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With draft beer and a smile, Ned Pearsall raised a toast to his deceased
neighbor, Henry Friddle, whose death greatly pleased him.
Henry had been killed by a garden gnome. He had fallen off the roof of
his two-story house, onto that cheerful-looking figure. The gnome was
made of concrete. Henry wasn’t.
A broken neck, a cracked skull: Henry perished on impact.
This death-by-gnome had occurred four years previously. Ned Pearsall
still toasted Henry’s passing at least once a week.
Now, from a stool near the curve of the polished mahogany bar, an
out-of-towner, the only other customer, expressed curiosity at the enduring
nature of Ned’s animosity.
“How bad a neighbor could the poor guy have been that you’re still so
Ordinarily, Ned might have ignored the question. He had even less use
for tourists than he did for pretzels.
The tavern offered free bowls of pretzels because they were cheap. Ned
preferred to sustain his thirst with well-salted peanuts.
To keep Ned tipping, Billy Wiles, tending bar, occasionally gave him a
Most of the time Ned had to pay for his nuts. This rankled him either
because he could not grasp the economic realities of tavern operation or
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