Alyssa Duran- Story 11

There was a man who had lived his teenage years sprouting pimples and now had a pock-marked nose. It looked, in areas, as it was quite large, to be gouged out by a child’s spoon as if for breakfast. This could generally explain why he was never very confident with himself and always self-conscious about the way he looked. Every morning he would wake to grease back his hair and shine his shoes, and go to work with a brightly colored tie that drew eyes away from his bulbous, crater-ridden nose.
His wife had always lived under the shadow of the nose. “Leonard,” she would say, “if you hate it so much, chop it off.” He had never responded, nor had he taken her word into consideration until one brightly sunny morning. Before that morning, her tired eyes and sagging bosom had always kept him a little wary of his wife’s advice for physical attractiveness.
“You know, Cheryl, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.” He perked up a little. She eyed him suspiciously.
“What are you thinking, you old coot?” She set down her cigarette into the tray next to her and leaned further over the kitchen table, curiously. The edges of her frayed grey bathrobe made a strange swiping noise as the hit the wood. Leonard peered over in reaction to the robe and gave a sneer, not intending to see his wife’s wrinkles underneath.
“We have money saved.” He answered tightly. Cheryl scoffed and sat back, resuming her place with her cigarette and lazy stance. Leonard scratched the little bald spot on the top of his head and wheezed a little cough. The cigarette smoke was getting to him. “It’s not so terrible. We have plenty of money.”
“We’ve been saving that money for a new house. We’ve wanted to get out of this place for twenty years. You’re not touching that money.”
“We could both use the work, you know. We could use the money and get our physical selves brand new, like we were young again. They have technology for that now. We’ll go the best surgeons and we’ll splurge. Hell, we need something new around here anyway.”
“So, get yourself a new girlfriend. It’ll make you feel better. There’s no way I’m going to a place to spend our money on something that’s going to be buried in fifteen years anyway.”
“Aw, Cheryl, you can’t think that way. If you get this done, I won’t need a new girlfriend, and I won’t need any more expensive green ties either.” Cheryl raised her eyebrow, obviously thinking about this. His ties had become her loathing hatred for about the last two years. She remembered the tie that did her in, too. It was nearly two years ago, a Christmas Eve, and he had come home with a tie for his office party that lit up and sang jingle bells. Nevertheless, her mind was set.
“No, you’re not touching that money, Leonard, or so help me I’ll fix your nose myself!” She had become rustled up in her chair, like an angry bird and Leonard was a little intimidated. Yet, her words had gotten him thinking.
“Cheryl, do you think the hospital would make us pay everything if say… I broke my nose on accident and I had to get it fixed? The insurance would cover most of it and then we’d only pay a little bit. I’d be happy and I’d stop complaining, so you’d be, well, happier. What do you think? If we rig it up just right and you broke my nose, I could go to the hospital?” Cheryl slouched back into her chair, clearly contemplating her possibilities of this situation. Leonard waited across the table on the tips of his toes, his long legs quivering under him.
Cheryl took a puff of her cigarette and smiled. “Alright, you have yourself a deal. You rig it up and I’ll help you with the break. It’ll hurt, but if you think it’ll be worth it, then fine, I’ll help.”
For the next three days Leonard spent his time imagining and planning. If he fell off a chair and hit his nose just right, would it work? No, that would simply be too hard. If Cheryl took a bat to his nose just once, a task which he was sure she wouldn’t mind doing, would it hit his nose? That was far too risky. It could ruin his face! Perhaps he could concentrate his mathematical skills into having something the right weight fall and hit his nose directly? He could support it by a string and Cheryl could let it drop. He could make it look like he had been doing some sort of housework in the process too, should any one choose to ask. That sounded like a fine idea, a metal wrench perhaps, from plumbing? That was most likely too heavy. The sink was far too low for an accident that required a heightened drop anyway. Perhaps he could be working in the backyard, yes, on the roof! Thus, Leonard set his entire plan into motion.
That Friday night he rigged the pulley system together measuring where to position his nose right underneath a string above a couple of bushes, which he carefully parted to make it look like he had broken his fall with them. He marked where his nose would go. The object would be a little hammer, not quite as heavy as an original hammer, but workable against a nose. He would shield his eyes with a padded scarf should it rebound against another part of his face. Cheryl came out, crossing her arms, a cigarette limply situated between her lips. “You done yet, Leonard?” She looked up at the whole system and grinned. “Got yourself something mighty complex for breaking your nose.”
“Yes, I’m done, and now I’m going to explain it to you. You wrap me up in this scarf, make it real padded.” He handed her a thick piece of cloth. “Stuff some socks under it and then place my nose parallel with this mark.” He pointed the sharpie-penned mark out on the branch. “Then you pull that string off its place, you see? And that’ll fall straight down.” He made a swooping motion with his hands. “It’ll most likely break my nose. It should, the way I have everything placed. If it doesn’t, punch me one to get the break in bad enough so that they’ll need to fix it. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind doing that. Then, you take the string off and take the cloth from my head and throw that away and call the ambulance. Be in a panic when they get here, act like you care and explain the situation, you get it?” Cheryl nodded. “I’ll ask for reconstructive surgery and our insurance will cover it. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like you lost your mind.” Cheryl smirked and she inhaled more smoke. “If you think it’ll work, and not just hurt, then I’ll do it, if it’s going to get you to shut up.”
“It’s going to get me to shut up.” Leonard smiled and walked away, leaving Cheryl staring thoughtfully at the contraption in front of her. That night Leonard couldn’t sleep, but he lay awake, waiting for his wife to come to bed. She had not been able to sleep either, but had felt constructive, unlike the excited fellow who simply lay in bed. She went to pay some bills, a task which Leonard had designated to her years before when he thought it would be good for a woman to know how to do such a thing.
That morning he dressed in his yard work clothes, a white dirt-stained short-sleeve shirt and sagging overalls, and told Cheryl to come outside. He mussed up his hair and delicately placed dirt, twigs, and leaves around his body. Cheryl wrapped his head and stuffed the area around his eyes with plush socks to keep from injury. “Now remember, I was working on the roof because the shingles are old and I wanted to cover them with some metal sheets before rain season, for some good protection. Those sheets are up there further so it looks like I really was working, you understand? That’s a good enough lie, isn’t it?”
“Sure is good enough for me.” Cheryl sighed and finished up the last tightening pull of his wrapping. She led him to his designated bush and placed him in it, his head directly in line with the mark on the big branch. He sprawled out his arms and legs, feigning a fall, and Cheryl laughed a bit at the silliness of it. “You look ridiculous she said.” Leonard mumbled something, but the wrapping had covered his mouth. “What’d you say?”
“Rull da koid.” Leonard responded in a yell under garbled cloth. Cheryl sighed, understanding her husband’s words, and made her way to the cord, which she pulled without hesitation.
“Here it comes!” She yelped into the air as a sharp metal sheet fell straight down onto her husband’s neck, slicing his throat in the action. Cheryl looked in horror as the blood ran down his throat and spattered against the bush. She wasn’t sure whether she should rush to him or not, or to run back in and call the police as she watched his writhing and obviously surprised body.
Instead, she walked over and moved the pulley string from the tough metal sheet, sharpened in the dead of night by a depressed housewife. “This is some accident.” She quipped to herself as she began to remove the wrapping from his face, which was now deathly pale and eerily calm. “You got your blood all over my bush, you old fool.” She whispered to his pale corpse.