Epistrophe

Epistrophe (e-pis’-tro-fee): Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.

I went to the beach. I walked on the beach. I love the beach. I picked up seashells on the beach. One of the shells had writing on it. It said “I am a shell.” It made me think of my estranged wife. She was a shell: hard on the outside and like an ashtray on the inside. Or, she could play shell games with you—hiding her cheating lies in her hollowed-out soul. If you held her to your ear you could hear moaning sounds like the ones I heard outside “The Masquerade Motel” window two months ago when I finally worked up the nerve to follow her and my best friend Mike to what was supposed to be an AA meeting—if it was AA, it was Anterior Acts. I looked through a crack in the room’s drapes. I got out my phone and videoed the whole thing. It was like a tornado was brewing my head—Sharon and my best friend Mike. Mike and I had cheated on our wives for years, at parties, at bars, and wedding receptions—anywhere people gathered and booze was served. We never gave it a second thought. Why the hell did Mike have to zero in on my wife?

I’ll never know. He left town when I threatened to kill him. When I confronted Sharon with a baseball bat in my hand, she laughed and told me it was “perfectly innocent.” I said “That’s perfectly bullshit” and raised bat a shook it. “Let’s watch the video I took of you and Mike and you can point out the ‘perfectly innocent’ parts. OK?” She yelled “No!” and picked up the garbage bag filled with her crap, flung it over her shoulder, and trudged out the door like Santa Claus on his way to the dump. I yelled “If you take our car, I’m calling the cops.” Just then an Uber pulled up. Mike was behind the wheel and waved and mouthed “Fu*k you.” That did it. I gave him the two-handed finger and went back inside.

I called Sherry, Mike’s nineteen-year-old sister. She was going to the local community college and majoring in brewery science. I told her what had happened with Mike and she cursed him out and asked how she could help. I invited her over and asked if she could bring some of her beer. She said “Sure. I just finished a batch of Thor’s Hammer. It’s 12% and lives up to its name.” I gave a whoop, and changed the sheets on my bed.

We had a wild night. Sherry moved in with me two days later. We love each other. As soon as my divorce is finalized we’re going to get married. Yesterday, the pee-pee tester told Sherry she’s pregnant—something Sharon and I couldn’t accomplish. We both wondered how Uncle Mike and Sharon would take the news. I hoped it would piss him off and make Sharon cry her ass off. She and Mike had parted ways. She is working as a waitress at Hooters and Mike retired from Uber, owns a used car lot, “Mike’s Car Garden.” I, on the other hand, run “Diligent Detection,” my detective agencey specializing in infidelity and missing persons. Sherry’s brewery is wildly successful. “Thor’s Hammer” made it all the to Munich’s Oktoberfest where, according to the organizers, “it got more people shit-faced than any beer in the whole history of Oktoberfest.” We’re perfect for each other, like two clamshells attached together by a hinge of love.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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