captured by the retina. Herbert Lumpkin, through years of meditative practice, could set the molecules of his body vibrating in such a way that light passed through the space between atoms instead of reflecting off them. Thus, he disappeared. It was simply a matter of focused concentration and heat resistance. Vibrating molecules create friction, and friction means heat. When invisible, Herbert Lumpkin’s internal body temperature sometimes soared as high as 600 degrees.
Sgt. Patterson and Patrolman O’Malley first recognized Mr. Lumpkin’s metamorphosis as a gentle vibration under his skin, much like that of a battery operated sex toy set on low. “Sarge,” said Patrolman O’Malley, “something’s wrong with this guy. We’d better get the cuffs off him.” Once the handcuffs were off, Invisoman’s internal body temperature shot up 50 degrees. Sweat poured from his body. Mr. Lumpkin shed the blanket his captors had thrown over him to hide his nakedness and then he vanished. “One moment he was there,” wrote Sgt. O’Malley in his report, “and the next he was gone.”
Seconds later Invisoman burst into flames.
Everyone thought he had learned a new trick and was aping Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. His spectacular pyrotechnic display mesmerized his audience, and several minutes passed before the more astute among them realized Invisoman was screaming. By the time Lillian Franklin arrived from the cosmetics department with a fire extinguisher, Invisoman was nothing more than a lifeless lump of charcoal smoldering on Macy’s floor.
Bacardi killed him. He had spent most of the afternoon tossing back 151 proof rum-laced shooters, and his blood alcohol level was extraordinary. Once his internal temperature exceeded 400 degrees, pouf! The alcohol ignited. And so did Invisoman.
His estranged wife sued everyone from Macy’s to the Bacardi Corporation to the City of New York, but it was no use. And since his life insurance carrier viewed Mr. Lumpkin’s death as self-inflicted, it was exempted from paying a death benefit. Macy’s took pity on the penniless Mrs. Lumpkin, and they offered her a job scrubbing floors late at night, when all the customers were gone and the ghost of Invisoman haunted the place, leaving behind the faintest odor of burning flesh after tipping over individual pieces of Waterford crystal, just to keep in practice.
