Protrope (pro-tro’-pe): A call to action, often by using threats or promises.
“C’mon. We’ve got to save her! If we don’t help her, she’ll drown. Get off your asses or I’ll kick them!” I yelled as loud as I could. Everybody just sat there. They didn’t even move their heads. I ran toward the lake to save the little girl who was drowning.
This was Silver Lake. It was more like a big pond. We hitchhiked there almost every day in the summer, all summer long. We had already lost one friend there—Floogie. His face looked like a flounder. He had jumped into the lake from a tall tree, hit bottom and died of a broken neck.
But now, little Susie Schmedder was going under. She was screaming “Help me! Help me!” While everybody sat there, some not even paying attention. I got to her and she rose from the water while everybody yelled “April fool!” It was August, what the hell? Nobody cared. It was the “Prank of the Week,” Susie’s brother Steven had Susie on his shoulders and had been breathing through his snorkel while he squatted under water so it looked like Susie was drowning.
“You wait!” I said “I’ll get you. You better watch out!” I started wracking my brain for THE prank of the ages to get back at them with. It didn’t take long. I would fake hang myself from the big maple tree on the edge of the city park by the bike path. My friends and I walked by there every day to our hitchhiking spot. They were bound to see me hanged. In the run-up to the prank I would tell them how depressed I was and how I wanted to kill myself. They staged an “intervention” and I was dragged to a psychologist. I told them I was only kidding about suicide. They told me “So are we! April Fool.” They left me standing on the sidewalk outside of the psychologist’s.
I was totally angry. I had been mega-pranked. I didn’t know what to do. I decided to go ahead and fake hang myself. They would think it was their fault because of what they’d done to me. I got a book from the library on how to fake hang yourself. It was titled “Up In The Air.” It was pretty complicated and warned that not following instructions would almost certainly result in death. I went to the hardware store and bought a length of hanging-grade rope. I told the Ace Hardware man that I was making a scratching post for my cat Jiffy. Then, I went home and tied a noose as “Up In The Air” instructed. Without going into detail, lacing the rope around my shoulders so I wouldn’t actually hang was quite complicated, but it would save my life.
The next day, all rigged up, I climbed the tree and tied the rope around the tree limb. When I saw my friends coming up the path, I jumped.
I woke up in the hospital with my friends clustered around my bed. Marie said “You almost killed your self. If Billy hadn’t cut you down with his Boy Scout knife, you’d be dead.” Chuck said, “We’re so sorry for what we did. We never should’ve faked taking you to the psychologist. We’ve decided no more pranking for the rest of the summer, or maybe ever agin.”
I felt satisfaction flowing through my veins—it must’ve been what morphine’s like. I had botched the prank by almost being killed. They had said nothing about the safety rope around my shoulders, so they probably didn’t see it, and believed I’d actually intended to kill myself.
I decided that instead of making this a prank, I’d make it a deception so they would be remorseful forever and would never be released from the nagging regret for what they had done to me. I would never tell them what my plan had been. They would never know—they would be deceived. Not knowing the truth is the kind of punishment they deserved. Like the Bible says, “The truth will set you free.” Does withholding the truth from them make them my slaves?
I hope so.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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