Secret to a Long Life

Henry Bowman and Jack Swansen were neighbors. They had lived in the same houses that they came home to, when just-born, pink and mouthy. Now almost a century later, unknown to
themselves, they shared a secret to a long life. They hated each other.
This was not an ordinary animosity. It was something long held, close to the heart, dilligently polished and finely sharpened. It was grown over the decades, carefully tended, chewed and rechewed until it took shape from thin air and walked, scratching and conniving, a presence that darkened the street and brought a vague pestilence that hovered and prodded.
Not even God knows how it began. The slightest slight at an early age, who knows. It did begin early, that much is known. It didn't matter what the source, like stolen goods, it was guarded carefully in secret places. It was enough that it, just was.

"Them two, they don't like each other!" that said with a resolute nod and a bit of head shaking by the woman they both courted and failed to secure. She was in her eighties, ten years younger, a bright, springy stick of a woman, skin like lace paper and eyes deepset and sparkly quick.
"Yeah, they both came a-courtin', but I got wise to 'em both and real quick at that!"
Agnes Harcord was widowed with an army of great, grand and regular children. She lived waaayyy across town and happy to stay away from the fueding twosome. "Would have been a disaster, those two just were trying to outdo each other, like a turkey shoot with me the damn turkey!"
Both Henry and Jack were thrice divorced and both were absolute failures at marriage. In their life-long mutual competition it seemed that even divorce was something to aspire to, as if matrimony and bachelorhood were just two sides of a door that they were always on the wrong side of. By the age of fourty they settled down to devote their time to a hobby unlike any other in this world, a grinding resentment of each other; a devotion to the other's vexation.

There is nothing more enlivening than the constant threat of dirty tricks and the inevitable sweet payback. The deeds were countless and above all, masterfully innovative. Jack and Henry were zealots when it came to the art of revenge. In town, they were legend.
"Oh, yeah, those two would prank each other nearly to death. Not that they didn't try to introduce each other to their Maker quicker, no siree, they tried that a few times. Both offum jus' got lucky an' got to stay un-hung. I rememer one time one of 'em, I don't remember whichwas, stuck a skunk in the trunk of t'others ca'. Smell was awful. Even wuse, when he, Henry or Jack, don't remember whose, opened da trunk, out came a stream of stunk that hung widdem fo' weeks. Yeh, dem twose a dancin' wid de devil."
Long past the fistfights, the flat tires, the shit smeared seats, the booby trapped garden sheds, the late night calls to the police, the endless banging of hammers on tin pots, long after the mundane had been exhausted, they got down to serious business. They called in the (shudder) lawyers.

to be continued.....