A Strange Commonplace

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AFTER HER HUSBAND LEFT HER FOR SOME FLOOZIE WHO was supposed to be an executive secretary at the crummy half-assed company he’d worked at for years without a raise or even so much as a bottle of cheap whiskey at Christmas, she packed up a few things, took the girl, and moved in with her cousin Janet on Gerritsen Avenue. She’d get the rest of her things after her father had spoken with the rat about his plans for taking his clothes out of the house: she didn’t ever want to see his face again. She should have known that something was going on when he took to wearing a ridiculous homburg instead of his usual fedora. She’d laughed at the hat and he’d blushed and then got angry. Now that she thought back on this she realized that the tramp must have said something about how distinguished he’d look in a homburg, and the damn fool went to the haberdashery, probably the Owl Men’s Shop, where the kike told him he could be a banker in a hat like that. Happy as a clam. After a couple of weeks, she went back to the house to pack a suitcase with some of her toiletries, and found a note from him on the kitchen table, pinned under a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. “Dear Sweetheart, I’ve made a great mistake but I love you only, you, can you forgive me? Please call me at Ralph’s or leave a message with him for a time I can talk to you. I love you, and want our marriage to last more than you can know.” She put the letter in her handbag, went upstairs to their bedroom, and opened a drawer in her dresser. In among her lingerie and stockings she found his white silk scarf, the one with the blue polka dots that she’d always liked so much. She startled herself by laughing convulsively, then threw the scarf on the floor and stepped on it. The son of a bitch bastard son of a bitch.

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