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The Hanging Offense
from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee
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| Life Will Get You in the End: Short Stories by David Satterlee |
The Hanging Offense
Don and Bev were an unlikely couple. He was as tall as she
was short. He always knew which direction was north and she always knew when he
didn’t, actually. He was a disorderly neat-freak to her orderly clutter. They
both claimed to have a personally satisfying “piling system.” They had learned
to compromise where consensus was impossible and bicker gently when personal
territory needed defending.
Don and Bev had met rather late-ish in life. They were
already past their prime when they met. Let us say that they were on the
trailing edge of homemaking, child-raising, and career-building, They were both
divorced after almost three decades of difficult first marriages. They were both
lonely but skeptical of ever trying again. They had both given up on finding
someone who met their standards – they both quoted Groucho Marx: “I would never
join a club that would accept me as a member.” Naturally, they fell deliriously
and deliciously in love – for better and for worse.
And so, it eventually happened that Bev took an interest in
the art of rug-making. Don was amused but tolerant. Lord knows, Bev had been
patient when he thought he was going to learn to play the piano. Did I say
rug-making? To be specific, it turns out that Bev started ordering books on rug
hooking and, after a while, bought a machine for cutting wool fabric into
narrow strips. Don trotted out the pro-forma puns about her becoming a hooker
and stripper and Bev offered that pained little smile that told him that yes,
he was clever but
