Death for a Dollar
“It was a wedding gift from your Great Aunt Judy.” Amanda’s mother held out the tarnished bangle, the jade stone sloshed inside the casing like a hardened ball of algae. “Her first husband, your Great Uncle Rudy, died retrieving it from the beach in Normandy. Pop Pop was with him on that day.”
“D-Day?” Amanda examined the trinket without touching it. The design was not intricate or unique, but the dark spots on the silver resembled an ancient language. Runes written in blood. She was hesitant, but her mother insisted.
“Yes. Go on…” she lifted her palm. “Pick it up.”
“It looks as if it’s going to crumble in your hand.” She gently took the clasp in a pincer-like grip and set it upon her own palm, bemused and wary, unable to decipher it’s meaning. Pop Pop had never mentioned his brother, but she had heard his name whispered. There was even a picture of the two of them in an old wooden cigar box at her grandmother’s house, she had peeked inside, but Mee Maw pulled the switch for the first and only time that day. On Pop Pop’s funeral day, she recognized the photo resting upon her grandfather’s uniform in the coffin, in his hands atop his medals. It was the 6th of June. Now it was her wedding day.
“We call it The Warrior Bangle, your grandfather came up with that. Uncle Rudy bought it at an antique shop the day before they shipped out. Dad would say, ‘Rudy died for a dollar.’ That’s all he ever said about Rudy after the war, to us anyway. He had to talk to officers and draft an ‘official’ statement — death by landmine. Aunt Judy told me what he told her, on the same day I got married.
Now this is the part that’s going to make you angry. There is nothing to tell. He didn’t tell her anything. There is no story. There’s no climax or anything. It’s kind of like when the villain could be killed at the beginning of the movie and people don’t want the suspension of belief. So, it just ends there. That’s the story of the bangle.”
“What the fuck, Mom?”
“I know. I felt the same way. Pop Pop liked fucking with people’s heads. So did Aunt Judy. It was always funny to them. They liked to see people get frustrated. I think they were sociopaths. That’s what you really need to understand about this whole story. That worthless bangle in your hand is all you will ever need to remember. Marriage, life, looking for answers. You won’t find any. It all amounts to a dollar. It’s the story of disappointment. Hollywood writers never dare to go to such depths because it’s the worst kind of tragedy. It’s mediocrity. That bangle is a reminder that we are not special. We can give it a mysterious name and make up a story to go along with it, but even if the story behind it is amazing and real, it’s not ours, we didn’t live it. Pop Pop knew that. He hated that bangle. He hated his brother for dying for sentimental reasons. He hated weddings, too. Nothing was special to him. Not even me. He didn’t want to go through the pain again. He died with his brother that day, that’s all we really know.”
“For a dollar.”
“Whatever that’s worth.”
