Hornets and Others

'Well, Tanny,' her own image said to her from the screen, the face she used to wear in the summer, the clothes the blue and yellow summer clothes she used to wear, the hair, the fine fresh-washed and perfume smelling hair she used to have. 'Have you thought any more about it? Do you still think this is what you have to do?' The figure gave out a warmth and an understanding that bathed the room.

The figure waited for an answer that didn't come.

'We'll talk about whatever you want,' it went on, after a moment. 'I know how lonely you feel. You know I try to help as much as I can. Though I may not know how to fix a bicycle very well, or how to make a puppet or put on a magic show, you know I'll try to help you with whatever you need.' The figure brightened. 'After all, now that your father is gone and there's only the two of us, we're all we've got, right?' Again the figure waited for an answer and then went on in a more soothing, infinitely sad tone. 'Are you really sure you have to go back to your father? Aren't the two of us enough?'

Out in the street there was a sound, the stopping of a bus and then the unmistakable scream of locked brakes. She fell across the machine, her thin hands caressing it as though it was a child. She knew that someday someone would come, opening the door very quietly so as not to make the screaming start in her ears, not knowing that it was there always now, to find the two of them.

The Coat

Here's what happens: Harry puts this coat on, he thinks, God, I hate women. Not only that: he wants to kill them. No kidding. He finds the coat neatly folded in a deep open box, tissue paper folded back, by the service entrance of the SeaHarp Hotel. Drunk as Harry is, nobody pays much attention to him anyway. Wandering Harbor Road, half in the world and half out, unshaved, unwashed, thinking about Noreen and hoping she'll come out of the SeaHarp and let him explain why he said all those terrible things to her, that it's not like when they were children, why he told her to go to hell, to leave him alone, to stop loving him...

It's a pretty nice coat, actually. New, good wool, not phony polyester crap, frays that tear like cardboard, wet snow and damp air from the Harbor coming in where the nylon stitching pulls out, flapping, ice cold on his back. This is good, long, down past his knees, deep warm pockets, big brown buttons that slip into their holes like hands into perfect gloves, hand-tailored, maybe.

Man, this coat is warm. He stumbles out onto Harbor Road, the late big sun on this winter day hitting him square in the eyes from between buildings. He squints like Dracula for a second, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes, and at that point this coat, which is so friggin' comfortable, talks into his head and says, Get rid of the wine, Harry.

He's startled, but only for a second because he's so damn zipped and the voice sounds so damned reasonable, smooth, cultured, and who cares if it's coming from the coat, he doesn't care if it makes him jump like a kangaroo-- he was so cold before he found it. He remembers shivering like mad, even the wine not helping, lurching from alley to alley, trying to forget the past four days, hoping Noreen would stay away, hoping at the same time he would see her, let him explain...

Get rid of the wine, Harry.

The voice is gently insistent. Harry still shields his eyes with his right hand, doesn't know where the wine is, then looks down to see the Chablis bottle weighing down his left hand.

Get rid of it.

'Sure,' Harry says, shrugging, and then he hoists the bottle up to his mouth, tilting it up. Down goes the wine, sour smooth. The bottle stays ass-up, dark green cheap glass in the orange sunlight, and then the white wine is gone and Harry turns abruptly and throws the fat bottle over the high wall of the SeaHarp and out into Birch Street.

'Home run!' Harry shouts as it shatters loudly. 'We win!'

He laughs, and then he makes his way along the wall and walks out of the entrance of the SeaHarp and down the six steps to Harbor Road, walking down toward his part of town.

The girls are at it now. They're always at it. Early morning, bright noon, late afternoon, midnight, three in the morning. Ply the trade. He knows them, they know him, just like they know his buddies Jimmy and Wax, and all the other bums. They're all part of the landscape, like salt spray, tall brick, dog shit mashed into the curbs, sidewalks cracked up and down like snakeskin, dirty, boarded-up windows.

Here they are, ladies of night and day. Part of the terra-firma, just a 'Hi, Harry' as he stumbles by, a lush's wave of his hand. 'Hi, gal,' too high to get it up if he wanted to, as if he'd rather spend what little he has on that instead of Chablis.

But he tracks in on the few of them out on day patrol, the coat wants him to watch, the skirts hiked up to here, a scant inch showing under leatherette jackets, Halloween hair, dark orange, frightful yellow, hoop earrings, skinny asses, puckering mouths, Marlboro stains on teeth. Shivering cold, most of them. Harry feels the wool-warmth of the coat, and laughs. 'Sorry, gals,' he says to himself, 'but I got mine.'

Let's go, Harry, the coat tells him.

Harry shrugs, turns away up Linwood Avenue. 'Where we going, chief?' he says out loud, like any other drunk. Then he adds, 'Wish I had some more wine.'

Forget the wine. Walk.

They walk, up to Colony Avenue, over to Port Boulevard, turning left, passing cold faces, giving dirty Harry and his coat a wide berth, and then suddenly they're there.

Stop.

Somewhere over by the hospital. Wide, high store window, bright white and chrome inside. Rows of medical stuff. Stethoscopes, tongue depressors, wheelchairs. Old gent behind a glass-topped counter, telling a woman in a walker why she doesn't want to trade it in. Or why she does. The woman shakes her head vigorously, turns, walkers away from the counter. Harry hears the little bell over the door tinkle. The woman moves like a humping snail past him.

The old man in the store disappears through a small door into the back.

Look, the coat tells him. Harry's eyes roam over the store through the window. Little doodads with mirrors on the end, tiny picks and shovels, catheters, bloodbags.

That, the coat says.

There in one corner, glass shelves, rows of instruments, surgical masks, roll out leather cases, and a long scalpel.

Now, the coat orders.

He's in before he knows it. Holds the little tinker bell as he presses open the door, lets it go gently when he's in, over to the counter, reaching behind, hands steady—

The old man reappears from the back, his balding head ducking under the low eave of the doorway.

Quick, the coat says, and Harry is grabbing the scalpel, shoving it into the deep pocket of the coat, turning and walking quickly, tinkling the bell over the door as the bald man begins to shout, 'You punks! Not again!' the coat pulling him like a hand tugging his lapels, three blocks away before it lets Harry stop, sure the old man's not following.

'Christ,' Harry says, regaining his breath, and then he feels something clutched in his hand and looks down wanting to see a big green bottle but instead there's only this knife, half as long as his arm.

And then the coat says, Let's go, and Harry very much wants to have a drink that he knows the coat won't let him have.

Night now. The boardwalk. Not the tourist end, with the shrimp shops, gew-gaw stands, postcard racks, pay telescopes mounted on the railing for looking out at the foggy harbor that as often as not take your dime and either stay blind, or open their shutters to show the lenses so blotched with seagull droppings and dried salt as to be blind anyway. Not that end. The other end of the boardwalk, where the slats aren't swept and the railings are oiled black by the weather and bum piss. Where the ladies are.