Oops

A man stood at the edge of a cliff above the ocean and then fell into the ocean.  Oops.

            A little old woman named Erma ran a bed and breakfast by the beach.  She was a sweet woman with a hunchback and a flowered apron.  She missed her children and treated her guests like they were her own.  She just wanted to be a mother again.  She would wake up at six every morning and bake scones.  She would put them in little flowered baskets and take them to her guests’ rooms and when she ran out she’d go back to the kitchen and make more.  Yesterday she baked scones as usual; only she never made it back to her kitchen.  She was shot in the face, which is sad. 

            Erma had a husband named Ronald.  He was actually an ex-husband named Ronald.  He was a pasty, saggy man with age spots.  He liked hunting birds and living by the ocean because the salty air made his skin soft and sticky.  Ronald and Erma were married for forty-six years and divorced two days before she was shot in the face.  Police suspected Ronald of the killing but Ronald didn’t do it.  He didn’t even hear the gun shot even though he lived four houses away from her.  He was in the shower and the lawn mower was running.

            The boy mowing Ronald’s lawn the day Erma was shot was Ronald’s grandson, Jack.  Jack was a young, freckled boy who dropped out of high school two days after he’d started.  Don’t judge him.  He was not a fuck up.  He was actually a genius. He invented many things that you probably wouldn’t understand. 

            Jack had a girlfriend named Annie once.  She was cute, but only cute.  She was an idiot.  An idiot with nice hair.  Annie and Jack met on the first day of school.  Their relationship lasted as long as his high school career.  That is to say, not very long.  She was an idiot.

Annie’s brother was the man that shot Erma in the face.  His name was Lindsay, but wished he was named something else.  Something more manly.  Or intense.  The boys at school used to call him girly names: Susie, Ashley, Maddie, Pat.  This is probably why he shot Erma in the face.  Lindsay was really dim and lanky and awkward and just really stupid.   He had died black hair that stuck to his head with grease that wouldn’t have been there had he taken the weekly shower.  He did, however, take the artsy photo and write the occasional poem.  He was also the man that fell off the cliff into the ocean. 

The man that lived at the lighthouse and watched the ocean that Lindsay fell into was named Jim.  He was lonely, all by himself at the lighthouse.  He wrote music and played the violin.  He, too, wrote the occasional poem.  He played solitaire.  He bird watched and whale watched and people watched.  People watching was hardest, though, because people rarely came by the lighthouse.  But when they did he watched them.

Jim didn’t know anyone else, really, beside himself.

After Lindsay shot Erma in the face he ran to the lighthouse.  Lindsay was going to commit suicide.  He had a depressing life.  He needed to end it.  Lindsay had a rope and a gun and a cliff with freezing water below.  He wasn’t sure which method he should use.  They could all work.  Lindsay was torn and confused and decided to write a poem about it.  He wrote the poem with a sharp rock – into his wrist.  As Lindsay was experimenting with a fourth this mean of suicide, a man walked by.

The man who walked by Lindsay was named Gerald.  Gerald did not notice Lindsay or the blood dripping from his wrist.  He was walking his dog Max.  Max had recently been diagnosed with cancer but Gerald didn’t want to put him through chemo.  He was taking Max for his final walk.  Gerald was crying.  Gerald was balding and crying and cute, so you should feel really bad for him.

Gerald’s niece was named Simone.  Simone had an attitude.  She needed it adjusted.  Simone worked at a Dentist’s office and was one of those receptionists that chews gum really loudly and doesn’t seem to have the energy to open her eyes fully.  One of those receptionists that hates you. 

The man Simone worked for was a dentist.  His name was Greg.  He had a comb over and was a republican.  He had a housewife back at home and seven children.  He was the only dentist in town and had seen the inside of everyone’s mouth.  And memorized it.  Everyone, that is, except Lindsay who thought dentists were for people who couldn’t think for themselves.

Lindsay lived with his grandmother for nine years.  Her name was Shirl.  She was mellow and had a lot of cats.  She was a cat lady.  She spent half her time in lavender scented bubble baths and the other half reading soft poetry and appreciating the smell of the cherry blossoms outside her window.  She didn’t cook much and had a bad hip but she was a sweet woman with a soulful singing voice.  Lindsay loved his grandmother and she loved him. 

Shirl’s husband (Lindsay’s grandfather) was named Ted.  He used to be a famous actor until he was shot and killed.  He was a robust man.  He resembled a bowling ball.  But he died before Lindsay ever got to meet him or ask him life lessons or see him smoke his pipe.  He left behind two children and a wife named Shirl.

            One of Ted’s children was named Harold.  He wasn’t very important.

            The other child was named Katherine.  She was Lindsay’s mother.  She was the mother of a boy she wished was a girl.  She had red hair and a huge nose and pink cheeks.  She used to dress Lindsay up in little girl’s clothes and put his hair in pigtails and make him go to ballet class.  She would sing to him, called him mommy’s Little Girl, and buy him pretty little girl dolls.  She fucked him up real bad.  She died in a car crash when he was twelve.

            Katherine’s husband also died in a car crash when Lindsay was twelve.  He died in the same car crash as Katherine.  His name was Ernie.  He didn’t get along with most people.  He was emotionally crippled and very off and very annoying and immature.  He was mean and stupid and no one in town really liked him.  Katherine married him because she had a Jesus complex.  She thought she could save him from himself.  But she couldn’t and she was very upset about that.  She contemplated shooting him in the face once but she thought that would be too painful for Lindsay, so she hired a hit man instead.

            The hit man Katherine hired was named Jerry.  He grew up in the small town.  He didn’t originally have that accent – one of those hit men accents – but he put one on for show.  Jerry was a terrible hit man, but Katherine had to hire him.  There was only one hit man their small, cozy, little town.  She had no choice.  Jerry botched the job.  He ended up killing both Katherine and her husband.  Oops.

            Jerry’s wife Tony was trailer trash before she married him and still looked like trailer trash afterward.  She wore bright orange lipstick and leopard print pants.  Her hair was crimped and almost half of it was died blonde.  She did Jerry’s dirty work for him.  She drove a rusty Volvo.  Jerry told her to drive that rusty Volvo into Ernie’s car and kill him.  She did and ended up killing both Ernie and his wife.  Oops.

            Lindsay’s parents died in a car crash when he was twelve.  He dropped out of school and started doing bad boy things.  He wanted to be a bad boy really bad.  That was definitely better than being a girl.  Or being a boy with a girl’s name in a girl’s ballet class.  Lindsay did bad things and his grandmother didn’t notice.  He was weird and depressed but she never even sent him to therapy.

            At the lighthouse Lindsay was bleeding and still didn’t know how to do it and he was standing at the edge of a cliff.  He decided one method was not enough, but he would do all of them.  At the same time.  He would hang himself off the cliff and shoot himself in the head.  If anything went wrong he would drown.  He put the rope around his neck and tied it to a fence post.  He got his gun ready and jumped off the cliff and then he shot the gun.  He missed his head, however, and hit the rope.  The rope split and he fell into the ocean.

            The fisherman that saw Lindsay fall was named Joe.  Joe saw Lindsay fall off the cliff and rowed his little boat over to him, pulled him out of the water and rushed him to the hospital.  Joe was a good man.  He liked doing good deeds.  Saving a drowning man was obviously a good deed.  He was really proud of himself.  He would tell that story for years.

            The nurse at the hospital that treated Lindsay was named Pat.  This nurse was actually a man.  Pat and Lindsay had many conversations about being girly men and about death and about poetry and artsy things.  About hair gel.  Pat was like the therapist Lindsay never had.  It was cute.  Pat helped Lindsay decide that suicide was not the only way and that he could go to an actually therapist and maybe even get better.  Lindsay decided this was a good idea.  He realized that life was kind of fun actually.

            Pat’s boyfriend was named Ned.  Ned was jealous of the relationship between Lindsay and Pat.  He thought Pat was cheating on him.  Ned wore leather body suits and wished he looked more like a professional wrestler, but was really skinny and had no kind of muscle.  He tried to work out but he never gained any bulk.  He thought this was why Pat was cheating on him.  So he had an affair.

            The man Ned had an affair with was named Harry.  Harry had a wife and three kids.  Shh.

            Harry sister was Pat’s coworker at the hospital.  Her name was Janice.  Janice went to a business school in a big city but got lonely and scared and decided to move to a small little town.  She tried to open a candle shop, but there were already six and she was put out of business.  Defeated, she turned to nursing.  She told the head of the hospital that she used to be a nurse in a big city so he’d hire her, but she had never been a nurse.  She got the job and was really bad at it.  One day Pat was sick and Janice had to take care of his patients.  She was supposed to give Lindsay some pain medication.  She accidentally killed him.  Oops.