Excerpt: Leave by Any Door – Chapter 57
Read or listen to Chapter 57, The Hanging Man, and enjoy a good laugh.
57
oredom was always my greatest enemy. Such was the case that Saturday night when I had no money, no plans, and nothing to do—I was bored. And it was this boredom that drove me to try a little social experiment. I began by breaking apart a large cardboard box and spreading it flat on my bedroom floor. I then carefully drew a life-sized image of a man hanging by the neck—head slumped down, hands dangling by his sides—just the profile. Finally, I used large scissors to perfectly cut out the image. When it was finished, I held in my hands the exact life-sized replica of a man hanging from a rope. Since my roll-up window shades were already down, I merely had to attach my cardboard image to the front window and prop a lamp behind it.
“Alfred Hitchcock would love this!” I thought as I excitedly rushed downstairs, through the front door and out onto the front lawn to look up at my handiwork. I trembled with excitement when I realized how believable the ominous shadow looked from the street. I sat in our front yard and waited in wild anticipation of seeing cars screeching to a halt, crashing into each other, shocked reactions of dismayed citizens gawking up at this macabre sight in the middle of downtown!
But the traffic whizzed by…for hours…no one even looked our way—to my great disappointment. I couldn’t believe it. Finally, I gave up and went back upstairs and took it down. The only other window in my room overlooked the dark alley and a few apartment buildings. Just for the hell of it I moved my hanging man to that window, shrugged and went downstairs. Mom and I settled into watching something on TV until about an hour later came heavy footsteps on the front porch and sharp raps on the screen door. Instantly I knew it was cops! And I knew why! I jumped to my feet and headed for the stairs, calling back to Mom, “Stall them for me, Mom!”
“Oh Stephen Arthur!” she whined, “What have you done now?”
I scrambled up the stairs as Mom answered the door.
“Yes, Officer?” she asked innocently.
“Mam, is someone living upstairs?” came the commanding voice, “No. My son’s bedroom is up there, that’s all.” Her voice trailed away as she walked out the front door and around to the side of the house, half leading the officer as she did this.
“Well Mam, there’s a man hanging up there…” I heard that even from upstairs and thought, How cruel. What if that had been her son hanging up there and she didn’t know? I reached for the cardboard image in the side window—but suddenly stopped. I had to know what was going on down there. Leaving the hanging man in place, I carefully peeked out the edge of the window and gasped at the sight of four cop cars and a multitude of onlookers gathered in the alley! Somehow this side window was obscure enough to be the most believable. In another moment of insanity, I decided to give them even more of a show. Realizing those below could now see my shadow moving around the hanging man I reached above his head and pretended to be cutting vigorously on the rope! I sawed away like mad and suddenly with a dramatic motion of my left arm slammed the whole thing to the floor! For all the world it appeared he had fallen like a sack of potatoes! A collective gasp emitted from the crowd below as Mom tried vainly to explain away my actions as merely child’s play, “Well, he gets bored, and…” she continued sweetly, but the first Officer nearly shouted, “He could go to jail for this!” He was very irritated now!
Upstairs, my mood remained gleeful until I heard a man’s booming voice echoing up from our living room, “Bring that cutout down here right now!”
I jumped at that and sheepishly drug my hanging man’s remains down the stairs and into the hands of an irate Officer who proceeded to give me a stormy lecture on what he could do to me for this stunt. But after my profuse apologies he must have figured me for just a harmless idiot and slammed out of the house, taking his cardboard hostage with him.
Mom tried to show anger at first, but couldn’t keep a straight face describing to me her side of the calamity…”When I heard the Officer say ‘There’s a man hanging up there’ I pretty much figured out what you’d been up to Stephen Arthur. By then I’d gotten to the side of the house where some of the crowd was. The Officer came along behind, and we looked up at the silhouette,” Mom paused, “My, but it looked real!” then went on, “Anyway I told all the Officers it was only a cutout and that my son was quite imaginative.” She actually chuckled then, “One of the Officers got real irritated and said, ‘and you mean that’s a cutout up there?’ Then, Steve—of all things, while we were all craning our necks up at your window you started sawing on the damned rope!” We both broke out laughing. It became one of those nervous laugh fests that take on a life of their own. At that low point in our lives, I figure the whole episode provided Mom and me some much-needed comic relief.