Not Andersen Prunty

Stanley was a poet but his greatest art was his wild enthusiasm for suicide. He tried all different ways and had all kinds of reasons. The vertical slashes on his wrists told me he was serious about it and just happened to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would be the right place at the right time for most people.

One day he came over and his head was blackened. His hair was charred and stuck up in clumps amidst his raw, pink scalp. He smelled smoky.

“What have you been up to, Stan?” I asked.

“I can’t figure out how she did it,” he said.

“How who did what?”

“Sylvia Plath. How she killed herself by sticking her head in the oven.”

“You ass,” I said. “It was a gas oven.”

He laughed at his foolishness.

“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “Of course.”