First, the Boston Strangler. Then the Cleveland Mangler. Then the Philly Dangler. Then the Dallas Angler. He just fished, never killed, well, killed fish, but evidently that’s acceptable, you can just go around with a hook and a line and—look—homicide, but it’s not homicide because of the root, homine, man (maybe piscicide?). Years ago a man from Dallas on vacation, not the Angler himself but a business associate, boarded a boat and took it into the ocean, his paid captain his only companion, and out he went, kite-fishing, and about forty minutes after leaving port, a short time for the man but an eternity for the captain, who was battling cancer, who knew his days were numbered, they caught a sailfish, brought it in with difficulty, and that man, then and there, to the amusement of the captain (an amusement that he exaggerated to hide his disdain) nicknamed himself the Exuma Wrangler. Was he thinking of his friend back home? It is a safe assumption. “Good work, George,” said the captain, clapping the man on the back, his disdain darkening. The captain outlived his cancer and came to regret the months of spinning every action, thought, and utterance downward. He took up a spiritual practice that was Eastern but syncretic and spoke often of “lifting the hand off the wound and recognizing there was no body there in the first place.” George’s sister’s cousin was strangled to death in Baltimore by a man with no nickname at all. Raymond Thomas Armstrong, Jr.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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