“Some years back Benny Slaven was found dead, hanging from a tree on the edge of King George’s Field with a kicked-out ladder below him,” Roddy says, grabbing his pint of ale.
“He hadn’t been making any money as a joiner, and a group of boys saw him walking up High Street, carrying a ladder and a rope. They asked him what he was doing with the ladder and rope. Benny said he was going to kill himself. The boys then asked if they could watch.”
I put my beer on the bar and ask, “Did the boys watch?”
“Nobody knows.”
My grandfather and his older brother saw a man condemned to swing in Colorado, 1918. They were kids. Families made a day of it — took picnic baskets.
Fantastic! What a backstory that plonks down in so few words.
Nice one!
Setting, characters, dialogue, voice, intrigue – boom! Well done!
Good one. Fully believable,too.
That last line–“Nobody knows”–so true to life. A good one, Manheim. (Reading over my comment, I said virtually the same as Tony Press. Well, it must be so, then.)
and roddy now drinking red wine in the grapes bar(rothesay isle of bute