“When are you going to do it?” Lenny asked Susan.
“When am I going to do what?” she responded, laying a card carefully on the dining room table where she was playing Solitaire.
“When are you going to kill yourself?” Susan glanced at him warily.
“I have no desire to kill myself.”
“But you need to,” replied Lenny. “After all, it was you who had the affair and ruined my name in this town.”
“Your name!” Susan screeched, slapping the card she held onto the table. “What about my name? Not only have you trashed me to my friends, you went to every bar in town talking about me, trying to get sympathy, but all they did was laugh at you.” Lenny kicked a small trash can over.
“I would never have done that if you had been a faithful wife.”
“But the affair was over five years ago,” she reminded him.
“So I heard,” he retorted, but it’s new to me.” Susan stood, ready to leave the room.
“You shouldn’t have listened to my former lover’s new girlfriend when she called here trying to make trouble.”
“Oh, is that so? When I asked you if it was true, I expected you to lie, but now I know you told the truth about everything.”
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “You should be man enough to let it go.”
“I will NEVER let it go!” he roared. “You should die.” Susan ran into the bedroom and locked the door. Lenny had been this way ever since he found out about Susan’s affair. She felt like throttling the hussy who called her home and demanded Susan come talk with her about Susan’s former lover. Susan had refused, and the woman informed Lenny. None of this would have happened if the man she gave her heart to had kept his mouth shut.
Susan became a pariah in the town where she lived. Everywhere she went she could hear snide remarks behind her back. Leering men made obscene gestures. She was forced to shop two towns over so as not to be seen by anyone she knew.
Lenny was not innocent. He backhanded Susan for the slightest thing she did wrong, even before her confession about being unfaithful. She often went to work wearing dark glasses because of a black eye. As a receptionist at an insurance company, she had to be presentable. It was hard to hide a cut lip or swollen, bruised face. Her boss threatened to fire her if she didn’t leave Lenny. She had no place to go, no children, no family. No one cared what happened to her.
Lenny hung around her work place, often waiting for her at the ground floor of the elevator when she got off work. His face in a perpetual sneer, he would inquire as to when she would commit suicide. He decided he wanted to be present when it happened. Susan told him not to worry. She would make sure he was there if she did it.
She wondered what Lenny would do if she did kill herself. She was the only one who worked. Lenny was a dead-beat who never lifted a hand to do anything except drink and play video games. Their marriage had gone steadily downhill. She wished she had never met him.
She also wished he would see a therapist or mental health worker. Of course, anyone would be upset if a spouse cheated, but Lenny went too far. The torment had been going on for a year. Lenny began suggesting various places for Susan to kill herself. He wanted her to shoot herself in their flower garden, but she said that would disturb the neighbors. There were too many parents with children at the city park. No, she would not go there. But she was thinking of ending her life more and more. What did she have to live for anyway? Lenny’s constant barrage of hatred and ridicule were causing her a great deal of depression and despair. Because of trauma Susan had been eating more. She was a big woman before, but now she topped three hundred pounds, something else for Lenny to make nasty remarks about.
At last Susan decided to do what Lenny wanted. When it happened, Lenny was
there just as she had promised. As he was walking past the building where Susan worked,
she jumped from her office window on the twelfth floor and landed squarely on his ugly
head.
LaVern Spencer McCarthy, has published eight books of poetry and four books of short
stories plus three journals. Her poems have been published in Visions International,
Poetry Society of Texas Book of The Year, Open Skies Quarterly, National Federation of
State Poetry Society’s Encore, Austin Poetry Society’s Austin’s Best Poets, A Texas
Garden of Verses and numerous state anthologies and newspaper columns.
Her poem, October’s Agenda was nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2023.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 