Nackles – The Story (Page 2)

Nackles and Frank, A Very Mean and Nasty Man

Which brings me back to my brother-in-law, who’s to blame for whatever happens now.  My brother-in-law Frank is – or was – a very mean and nasty man.  Why I ever let him marry my sister I’ll never know.  Why Susie wanted to marry him is an even greater mystery.  I could just shrug and say Love is Blind, I suppose, but that wouldn’t explain how she fell in love with him in the first place.

Frank is – Frank was – I just don’t know what tense to use.  The present, hopefully.  Frank is a very handsome man in his way, big and brawny, full of vitality.  A football player; hero in college and defensive line-backer for three years in pro ball, till he did some sort of irreparable damage to his left knee, which gave him a limp and forced him to find some other way to make a living.

Ex-football players tend to become insurance salesmen, I don’t know why.  Frank followed the form, and became and insurance salesman.  Because Susie was then a secretary for the same company, they soon became acquainted.

Was Susie dazzled by the ex-hero, so big and handsome?  She’s never been the type to dazzle easily, but we can never fully know what goes on inside the mind of another human being.  For whatever reason, she decided she was in love with him.

So they were married, and five weeks later he gave her her first black eye.  And the last, though it mightn’t have been, since Susie tried to keep me from finding out.  I was to go over for dinner that night, but at eleven in the morning she called the auto showroom where I work, to tell me she had a headache and we’d have to postpone the dinner.  But she sounded so upset that I knew immediately something was wrong, so I took a demonstration car and drove over, and when she opened the front door there was the shiner.

I got the story out of her slowly, in fits and starts.  Frank, it seemed, had a terrible temper.  She wanted to excuse him because he was forced to be an insurance salesman when he really wanted to be out there on the gridiron again, but I want to be President and I’m an automobile salesman and I don’t go around giving women black eyes.  So I decided it was up to me to let Frank know he wasn’t to vent his pique on my sister any more.

Unfortunately, I am five feet seven inches tall and weigh one hundred thirty-four points, with the Sunday Times under my arm.  Were I just to give Frank a piece of my mind, he’d surely give me a black eye to go with my sister’s.  Therefore, that afternoon I bought a regulation baseball bat, and carried it with me when I went to see Frank that night.

He opened the door himself and snarled, “What do you want?”


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