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Married Life

When they found the body of Fuzz McCoy, he had been dead for three weeks. The flesh that was left was burnt crispy and black, the rest glistened green and in places burst open. Several bits of him were missing the hams, the stomach. I remember this, because I was there when he was found. It was my dog that spotted him. He went berserk. Pretty soon my wife began to scream. I followed her, as any good husband would, and as I ran the smell hit me, causing me to gag. I wasn't prepared for it to be so ugly. She was already on her phone, screaming incoherently at the operator, the kind of incoherence that I wish I could induce. That day was a long one, full of questions that didn't apply to me, and images of a dead Fuzz that I could not avoid.

On Sundays, after I drop my wife off at her watercolour artists group, I go down to O'Flynn's. We gather there every Sunday, moan about work and have some laughs. One particular day Tom Woodman, a long-standing friend of mine, arrived with a man from out of town. He was introduced as Kurt Ingelsson. He had a wide, honest face and my first impression of him was good.
"How you doing Marvin? I heard about Fuzz."
"Yeah it was horrible. Horrific."
"Oh yeah I heard about that," ventures Kurt. "That guy who was found by the heath. Sounded real bad."
He was casually ignored. Hearing Fuzz referred to as that guy' was still pretty raw.
"First Michael, then Fuzz we're disappearing" said John in a half joke.
We grunted our agreement. That was bad business with Michael. He was killed shortly after I moved into the area. He'd had the same injuries as Fuzz, according to John, although I had been spared the experience of witnessing his body. He had been heard rowing with his wife, and had stormed out of the house. Apparently he had been having an affair. It was the loudest argument I have ever heard. My wife and I heard it from our living room. Things were thrown and Jessie, Michael's wife, was fairly hysterical. I took a moment to reassure my own wife before I went outside. I saw him walk out the door and hurl abuse at that poor woman. He saw me as he huffed past my house on his way up to the woods. That was his favourite place to think and he used to go there often.
We talked for hours that night, and he told me everything about the affair, with the post-mistress stereotypically, about how stifled he felt, about the sex he hadn't had at home. Then he left, and returned no more.
Over the next few weeks I got to know Kurt quite well.

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