Posted: Aug 26, 08 5:01pm

(Dear friends, the following is a slight thing, kind of facile and possibly not too well developed. If this were your story, what would you do to make it better? And is it too "jokey" and ridiculous? Can you believe in the characters?)

Falling Off

Calvin Cooksey made bad choices in wives as he would cheerfully admit to anyone who might raise the subject. He was impulsive that way, and he had a weakness for all the endearing charms of that half of humanity.

Thinking back on it, Calvin recalled that every one of his misses was crazy in some way his friends had warned him about before his deal was sealed and there was no turning back.

Genesis, wife number one, was fond of throwing his clothing and personal items out the front door and onto to lawn for the neighbors to see and for anyone to steal. The lovely LuAnn, his second, wrote bad checks for expensive clothing and jewelry she wore only a few times.

He thought his third wife Cassandra would be his lucky strike at last. She appeared so stable, and at first he found her brisk efficiency, along with her pants suits and her little fedoras, refreshing. With time, he realized she wanted to control him completely. She kept him in her sights and she monitored his conversations with others. These she “played back” to him with a critical review of what he shouldn’t have said. She all but walked in his footsteps and kept her fingers pressed to his pulse. Often, when he was gazing off, lost in his thoughts, she would ask, “What are you thinking?”

He felt as if she was using up all his air, and secretly he referred to her as “the enforcer,” getting a wicked chuckle out of his chowder head drinking buddies, most of whom had lost the gender wars more than once themselves.

It was when Calvin was in a crowd, such as this mid-summer shindig he was enjoying today, that he felt most free. Here he could get lost and he had backup. He was downing beers and tearing into grilled steaks with the buddies Sandy did not approve of. That was fun, watching her sharp little face wrinkle with distaste. He felt like a college kid again telling stupid tasteless jokes and getting the suds from his beer mug stuck on his mustache and laughing about it.

It was no laughing matter, Cassandra told him, falling off the temperance wagon like that. But Calvin had no patience for temperance himself. Life was to be grabbed by both hands, and he slapped the biggest, juiciest piece of grilled steak he could find onto a Kaiser roll, poured on the onions and steered it into his mouth.

He knew he’d hear about it later, of course, and he did, but something happened that day that was to alter the way Calvin heard things from them on.

There was that horse, a huge black stallion with low hanging testicles roaming his friends’ near field, just munching and strolling, easy as you please. “Widow Maker,” as his friend Trent called him with a give-away grin, seemed a gentle giant, but there was a wild flame smoldering in his eye, if you caught the right look.

“He’ll let anybody mount him,” Trent, his host and the horse’s owner said. “Like a lamb.”

Trent ducked into the tool shed and emerged with a saddle and a cloth. The horse stood easy chomping the grass while Trent laid down the cloth and threw on the saddle and cinched it. Widow Maker bobbed his nose up and down and whinnied. He was ready to party.

Now, Calvin had never been on a horse; they lived in nearby River City, not near the country folk. But the idea of sitting high and feeling the wind rush appealed to him.

“He’s all yours,” said Trent, gesturing toward the saddle invitingly.

If Calvin had any doubts, they were dispelled by Sandy’s disapproving head-shake. Up he went, assisted by Trent. And there he was, several beers to the wind and bouncing inexpertly on the back of that powerful animal.

Calvin was having a giddy good time until he saw the tree branch loom ahead. It was chest high to Calvin and the horse kept going while the branch stayed still. It was a shock hitting the ground at first, but the turf was yielding and squishy, and he stood and brushed himself off feeling only slightly sore. He was still all there. His suspenders didn’t even come unsnapped.

When he heard their laughter all around, he realized he’d been had. Trent and Roscoe and the other boys, they were cracking up. Apparently, that was the pony’s one trick.

“Ready for another go?” asked Trent.

“Well, sure.”

And on it went – the pass under the apple tree so that the single-minded devil could scrape off his passenger. Hilarity boiled over each time Calvin got tumbled to the ground with each sharp encounter with the well-placed bough. It was laugh-out-loud hysterical to Calvin with his beer-soaked mustache and to all who watched him come off, hit and roll. He must have done it a dozen times.

Sandy just stood there away from the pack with her arms crossed over her chest, giving everyone That Look.

Afterwards, there was a ringing in his right ear and a loss of sound, which Calvin didn’t even notice right away, and when he did, he figured it would be temporary. The ringing went away after a day or so, but the sound didn’t come back, and when he finally got around to seeing a doctor, he was told he had ruptured the ear drum.

That wasn’t good, but as he did with most of his bad luck, Calvin turned it to his service whenever he could. When there was something he wished to ignore, he would literally turn his deaf ear to it. In the case of Sandy, he’d even slip the orange ear plug he kept in his pocket with his change into his good ear while giving her the deaf ear. It helped to focus on something else so as not to watch her face contort and her lips twist in fury. That way he could feign ignorance and innocence.

Some people felt sorry for Calvin’s partial deafness, but Calvin himself was fine with it. He looked upon his condition as a chance for selective hearing. After all, aren’t there things you would rather not hear?

His third marriage lasted as long as you might imagine. Sandy soon became discouraged that he never seemed to listen to her.