the writing of john scott ridgway
Fritz's once proudly flowing long hair had slowly retreated back away from his face, begun to dissapear in mass from the top, and went all over pigeon grey peppered with barely noticiable flecks of white. From the scraps of hair on the back of his neck, he grew a long, thin pony tail, that certain people, who had doubted his sanity since his drug binges in the sixties and seventies and right up into his weed filled old age, became convinced was an actual rat tail. Polite one and all, though... no one ever said anything outright to Fritz's face.
He wore the rat tail for his last twenty five years, from fifty to seventy-five.
Death sent him an invitation one afternoon, in the form of an x-ray showing a cancer turning his white bones black.
He laid down in a hospice knowing everything was about to give out.
While discussing his up-coming funeral with his wife, he told her that he wanted people to see his pony-tail laying on the pillow beside his head.
Fran had been under much stress since her husband became sick. She was a young woman compared to him... and unbeknownst to Frits, She had almost started divorce proceedings before learning that her husband only had six months to live.
Now, the pony-tail thing... she wanted to just lie to him, and afterwards wished she had, but instead she blurted out, "That thing is ugly as hell. I have had people actually ask me... this divorce lawyer's idea of a joke, if you freaked out when you lost your hair and had a rat's tail surgically attatched to your head? Why in god's name would you want the last thing people see to be this ugly... oh, god."
"I never saw it like that."
Fran was appalled by her own words. Fritz didn't seem to have been effected -- more than likely, she concluded, this was the drugs they were giving him to ease his way through the cancer pains.
"When I look in the mirror, baby," he told her with a smirking smile, "I see the sixties. See me screwing it to the man."
Something about him ignoring her criticism entirely bothered her and again, the sleeplessness and the stress and the cup after cup of coffee brought out words a little meaner than she meant.
"Well, the sixties were followed by Reagen and Bush, so who won that fight? Not you."
"No, but we tried once, didn't we? I don't want to forget I tried. You, you just got bitter. The old dreams turned to dust on your lips, baby. Not me. You don't think it looks like a rat tail, do you?"
"Only kind of. In certain light. No, I was just saying that to get a rise out of you. You know I think it's cute."
"You asked me to cut it off... a lot, dear."
"Tht doesn't mean that I didn't think it was cute."
"How true. What did you say about someone getting a divorce?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, okay... sorry. What should we watch on tv?"
Fran tells him to choose. Thinks to herself, 'What the hell? I'll let him take his little religion to the grave. It can't hurt anyone now.'
"You know, Fritz, baby, I'll put the pony-tail out on your pillow if you want."
"Cool. I knew you would."
Of course, Fran didn't really mean it...