He could see her making a beeline from the cereal aisle, straight towards him. She paid no attention to the screaming toddler in her cart. She had more important matters on her mind.

“How dare you show your face in public, you, you, you bastard!” She slammed her cart into his, flipped him the bird, and then made her way into the ten-items-or-less check-out line.

It’s like that everywhere he goes. The supermarket, the gas station, chain restaurants, anywhere you’d stand a chance of seeing a woman –- that was the typical response his semi-famous face would evoke.

Tad Logan, real name Roger Dorsey, lost his job on Days of Our Lives four months ago. But to these shopping cart commandos, that little fact didn’t matter one bit. To them, he would always be Foster O’Malley, the fictional Midwestern town of Salem’s most notorious larcenist, arsonist, murderer, rapist, art thief, drug dealer, bootlegger, kidnapper, and on an unrelated note, the town’s only Catholic priest.

Father O’Malley spent seventeen years as a character on Days of Our Lives. Most of them were as an exceedingly caring man of the cloth that cheerfully provided sage religious council to the citizens of Salem.

That all changed late in 1999 when network research determined that the viewing audience had grown tired of the character’s unbounded piousness. The network brass, in all of their wisdom, decided to overhaul the character rather than doing away with him entirely. It was a tactic that had worked successfully before and would no doubt be successful in the future.

The show’s writers toyed with several ideas for the overhaul, not the least interesting of which involved O’Malley becoming an international spy that would engage in all sorts of espionage and gun play with his European counterparts. Ultimately, the writers settled on a life of crime for the kindly priest. This was, after all, the age of the Catholic church sex abuse scandals. A fact that they were hoping to capitalize on.

Tad vehemently objected to this new incarnation of his once beloved character, but in the end, decided to renew his contract and stay on as the newly contemptible Father Foster O’Malley. This was a choice that he later regretted.

“Hey, I know you, don’t I?”

"I don’t think so. No, definitely not.” Tad tried pushing his cart past the pudgy woman wearing overalls but she blocked it with her own. "Yes, I sure do! I know who you are! You’re that scumbag from Days of Our Lives!"

"I get that a lot, actually. You’re mistaken, though, ma’am. My name is Roger Dorsey... I sell insurance right here in town. I haven't been an actor since I played Perchik in an 11^th grade production of Fiddler on the Roof. Poorly, I might add." He smiled and tried pushing his cart past hers again, but it was no use. She had him sandwiched between her cart and a Pop Tarts display.

“Don’t you lie to me, O’Malley. I know all about you,” she said. “I’ve been watching you for fifteen years of my life. I know all of your tricks. You can’t fool me like you fooled Poor Cassie.”

Cassie was Salem’s resident sweetheart. Beautiful, wealthy, philanthropic. She had a vast art collection in her mansion, most of which Father O’Malley pilfered early in his 16^th season and sold to Argentine art smugglers. He’d done much worse during his four year stint as a criminal priest, but for some reason, doing harm to Cassie seemed to be his most unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Days of Our Lives viewers.

"Really, I'm not him. You're all mixed up, lady."

"Don't you lady me, O’Malley. You've gotten away with your crap for too long. Someone should do something about you."

"Fine, look lady. I'm him, I mean, not in the way you think, though. I played him on TV. I was just a character, you know? Make-believe. I was fired from the show four months ago, if you hadn't noticed."

"That's malarkey," she said. "You've been in a Honduran prison for the last four months because of what you did to Marco's lover. He pulled some strings and had you imprisoned down there. I don't know how you got out, but obviously you did."

"Oh Jesus! You're delusional! All of you are." He took a box of Pop Tarts from the top of the display and chucked them at her head. The woman ducked and the box went crashing into the generic bags of cereal behind her.

"Shame on you! A man of God taking the Lord's name in vain like that."

Several women from the next aisle over had heard the commotion and came around the corner to investigate. They immediately recognized Tad as Father O'Malley and started shouting obscenities at him.

"Look at the slime ball," said one.

"You don't belong here you scum-sucking swine," said another.

Tad backed away from his cart and looked at the angry mob forming around him. "You're all insane," he shouted. "My name is Roger Dorsey! I'm just an out of work actor! You're all insane!"

The mob closed in on him as he slowly backed away. Their taunts becoming more and more vicious. Two women at the front of the crowd began chanting. "Get him. Get him. Get him." Eventually the whole lot of them joined in.

"Get him! Get him! Get him!"

Tad turned to run and was pelted in the back with a can of evaporated milk. Then another, and another, and another. He’d taken several blows to the head and back by the time he reached the automatic doors at the front of the store.

The crowd stopped on the sidewalk out front and congratulated one another while Tad jumped in his car and sped away.