"There's just something about a hanging", she said to me one night, over a glass of cheap, red wine, "It's like, more intimidating because the dead person just hangs there until they're ready to let him down."
"Do what?", I asked, mostly a reflex. I knew what she meant.
"You know... stretching somebody's neck", she replied with a grim smile.
I leaned back, taking a gulp form my glass and placing it on the coffee table. "That's pretty random", I said.
She was looking fixedly out the window into the endless black of the back yard pond.
"See, I was looking at my neck in the mirror this morning. Did I ever tell you I saw a hanging once? I'm sure you could imagine being there, but you wouldn't get the full effect."
I leaned forward and put my hand on her knee. She was sitting in the easy chair next to the couch, a LA-Z-boy that stood as a relic of her ex husband. "Why would anyone want to imagine something like that?"
She ignored me, "You know I'm a Lieutenant. Well, when I was overseas serving, we found this guy hanging from the rafters in his home. He wasn't one of the important guys we were trying to find, but he was on the list near the bottom".
She meant Desert Storm. No one wanted her to go, but she wanted it enough to leave everyone hanging. No pun intended.
She had just married Billy, who tried to support her decision, but in the end he couldn't tolerate her being gone and found a mistress. Sadie left Billy once she got back from her duty.
It turns out, she had been sleeping with one of the Privates. I always knew there wasn't much love in her and Billy's relationship.
"What you thinking about, Reggie?", she asked, her head cocked to one side, then the other side.
"You, Billy and the Private", I responded bluntly.
"Ah, yes", she sighed, "You want to know something funny?"
"What?"
"They might have been best friends in another life. Almost carbon copies of one another."
"If Billy's type is your type, then you're in for a series of divorces", I said, fairly drunk and speaking too boldly, maybe.
"Why's that?", she grinned, sitting on the edge of her seat to pour herself another glass.
"You two weren't in love. Anyone who knew you two said so."
"This is true. I don't know what we were. What are you and I, do you think?"
This threw me for a loop. We weren't in love, either. Maybe I was too drunk to think, but I knew that for a fact. We never had sex. We kissed once in 4th grade in gym class. Nothing but plutonic love.
"Us? You mean, you and me?"
"Yeah, us".
I tried to guess what she wanted me to say, but in the end just rambled, "Well, we never even dated or anything. I guess we're just really good, old friends."
"Good. That's my type. Good friends. Forget love and lovers and owning half of someone's possessions because you think you've got something special with them, then you shit on each other because you don't anymore."
She stood in the middle of her rant and chugged her wine afterwards. I had drained several glasses, enough to not notice the vinnegar-esque flavor the wine had had at the beginning of the evening. She picked up the bottle and laughed, "Want to go out in the canoe?"
"In your pond? Yeah, I guess. Not too far, I want to be able to find my way back."
"You're the man, Reg. Grab my cigarettes for me."
We headed out, both drinking straight from the bottle. I was confused about why she really wanted to go canoeing, and she was skipping down the hill, singing something garbled and out of tune. |
Submission Name: Rafter
