The Great Unexpected by Dan Mooney

Author:Dan Mooney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Park Row Books
Published: 2019-04-05T18:15:18+00:00

15

“What about if I hung myself from the clock tower?” Joel asked as they sipped pints of stout at the bar.

“Hanged,” Frank told him, brushing the head from his lips.

“What?”

“Hanged. The past tense of hang is hanged.”

“No, it’s not. I hung loads of things in my day. It was always hung.”

“No, you hung loads of things, but anyone who got hanged wasn’t hung.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The past tense of the verb to hang someone is hanged. The past tense of the verb to hang something is hung.”

“You’re making that up.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Fine. What if I hanged myself from the clock tower?”

“Doesn’t sound right, does it?”

“Well, you were the one who insisted it was correct.”

“I meant it doesn’t sound like a good suicide.”

“What exactly does sound like a good suicide?”

“I told you this was your baby, not mine. You’re not cadging me for ideas. Why the clock tower?”

“I don’t know, something about being out of time?”

“Jesus,” Frank groaned disappointedly.

“Maybe in the clown costume? Or something else—what if I was dressed as a priest?”

“Good lord,” Frank groaned again.

They had wandered and meandered their way through town until they had arrived at a bar, Frank leading the way again, leading as if he knew where he was going, though Joel suspected he was as clueless this time as he had been less than a week before. He didn’t mind; there was something pleasingly familiar about the streets they walked. It had been a while since Joel had taken time out to just stroll, and he found himself feeling right at home as he ambled.

Inside the bar, sconces illuminated the beige wallpaper, old but clean, and reflected from the highly polished dark wood bar top. A small handful of patrons sat here and there at the collection of low tables with their accompanying soft-topped chairs, an eclectic mix of social classes and styles of dress and states of inebriation. Behind the counter the barman flicked through his form guide while the low drone of the horse-racing commentator intruded on the room from the television.

Joel and Frank had taken their places at the end of the bar, staring up the length of the place, their pints of stout resting on the now damp beer mats, “My Tools, My Rules” resting nicely alongside them. Joel liked the vibe of the bar, the sort of everybody welcome atmosphere that saw suited elderly gentlemen sit with down-and-out-looking middle-aged men with a handful of young kids, not even twenty, dressed like idiots, drinking ironically.

“What’s so wrong with that idea?” he asked Frank indignantly.

“It’s ill conceived.”

“Is it possible for you to say anything without overcomplicating it?”

“It’s a stupid plan.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s ill conceived.”

“God dammit, Frank.”

“All right, all right, here it is.” Frank took a breath. “If you’re arbitrarily picking landmarks to hang yourself from, then you clearly don’t understand the point of making a statement. If you had told me that the clock represents the inexorability of aging or death, or the false sense of progress achieved by the passing of an hour, then I’d have told you it was fine.

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