Some said Esther and Floyd Goodweather had it all: a sprawling Wayne County ranch; his-and-hers 4-wheel recreational vehicles; two semi-intelligent children who only occasionally asked for money; and a shared love of Oxycodone. On the outside, the Goodweathers seem to have the kind of life their friends and family aspired too. But for all the shared blessings in their lives that they so willingly shared with their neighbors, there was one secret they harbored together above all others: a gnawing, all-consuming blind hate for each other’s presence.
Sure, there were times when their passion for each other spilled out into the public. The Great Easter Dinner Treeing Incident, as the family fondly remembered it. Or that time Gramma Esther swatted a fly on Grampa Floyd’s head with a gin bottle.
“Every loving couple has their touchy-feely moments,” said mortuary hair stylist Anna Goodweather, the couple’s smarter child. “It’s just Maw and Paw’s moments were a little more..” struggling to find the word, “bash-ier.”
And if the clever pup in the litter couldn’t catch on to the blistering, paint-peeling firestorm of hatred that spanned her two parents, what hope did the less curious welp have? “I dinna notice no harshne.. what you said.. with Maw and Paw,” said a dumbfounded Kyle Goodweather, local cigarette lighter recycling specialist, “They always said g’night to each other.”
Indeed, the whole family knew the Goodweather’s nightly salute, “Hope ya don’t wake up!”
Late in the evening of March 1st – about 7:45, just as America’s Funniest Home Videos was wrapping up – Floyd doubled over in his Lay-z-Boy chair with chest pains. Reports from the paramedics have it that Esther was dancing about the room, singing, “Halleluja,” when she herself succumbed to a massive coronary. They were both raced to the hospital where, despite both of their loud and frequently vulgar protestations, they were placed in the same hospital room due to lack of space.
In their final moments, the tender, raw emotion of nearly four score years’ affection was felt by everyone.
“In all my years in the medical profession, I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said Dr. Singe, wiping away a single tear, “She pulled the oxygen mask off, looked deeply into his eyes, and said, ‘I fucked your brother.'”
“He didn’t miss a beat,” recalled RN Gladys Winklebottom, her voice pinching up to a sob, “He looked at her and said, ‘Big deal. I fucked him, too. And he was a better lay than you.'”