Remembrances of Stupid

Stupid was a student who worked with us for a summer on the railway once upon a time. I asked him once "Do you really not mind people calling you stupid?" to which he responded "I don't care one bit. They can call me anything they want." At the time I thought this guy must be pretty sure of himself and I couldn't help but keep my eye on him from then on. He seemed a well-adjusted young college student who knew what he wanted and was very socioable. The guys seemed to like him fine and he was a good worker. Still, why the name stupid. He had only worked on the railway a month before I got on with this gang. I asked the fellows why they called him stupid and they just said because he was. I though they were all pretty stupid to begin with, so I was surprised they would actually beleive he was worse off than they. I worked with stupid for a few months and being that he was a student and I had no seniority we usually got stuck together along with another new guy we called "Schmengie of the Schmengie Brothers". He was an alcoholic and really burnt out, but we managed to have some laughs. We were sentenced to pull out old service wire along the tracks and roll them into coils using a manual track machine. It was hard work and we always had cuts on our arms from wire snaps. One day we couldn't get time on the track (when a train was near we were made to pull off to one side. We pulled the machine off the track and sat in the shade for lunch. There was a big delay so we wound up just relaxing in the shade. Stupid got bored and for fun took a peice of chipboard he found off the trackside and threw it in the middle of the track. He then decided to pour fuel (the machines gas supply) onto the board and set it on fire. We said "Stupid, what the hell are you doing?" Stupid just told us to relax and that it wouldn't hurt anything. Schmengie and I looked on. He had a nice little fire going and decided to add a little more fuel. When it died down he added more fuel. He tilted the gas can again to spill more fuel on the fire and suddenly had an amazed look about him. The fire had crawled up the gas and onto the plastic gas can. He kept pouring the gas out in hopes of it flooding the fire out. The flames of course grew higher and the plastic gas can was melting. He frantically spun the gas can in a circle around him surrounding himself in a wall of fire. He began to yell "What do I do, what do I do?" We were laughing too hard to be of any use. He jumped out of the ring of flames and dropped the gas can. Schmengie yelled "Bury the sonofabitch, Stupid". which he did. Even a burntout alcoholic had more sense. Stupid buried the gas can and a few minutes later brought what was left of our fuel and a severely disfigured gas can back to us. "Stop laughing guys. Its not funny. I'm in serious shit. What am I going to tell the boss?" It was then that I knew why the name. My answer of course was "Tell him you're stupid, Stupid".