Here are two friends having a lovely dinner chat about life, death and a nice bag of potatoes...
What’s that?
Oh sure, here’s the gravy. Sorry. My mind has been wandering a lot lately since Sal passed away.
Oh, thank you, but you don’t have to keep offering your sympathies, Jill. I appreciate it. I also appreciate you coming to have dinner tonight. It gets awful lonely around here these days.
I know. It’s been a long week hasn’t it? It’s been hardest at night when I’m trying to go to sleep. I reach for him, you know? Absent mindedly of course. A habit. And the reaction is still jarring. There’s just a pillow there now.
No Sal. Just his pillow.
I’ve been thinking about getting a new bed. Smaller, since it’s just me now, but not yet. The bed still smells like him, and it’s comforting as it is depressing.
Yes, the turkey is pretty juicy isn’t it? Slow roasting is the key and that turkey bag is great. Sal found that. He almost always made the turkey around here. About the only thing he could cook…
Yeah, well, he wasn’t a good cook otherwise. If it was up to him, we would have starved to death!
Yes.
Yes, it was a terrible way to go…
No, I don’t mind talking about it. I haven’t really talked about it with anyone besides the police. It might do me some me good actually…
Yes, the police. They thought that I might have pushed him down the cellar steps. Yes I know, little me, right? Just walking up behind him and pushing him down there. I know, insane.
Oh, yes, the stuffing is an old recipe from Sal’s mom. It is pretty tasty, but I’ve always preferred mashed potatoes myself. Sal hated them. I had to learn how to make the stuffing to the letter of his mom’s if you can believe such a thing. And his mother, oh God. What a lousy human being! Ha!
Sure, you can have more potatoes. I have a lot, believe me.
You know, that was the last thing Sal and I argued about that night. His mother. She’s been dead for almost twenty years and he still wouldn’t admit that she was, above all else, a selfish you-know-what.
She used to drive me crazy, especially near the end of her life, God rest her soul.
Sal had a propensity to behave a lot like her. I mean, just as ugly as she was sometimes if not uglier.
She had a mean streak a mile wide and sometimes, mama’s boy would show that side too. He sure did the night he died…
More wine? I’d love some,
although I’d better slow it down a bit. I’m already a little tipsy!
Anyhoo, where was I? Ah, the night Sal died. Well, I had just cleaned up after dinner. I’d made a wonderful Irish stew which he normally loves…I mean, loved…
But that night, he just wasn’t in a good mood. He was downright mean. He told this awful joke that really made me angry.
What was it? Do you really want to hear it? Okay.
He said “How many potatoes does it take to kill the Irish?” He knows I don’t like ethnic jokes, especially about the Irish because I am Irish. But, this time I let him do his stupid joke, so I bit and said “How many?”
“None,” he said and laughed himself hoarse.
Well, you can imagine my disgust! What an awful thing to joke about and I told him so. He just laughed at me and said that the Irish were ‘a weak people’ and pushed away from the table. I finished cleaning up the kitchen, but I was furious.
How dare he say something like that, even though I knew he was kidding, but the ‘weak people’ thing was totally his mother’s influence.
Oh, Jill, the things that woman would say to me because I was Irish and a ginger. She was awful.
You know, Sal never defended me?
As affectionate as he was and could be, he never once stood up to her for me. I would be in tears for hours and he’d just shrug and say “Hey, she’s an old woman. Just ignore her.”
But I couldn’t.
Not even once could I just ignore her. I’d always get pulled into an argument with her and Sal would break it up, trying to smooth things over and sometimes it would work and I’d apologize to the old buzzard. But other times I wouldn’t and Sal would yell at me the whole way home, saying I was being a bad wife and I should respect his mother, blah blah blah.
You remember how he was, Jill.
Dog with a bone.
But he couldn’t just defend me once, could he? Even after she’d been dead for so long. Just couldn’t do me the courtesy.
So, he went into the living room to watch the news while I did the dishes. The more I washed, the angrier I got and decided that night, he was going to get a piece of my mind.
Yes, I have plenty of mashed potatoes! Please, help yourself. I’m so glad you like them!
Anyway, I walked into the living room and coughed to get his attention.
He didn’t move or say a word. I coughed again and he said “What already?”
I tore into him about his little joke.
About his cracks about the Irish being weak. About how much like his mother he had become and he just sat there staring at me. I must have gone on for about ten minutes and he just stared at me. When I got done I stood there. I had never once talked to him like that before and it felt good. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sal…I mean…I loved Sal…you know what I mean.
What did he say?
He said after all of that ranting I had done, that I had just proved that his mother was right! My jaw dropped and he went back to watch the news. I couldn’t believe my ears. I must have stood there for a long time because he finally said, “If you’re gonna stand there, you can at least shut your mouth. You’re breathing all heavy and I can’t hear the news.” Isn’t that just an awful thing to say?
What did I do?
I just…stormed off for one thing. Back into the kitchen, of course. My place. Where I should have stayed according to him. He would say that sometimes, that my place was there in the kitchen since I couldn’t have children. Or so he liked to tell folks…
You didn’t know?
Oh, it was a total scandal according to his mother. He told everyone that the doctor said I was unable to have children. That it was a shame and all that. His mother said he never should have married me and that I should have told him that I couldn’t have kids to save him trouble of marrying me.
I know awful, right?
Except it wasn’t me.
It was him.
He was sterile. He was so embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to know. He begged me to take the heat for it and I was young and naïve and a newlywed, so I agreed. But he was such a bastard about it…and he still never defended me when his goddamn mother…oh, my language! I’m so sorry Jill!
That’s sweet, honey, but I’m still a lady! And yes, I may be a little drunk. But oh, my language…no excuse.
No no, I shouldn’t have any more wine. It is good though…why you’re just a bad influence on me! Half a glass then.
So I went into the kitchen to throw the dishes around…except I’d cleaned them all. So I started to clean. Deep cleaning. I started on the vegetable bin. I started taking all the veggies out and threw them on the floor. Peppers, onions and just threw them down. I had the ten pound bag of potatoes in my hands and Sal came in, hollering about the racket I was making.
By this time, I was crying and he just launched into me, saying the meanest things he could think of…oh Jill it was simply awful. But then, he pushed it.
Too far.
I was crying at this point and sitting on the floor with my face in my hands, just taking it all in. And then he said it. The bastard…oh, there’s my language again.
What’s that? What did he say? Oh, Jill, he said he wished he’d never married me. That if he knew I would be like this, he wouldn’t have and that I should have told him about not being able to have children. Can you believe it?
I must have snapped my last nerve. I stood up and told him he was a bas-well, you know what I called him. I reminded him of all those years ago, begging me not to tell his precious mother about him being sterile. He had the nerve to call me a liar!! I’d been married to him for 36 years and I know what I know. He had chosen to side with his mother again. Even dead, she was still ruling him. Even though she was dead, he was still a mama’s boy.
I told him I shouldn’t have married him after meeting the awful thing that he called his mother and he came at me! I was so scared.
What did I do? Well, I got out of the way. His leg was bothering him, so he was easy to avoid at first. But then, he started to catch up to me…I was scared, Jill. Damn scared.
And then I realized something. Sal was just hollering and swearing and I realized I still had a ten pound bag of potatoes in my hand…
He came at me and I let him. He was about five feet away and I swung that bag of potatoes as hard as I could at his head. Of dear sweet Jesus I did…knocked him clean off of his feet and sent him to the floor where he landed hard. He was still awake though and he started to swear after a few seconds. He shook his head and started after me again. I could tell he was groggy from the first hit. It looked like I’d broken his nose and he was bleeding from his forehead. I held on to the potatoes and wound up and he stopped. He said “Don’t you dare hit me again, you little Mick bitch!”
Then, he charged.
Well, you know where the cellar door is, Jill. It was open because I’d been doing laundry and he charged at me. I was on the right of the door and I swung left. Hit him in the same spot. He gave a little yelp.
See, I had knocked him off course and redirected him into the cellar.
Well, you know how long those stairs are going down to the basement… He fell for what seemed like a long time. When he hit the bottom, his neck made such an awful snap. Just awful…just…
Who else knows?
It’s just you, Jill. It was the wine, but you can see I didn’t really kill him. He fell. Didn’t push him at all. I was just defending myself and….
No, I didn’t tell the police. I figured folks would like to remember Sal as a good man and he was a good man most of the time. You knew how he was…
Well, no. I don’t think I really should go to the police, Jill Henderson. I don’t know why you’re so upset. Sit down and eat, Jill. Have some more mashed potatoes..what?
Yes, from the same potatoes.
Well, I washed them for crying out loud! I’m not going to waste them am I?
Now hold on one minute, Jill…just sit down.
Oh, be careful honey. You almost fell over. You’ve had too much to drink. No no, you can’t drive. I don’t think you should go anywhere right now.
Nonsense, it’s okay. We’re still friends Jill, put that phone down. Please…let me make you some coffee…put that goddamn phone down! Oh dear, I’m sorry…my language…Jill?
Come into the kitchen with me Jill and I’ll fix you…right up. I’ll make you something…
Let me just move this bag of potatoes out of the way.
Why look.
It looks like I still have about seven pounds of potatoes left in here…
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