The Gentleman
Everyone turned up at the Center of Town Square on the morning after Cecil Sterling took his untimely fall down twenty-two rather wide and even stairs. Stairs so well placed, the last way you would think to describe them would be menacing or dastardly. Which is exactly how Hairless Gus referred to them while donning his toupee and talking to his white tabby, Professor Snatch. The Professor could care less about the tale; he was waiting for his master to go to sleep so he could try once again to attack the large rodent hiding on his head.
This was the first death in City, Anywhere in years. And, if pressed, no one could tell you the last person whose demise had occurred in the town. People did not really come and go from City, Anywhere. They came, on occasion, but they found reason to stay. Whether it was the seasonable weather with its fall-like temperatures year-round, the affordable housing prices, or how everything in town was within walking distance, there always seemed to be something that lured travelers to relocate. It was a fascinating thing to watch, but it was also rare. Because while those who came, came to stay, not very many were able to set foot inside the city boundaries each year.
There were any number of oddities going on inside the town, but this one would be the most intriguing, if anyone in town would pay attention.
People are like sheep. Self-involved and impeccably groomed sheep, but sheep nonetheless. So of course no one ever noticed the lack of visitors.
I notice everything, so I watched the townspersons gather with their dark raincoats under a gloomy and despondent sky. There was the butcher, the florist, the baker, the librarian, the dog groomer, the tailor, the painter, and, of course, the bartender.
She looked saddest of all.
Well, next to the dog groomer. No one paid more for nail trimmings than the owner of Biscuits and Gravy, and no one loved those craggly-faced creatures more than the lady who did their weekly manicures.
No, people do not frequent City, Anywhere and expect to leave again. No one, that is, excepting for the Sterlings.
The clouds, drunk on rain, swelled and expanded. The two brothers stepped into the crowd and moved through it.
If the crowd were a snake, and believe me it was some kind of reptile with its typically cold-blooded nature, then the head was the mayor, the tail the sad bartender, the body the remaining citizens, and the rats refusing to digest inside the belly of the beast were the two interloping Sterlings.
I suppose it was a sad occasion, if you believed such occasions to be sad. What with the way Cecil had gone headfirst over that cane so that when he landed his legs were akimbo and all his devious lights were out. They say loss is sad.
Me? I am never quite so sure.
What I am sure of is that if secrets were currency, City, Anywhere should be the richest place in the universe, with the residents riding around on waves of the highest coin.
But that’s the funny thing about secrets. When they’re kept so well, even the secret holders forget what they have.