Anacoluthon (an-a-co-lu’-thon): A grammatical interruption or lack of implied sequence within a sentence. That is, beginning a sentence in a way that implies a certain logical resolution, but concluding it differently than the grammar leads one to expect. Anacoluthon can be either a grammatical fault or a stylistic virtue, depending on its use. In either case, it is an interruption or a verbal lack of symmetry. Anacoluthon is characteristic of spoken language or interior thought, and thus suggests those domains when it occurs in writing.
“My heart goes where the wild goose . . . my God! It’s my stuffed panda toy!” My parents had just died within two days of each other. My mother fell down a flight of stairs and my father fell on a carving knife while cutting up the Thanksgiving turkey. There was some question as to whether their deaths were accidental. My father’s eyesight was failing and he had been holding the knife with the tip pointing up. Somebody had spilled mashed potatoes on the floor and my father slipped on them accidentally stabbing himself in the heart. The possibility for murder on the stairs was a little more pronounced. But, mother had excellent balance for an 85-year-old drunk. Nevertheless, she had fallen down the stairs four or five times and never even got a bruise. Her fall had to be an accident, where her luck ran out. We did notice that there was talcum powder on the stairs. But we quickly determined it was from the bathroom adjacent to the stairs. My mother had probably powdered her feet after her shower and slipped coming out of the bathroom. Maybe that was it. Anyway, it didn’t matter: our parents were dead. We were looting their house, grabbing whatever we could before Uncle Dullroy took possession and had everything auctioned off—something I and my sister were totally opposed to.
I put down my panda bear and went looking for bigger game. My collection of bottle caps was pretty good. I dumped it in the canvas bag I had brought. My ball point pen collection was very cool. I dumped it in the bag. My parents had sold all my other treasures at a garage sale when I was in Vietnam. The baseball card collection hurt the most, my coin collection too. I got over it after a couple of years, but I still wanted to kill them.
My sister and I decided to explore the basement. We discovered a dungeon and a meth lab. There were explicit photos of my parents thumbtacked to the dungeon’s walls. My sister threw up and I tore down the photos and threw them into the furnace. There, there was a piece of my life shattered, but what was worse was the meth lab. There was a notebook on the lab’s bench. Evidently, it was a customer list. If the name had a check mark alongside it, I figured out that meant the person was buying meth and being blackmailed too. Reverend Goldhorn was being blackmailed. Mayor Beam was being blackmailed. Chief Scott was being blackmailed. After them, it was pretty much the whole town that was using meth, but not worth blackmailing. One name stood out: Molly Carlisle.
In high school, I loved Molly with all my heart. Her address was listed in the notebook. I had to pay her a visit. I parked in front of her house, walked up the walk and knocked on the door. She wasn’t expecting me. “Who the hell are you? I don’t take tricks until after 9.00.” Oh my God—she was a hooker. I said, “It’s me, Barker. Let me in.” The door opened and there she was. Her face looked 80 years old: deep wrinkles and saggy. She was missing a number of teeth. She was underweight. Her eyes were cloudy. She had a tic in her left hand. She smelled.
I told her I still loved her. She laughed and slammed the door in my face. I started crying right there on her front porch. The door opened a crack and she let me in. The place was a total disgusting mess—dog poop on the floor, dirty dishes and trash scattered all over the place. “How can you live like this.” I yelled. “I’m a junkie,” she responded. I dragged her out the door and took her to a rehab center. Molly spent six months there and became straight again.
We moved the meth lab to my basement and picked up where my mom and dad left off. Rev. Goldhorn was arrested, tried, and convicted of murdering my parents. Molly and I backed off the blackmail branch of the business out of respect for our customers, and also because we didn’t want to be murdered. My sister fronted for us as a stay-at-home day trader and a Zoom trouble shooter for South Jersey and Philadelphia.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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