The StickHare
Chapter II

Verdict in black and white came with a thump of the paperboy at the backdoor about ten after six. Henry Coney slid six half-hotel pans of bacon into two ovens and sucked in a fortifying breath before hopping with a groan onto his overturned milkcrate. Hip joints burned in their sockets and he steadied himself up there on the blue plastic marvel, which gave him a view of the wide world of the tall, until the pain subsided. Standing on the crate was the only way to reach the shelf where the night cook insisted on keeping the timer. Not because the fellow was particularly hostile to the little man but because, like most people, it never occurred to him what a hardship it was to have nearly everything of import out of reach.

But that was Henry’s life, wasn’t it—always just out of reach. “Why.” He spoke the question as a statement without even realizing he was doing it nor what the query regarded. Question took twenty-five years to discover, nearly another two decades to answer. But he felt good for once, and that’s what scared the little man. Henry Coney never in 43 years had had a good feeling. About anything. Ever.

Like so many, he lived in perpetual unease because he knew what was coming. Not exactly what, but that something was. Because it always had. Couldn’t unknow it any more than he could stop it. He’d have liked to think, like the folks on TV who win the sweepstakes, that good things were bound to happen—nothing but blue skies and lemon pies ahead. But he knew better. No-one like him ever opened the door to a giant check. A giant gas bill maybe, or a giant psychopath. Hell, even a giant man-eating bear was more likely to show up than a big old pile of good fortune. There would be no parades in his honor, no confetti. The phone never rang with good news. And them Jehovah fellas on the porch come to visit? Well, theirs was just more sorrow hiding in cheap slacks.

Yet, here he was lighting burners, warming sausage, mixing buckets of pancake batter, always with an optimistic eye through the long rectangular window separating kitchen from waitress bullpen to the clock above the cash register at the far side of the dining room.

Today was going to be the day he’d square things. Had to be. Failure was death. If not real death, then the kind of death that metastasized in the corporeal body of hope and left unraveling all the days to come.

In the back of Henry’s thoughts, in the dark place where he kept his little pinch of hope in a dusty glass jar that still smelled of dill pickles, the one with the rusty lid twisted so tight no-one could jailbreak and let flutter fly, he knew—just knew—that he was due for a win. Even cruel old Universe had a mercy rule. Didn’t she?

“Universe,” Henry whispered. “Universe, I-niverse, we-all-nervous.”

“Newspaper!” yelled the large woman at a table for two under the timeclock across the backend of the kitchen. She said it like “noose paper” and Henry thought it pretty damned apropos. Still, he couldn’t wait to get a look at the sports page. She hollered again and pointed the door with her crayon before putting long blue strokes on tattered page of coloring book featuring anthropomorphic ponies. She had the same flat face, large nose, otter-belly hair as Henry—chestnut with natural streaks of blonde—but she was a decade older and nearly two-and-a-half-feet taller. Their familial bond and biological juxtaposition keen sport for those who could be counted on to deride.

“I’ll get it in a sec,” Henry called to her over his shoulder. “What you want for breakfast?”

“Fruip loots.” Edges of her words warbled as stretched cassette ribbon; letters penciled left-hand. And she sounded always enthralled. For her, every day was Old Home Week. Exchanges with grocers and traveling salesmen held with the same genuine excitement as the family—ma-pa-kids, bursting through grandma’s Thanksgiving door on the year’s best Wednesday.

“In a minute. Yeah?” Henry pulled open the big steel door, pushed the screen with a screech and felt for the plastic bag on the stoop. Took his morning news and a cup of coffee into the office.

“Do not close that door puh-leez,” she said.

“I won’t.” Watched her draw while he blew on the strong black liquid and sipped. Flipped to D3 and read the headline with disbelief.

“Hung-gree,” she said. Vigor and unction in Georgia’s voicing of meals never faltered.

“In a bit.” Henry waived her away, tried reading the story, but his eyes kept dashing to the bold 40-point proclamation: Lions fall in overtime 22-21. Tore the offending portion of page and folded it into his pocket.

“Huuung-greee.”

“Goddammit, I said a minute.”

Her boisterous good nature wound down to a single pathetic whimper and Henry’s voice softened as he added, “Don’t start. I’m going right now. Yeah?”

Up on the line, Henry wiped cutting boards mindlessly, the bold type running through his head like the tickertape of doom. Score was so close, so odd. He couldn’t understand. It wasn’t that Henry didn’t believe it. Detroit was, after all, a perennial loser. Men after his own heart. Always hopeful and always disappointed for daring to believe. Henry’s real problem, he knew, was that he knew he could do no better, that he could only ever lose. And still stupidly wished for more. Lifetime of trying his best and failing. If not his best, by god, a darn good effort. But somewhere he knew even that was a lie.

Henry swirled the rag as he made small clicking breaths punctuated by hair-width moans of insurmountable grief. “Can’t do this anymore.” That good feeling, the one which had caused him so much anxiety over the last twelve hopeful hateful hours, had given way to more familiar sensations. Creeping malaise, infuriating whiff of foreknowledge. He hadn’t drawn the short straw. He was the short straw. When the little monkeys in bed rolled over, he was the one who fell out.

Timer went off and Georgia chimed in unison from the back of the restaurant with her own, “Riiinnnggg.”

“Coming!” Rich balmy fog of cured pork filled Henry’s nose and made his already sick stomach swell. Tossed the rag onto the steam table and opened the first oven. Laid the first four pans on a stainless-steel prep table and shoveled sizzling rashers into a third-pan.

“Hungry.”

“I know, little Ms. Patience, I’m getting to it.” Henry pulled the other pans and shut off the ovens. “These are hot so don’t go monkeying around with them. Yeah?”

Georgia tilted her head with a look of concern and said, “I not no monkey.”

“Are you sure?”

She smiled and sang, “Nooo. I not.”

Henry filled a clean bus tub with ice and hauled it up front. Leaned into the spring-loaded door between kitchen and dining room. Let his upper half fall into the swing until he nearly lost his balance then righted himself. No one there to catch you if you fall, bud.

Out front, the little man made coffee and turned on lights and refilled the milk dispenser. Front door jingled, and Henry looked to see it was half past six.

“Thanks for setting up, Henny. My gee dee car wouldn’t start.” Waitress flipped the sign from closed to open. Tied an apron around her waist and put her wet hair in a bun.

Henry muttered some manufactured empathy and filled the stainless-steel icebox next to the soda fountain. Normally he would have reveled in the eentsiest bit of praise, but he’d just discovered yet another subbasement in his rock bottom.

Into the empty dish tub, he placed two bowls, two spoons, half a tumbler of milk, and a single serving box of cereal. Poured all but a little of each into Georgia’s bowl. The rest, a mere two spoonsful, he put into the extra bowl and put it, along with the extra spoon, before the chair across from his sister—the seat occupied by a foot-tall stuffed bunny. Hot pink.

“You make sure Peg eats all her breakfast. Yeah?”

“I will do it.” Georgia laughed and waved the rabbit’s polyester paw. “And then we can have some more?”

“No. Better just have this. Not good to eat too much sugar.”

“Or I will get fat?” She looked sad again and silly with her mouth spilling milk as she spoke.

“No. That’s not what I said. I just want you to be healthy.” He had noticed her gaining. Which was fine in late spring when she’d been on the svelte side. But she’d been putting weight on steadily ever since the accident.

Knock at the backdoor interrupted them. Henry let in the delivery driver who wheeled a dolly loaded with boxes to the middle of the floor and slid out the handtruck and came back with another load of russet potatoes, frozen pollock, Roma tomatoes, bulk spices, and bagged milk. Georgia lifted from the stack three boxes to her chest without effort. Driver handed Henry an invoice and the little man checked off items and signed the receipt while sister took her haul to the stockroom.

“Strong as a damn bull, ain’t she.” Driver zipped his clipboard case closed. “Could use a few of her down to the warehouse.”

“I wouldn’t wanna tangle with her.” Henry followed the man out and looked across the graphite sky.

“That, my little friend, is a fact. You have a good one, now. And try to keep dry.”

“You too,” he said with a smile. But in his mind, he was shaking his head. My little friend? Why were people always mentioning his size? He knew why. Because his smallness made them uncomfortable. Same way people insist on referring to overweight men as “big guy.” Hey, big guy. Hi, little friend. Wondered how they’d feel if he started addressing people by their physical shortcomings. How’s the weather, small-dick? Get that promotion yet, pizza-face? How’s your son doing at college, wide-twat? Henry giggled and for a moment forgot that his life, in every meaningful way, was about to be over.

 

Hid in the bathroom and sat the closed toilet lid, his feet in their cheap children’s department hiking boots dangling over the dirty checkered tile. Georgia was back at the break table, talking to Peg with her mouth full. He opened the jagged rectangle of newsprint to the incomprehensible truth. Whispered, or something whispered for him, one word, the only word that mattered—one no-one else would ever hear—and crumpled the paper into a tiny ball. Rolled it around in his sweaty little hand until the order bell rang. Jumped down and lifted the lid and tossed the offending note and flushed his grief.

Concerned himself with hours and minutes all morning long. Half past eight, window full of tickets, he peeked into the back of the kitchen. Break table was empty. Henry rinsed his hands at the dish station and looked around the storeroom. Sister wasn’t there. Neither was she the bathroom nor office.

“Georgia?” No answer. This time, he set his voice like that of the gang on the opening of the old Scooby-Doo television show and shouted, “Georgeanna Coney … where are you!?”

More dings on the line and Henry noticed the delivery door open a crack. Peeked out and there she was, sitting the back steps.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Yes, I will do it.”

“Don’t know what?” Henry rattled the screen door and looked around but there was no-one else there. “What will you do?”

“Didn’t do nutheen.” Georgia jumped and put her hands behind her back.

Henry opened the door and motioned her in. “Who you talkin to?”

She shrugged. Guilt-reddened face slack above open mouth.

“Gettin busy.” Henry watched close as she walked by. Only thing in her hands the stuffed bunny. “Better punch in before them dishes pile too high.”

Georgia looped a plastic disposable apron over her neck and tied it behind her back and worked without sound. She attacked the chore with stern concentration as though decoding an ancient tablet. Plates of imitation maple syrup, ketchup-clotted scrambled egg, cigarette butts floating in country gravy were scraped, rinsed, and platters scrubbed with authority and vigor.

Henry watched this quick quiet pace with his grim glower. What would she do when he was gone? Where would she live? How long before she ended up the bed-wench of another psycho?

Bell chimed three times as the girls up front cried, “Order!”

By twenty after again, window clear and people enjoying meals or paying bills, Henry sat the office. Closed his eyes and picked up the phone and let his mind go blank before dialing.

“Crosstown Book.”

Henry hesitated.

Woman’s voice came again. “Crosstown Book.”

“Five hundred. Green Bay. Tonight.”

“How would you like to pay? I can take your credit card or—”

“Cash.” Henry gave his details.

“Alright, Mr. Coney. You have til three p.m. to pay this wager.”

Henry thanked the faceless voice and hung the receiver. Ticking in his chest of a clock running down to threads he could roll between his fingers and watch fray, the broken hairs spun to colored fog around the center. Henry was a man at strands unraveling.

Bells in the front of the house snatched him from the fog of desperation and reminded him of some strange elsewhere. Was sure he could smell cold stale air of a different kind of prison. Ringing continued like the clanging alarm of a jackpot on a slot machine a few rows away. Always a few rows away in the neon dark.

Time he got to the kitchen, he expected a dozen orders, but the wheel was empty, and a waitress rested against the ledge to count her tips.

“What’s the special?”

“Oh no.” Henry patted his pockets and looked at the clock.

“You alright?”

He lifted a few steam table lids. Empty. He’d forgotten to make the red sauce and cook the rice.

“Quesadillas,” he said rubbing his forehead. “Uh … chicken and spinach. Side of rice, side of beans. $7.99. Soups are chicken noodle and cream of potato.”

Waitress drew not-half-bad filigree in the corners of a dry-erase board and filled the center with the day’s lunch offering.

 

Second shift cook came on at noon. Rush lasted until after two.

“Ma here yet?” Henry had asked, too afraid to face her right away.

“Wrapping silverware.” Waitress paused her counting. “I think.”

Henry took off his dirty apron and poured a coffee. Hands shook so that he had to rest the pot on the mug lip to keep from spilling. Stirred in two sugars and did his best to mosey to the back booth where fresh fork-knife-spoon mummies were piled high in a plastic tub.

“Hey, Henny baby.” The old woman was everyone’s grandma—short, chubby, a serious wrinkled face framed by short dark hair, and hard eyes which quickly softened. “How was breakfast?”

“Slow start but picked up pretty good the end there.” Henry blew on his coffee but never sipped. “I wondered if I could talk to you about somethin?”

She wrapped another before responding. “I worry about you. You know it?”

“It’s nothin like that. Home repairs. Got a few things to fix before the snow flies and I’m strapped for cash.”

She finished wrapping the flatware papoose and looked at Henry over her glasses where they rested on the tip of her nose.

“Please. I’m in real trouble. Or I wouldn’ve asked.”

“You’re already six weeks out. I can’t give no more advances.”

“Eight, actually. But don’t blame the girls. I begged for a loan last Friday.”

“You better pray you get this under control, kiddo.”

“If I prayed as much as I worry.”

“You think if you worry enough the bad thing won’t happen.”

“No. I don’t think about it at all. I just worry.”

“Oh, Henry.”

“Please. One more time and I promise I’ll never ask for anything again. Work a bunch of overtime extra. Even after I pay you back.”

 

At two-thirty, Henry punched out and jogged in the rain to the bus stop, praying he’d get the bookie by three. On the bus, he thought with shame about how he’d swindled yet another unearned payday to fund his disgrace. Just one more. One more lie to get by. One more long-shot to reach the unreachable.

This time had to be the time. Kept saying that to himself over and over even though he didn’t really believe it because … because why? Because desperation makes two things: sneaks and liars. And what yields prolonged desperation? Henry Coney had waved bye-bye to desperate three months ago. This was some new form of despair, the type of anxiety which portended madness.

Diesel engine idled up and transmission shifted and Henry felt the vibratory jerks of the machinery beneath his feet and felt himself part machine—a windup tin toy that sparked from the hips and worked its insufficient legs to pump invisible pedals and came at you slowly with wide end-of-cattle-drive cowboy strides. All his life it had been someone else doing the winding, and he was certain today and tomorrow and again and again to step poorly and fall down some insurmountable escarpment. One step forward, two miles back.

Still, here he was heading the last place he should, spending someone else’s money on yet another sure thing bound to bust. That was the worst part. He knew he would fail. Never forgot this. But that brutal bastard foolish hope, the swindle what ruins family fortunes and blackens the eyes of young wives and stays the trigger fingers of bereaved parents—it was the fleeted phantom he could not outrun.