REPRINT: URBAN LEGEND
(Originally appeared in Flashing In The Gutters, Oct 2006) URBAN LEGEND
I don't know how many people have looked at me sideways, paused as if they expected to me break out into crazy laughter. Within
seconds they slide from pity to confusion to something near disgust.
Listen. The only trace of my missing wife is the left index finger discovered by a shoplifter sentenced to community-service
cleaning up the median strip. Before that, my wife was last seen pumping gas on Tremont Street.
It's at this point that the person listening to my tale suddenly has a change of expression. "Isn't that an urban legend, the
gang member who slips under the car of women pumping gas?"
"No, really, it happened. I can show you a copy of the police report if you don't believe me."
Then the person says I have some sick sense of humor or repeats the story about alligators in the sewers of New York city as if I
haven't heard that one a million times.
I mean now that I've killed her, I'd like a little sympathy. I swear, the next person who treats my story like some kind of
joke, I'm going to follow them home and leave a toe in the mailbox.
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