Analysis of “Hanging Stranger”
Ed Loyce, a forty-year-old man, was just having a regular routine. He washes up, get his clothes on, and heads across town toward his TV sales store. It was getting dark outside. The store had been opened without him and he’d arrived just in time to help for dinner.
He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. He found no parking places in front of Loyce TV Sales and Service. He did a U-turn, then passed the little square of green with a lonely drinking fountain and bench and a single lamppost.
From the lamppost, something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little along with the wind. Loyce rolled down his window and looked closely at the object. He had no clue what it was. He thought it was something that the Chamber of Commerce displays in the square. The hackles on his neck rose. He swallowed uneasily. Sweat sliding down on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
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He then starts yelling, “Come on out here!” Then a man named Don Fergusson came out of the store slowly, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. Loyce was yelling that they could not just leave him out there. Then starts complaining on why everyone just walks right past it like it is nothing. Don Fergusson then replies, “There must be a good reason, or it wouldn’t be there.” Now Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them and says, “What’s up, boys?” Loyce yells that there’s a body hanging from the lamppost and is going to call the cops. Now Fergusson heads back into the store. Loyce is just confused on why everyone is ignoring the hanging man. Then Poter hurried off shortly after Fergusson. Loyce made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Then stepped up onto the little square of green. The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling. His eyes bulged, mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue. As Joyce is looking at the strange man, he gets bumped into with a guy named Jenkins.
Now two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce. Then asks Loyce his name and address. Loyce replies with Edward C. Loyce. Then 1368 Hurst Road. Then the cop was asking Loyce some unusual questions like, “Where were you today?” And “You weren’t in your shop, were you?” But Loyce said that he was home in the basement, digging a new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame.
The cop later tells Loyce that the hanging man is supposed to be there for everyone else to see. The streets were getting gloomy and dark. The lights had not come on yet. Now Loyce had realized that the two cops aren't really cops and none of them knew why the hanging man was there.
Loyce moved cautiously down an alley. He saw the City Hall and above was a patch of darkness. He listened closely and could hear something. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees. Was a splotch of darkness, hanging over the City
Hall.
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