I sat idly in my tattered tent, as the
wind hugged me, rolling my hair over and over in waves. I was thumbing loosely through my
sleep deprived brain, trying to piece this week's schedule together, when he
stalked by.
I admit I have always been a people watcher, world's greatest hobby, and Fell's Point is a breeding ground for the most interesting sorts. There's Greg, the scrap artist, with his cross stitched jacket of a hunt scene. There's the spunky colorful lesbians, that I swear have cots in some back room of the Daily Grind. There's even your token Elvis, who waves to passerby, carloads, and panhandlers. The King is alive and well, living in Fell's, and is completely non-descriminative about who knows he's still kickin'.
I know these faces well enough to trace them in my sleep, with a bitten back nail on a cool fitted sheet. But I never laid eyes on this man before, but believe me, I would have remembered. Indian, a good half at least with those sharp facial features, probably in his early fifties. Wide-legged jeans, encrusted with paint and unsavory Fell's funk, strapped loosely to his hips with a wide black belt. Hand-dyed red shirt under a worn leather jacket. Boots, construction or combat? Salt and pepper hair bound loosely at his nape, it falls mid-way down his back. And the ends of the hair? Twisted. Like small ropes rubbed over metal and weighed down, the fibers fraying and jutting out in spots.
I knew he had one hell of a tale, from the drag in his swagger to the furrow in his brows. The kind of story I'd like to hear for the price of a moment's kindness and two smokes from my pack. 'Cause you always bring them tobacco, my mama taught me that.
Harry. Crazy Harry in my mind, as his arrow-point eyes darted back and forth, rarely resting on me for more than a second. Well timed speech, the kind that quiets any chattering and makes one pay attention. Rez-speak, like down in Seminole towns, where smoke is cheap and booze is water.
Harry traded lives with me for an hour or so, before I had to get back to business. Hours after, caught in sheets of rain and pellets of hail, I thought about what he had told me. It could have been the weather making my body shiver, in fact, I'm sure it was. But my normally cozy heart felt like three stones caught in my chest.
It's really not my story to tell, but as always, I am a collector. The good with the bad, the bad with the good. When I've thawed out a bit, I'll spin Harry's Tale for you so I'm not the only one who believes it.