Rumors run rampant in a small town when there’s nothing else to talk about but each other. I didn’t hear the stories they told about me, but I can only imagine what they came up with. For all I know they thought Miranda had left me for Clark Gable and was already ripe with his bastard child. The explanation had to have been as grandiose as that for me to tender my resignation to my furious father, sell my clean little house with everything in it, and head out on the road with only the cash in my pocket and Miranda’s abandoned luggage set filled with what little possessions I had left.
Before going, though, I took all her dresses to the backyard. I soaked them in gasoline. I lit a match.
Silk and satin and lace… it all burns so quickly.
Some of you reading this must be saying, yes, we know this part, Arthur. Eventually you were honest with us and you were honest with yourself and you told us Miranda ran away in Manhattan. This is no secret.
This is not the secret.
I spent the next 10 years of my life doing what some people only dream of. Anywhere that sounded interesting, I went. Any woman that caught my eye, I wooed. Nothing was out of the question. I worked odd jobs (some odder than most) to make a living as I traveled the world. Having worked in insurance I knew how to minimize risk and yet took every one that crossed my path.
You know, after all. You’ve seen the pictures and souvenirs.
One cool spring day in 1961 I found myself in New York again. It wasn’t something I’d planned – I’d hopped a train and somehow, there I was. Before I knew it I was standing at the same intersection of Manhattan where my wife had slipped her hand out of mine, leaving me with only a glove and my own suffocating boredom.
Looking at the people as they crossed the street, I expected to feel angry. God knows I’d been angry when I left Manhattan the last time. I searched my soul for that anger, that rage I’d struggled with for the first few years of my new life, and found only a strange sense of peace.
“Thank you, Miranda,” I said. I was smiling. A pretty girl passed me, saw my smile, and returned it. She was nowhere near as beautiful as Miranda had been but something I’d learned was that women who burned from the inside were hot to the touch. Those women, they scalded you. Sometimes a flame in your belly is just an excuse for arson.
I had no desire to explore Manhattan – in all my travels this was one place I had (perhaps unconsciously) avoided – but there were no trains out of town for another day so I wandered aimlessly out of the city. I liked to let my feet lead me where they may; I have found some of the more interesting places that way.
That day my feet led me to Coney Island. It felt right immediately; something about the bright colors and circus atmosphere was somehow a soothing alternative to the glaring lights of Manhattan. I ambled down the boardwalk for a bit, sipping a beer. I rode the ferris wheel. I ate a hot dog.
I had just decided to head back to the train station when I spotted it: a big blanched structure that resembled the front of a carnival funhouse. A booth sat in the center, surrounded by signs that screamed various promises at passersby.
IT’S ALIVE!
A MYSTERY OF NATURE!
KEPT ALIVE THRU THE MIRACLE OF SCIENCE!
YOU WON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!
IT’S ALIVE!
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