by: m. gantee

It was sitting on the bed of a trailer.

“Can’t take the trailer without taking the swing,” the guy said.  Burly was the guy’s name.  An adjective as a name should’ve been a bad sign.  But then, I’ve known some decent folks named Earnest and Chaste and Dizzy and Christian and Precious and even a Royal.

Burly said, “Five hundred bucks for the trailer, but you gotta take the swing.”

Five hundred bucks and the trailer was mine.  With the swing.  It was one of those porch swings, chains still attached to the arms and back, boards whitewashed except for a smudge of something on the right-hand side (left as you looked at it).  No matter.  I had hooks on the front porch.  The chains were presumably pre-measured and sized to hold the thing at a comfortable angle.

Two weeks later and I had it attached to the front porch.

“What’d’ya think, hun?”

Hun rolled her eyes.  I didn’t know what to make of her that August or September or October.  By November, she was gone.

I mixed up some cocktails that night so that we could go out and sit on the swing. 

“What the hell’s that?” she asked, staring at the smudge on the right-hand side (left as you look at it).

I ran my hand over the dark spot on the seat.  The paint was cracked there, and peeling.  There were rings as if someone had habitually set a mason jar down there – a mason jar filled with a cold drink, shivery, sweating.  There were burn marks, too – about the size of a cigarette bud.  Cherry blossom.  Extinguished on the wood.  The wood of the seat.  The seat on the right-hand side of the swing.  (Yeah, left as you looked at it.)

Hun didn’t join me that night.  I drank two cocktails myself (and then two more after that), my glasses pairing nicely with the rings along the right-hand side of my seat.  My swing.  The swing that came with the trailer.  Complements, Burly (the man with an adjective for a name).

By November, she was gone.  I spent Christmas alone.  I’ve got no use for a damned trailer.  If you want it, come get it.  But the swing goes with it.

– ad found in the St. Louis Dispatch, posted by one Able Carpenter, address: 1947 S—– Drive, Florissant, MO