“Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room”
by
Barry Hannah
Who is that?” hissed the woman at the corner. Pete and Tardy were necking. They could never quit. They hardly ever heard. The porch where their bench was was purple and smelly with creeping pot plants. Their child, who was thirty, rode a giant trike specially made, he being, you know, simple, back and forth on the walk, singing : Awwwww. Ernnnnnn. Oobbbbbbbb.
The man, remarked only by the hissing woman at the corner, who was Tardy’s mother, walked, or rather verged, here and there, undecided, froth running down his chin and a dagger in his hand. He had an address printed on some length of cardboard. His fingernails were black.
“Out! Out of here, you mange!” shouted Tardy’s mother.
“In, in, in!” the hairy man in the street shouted back.
Pete looked up. “It’s my old college roommate.
Lay off, Mamma,” Pete expressed, rising.
The fellow in the street straightaway made for Pete but got caught in the immense rose hedge. “I knew I’d find you! Peace! Joy! Communion at last!” the filthy fellow shouted as he writhed, disabled.
“Son of a gun!” roared Pete. “Look here, Tardy. It’s old Room Man!”’
“Jumping Jesus, do these thorns hurt!” shouted the filthy hairy fellow. He’d lost his dagger in the leaf mold. That hedge really had him.
“What say?” shouted Pete.
“I got no more discretion, Pete boy! I’m just a walking reminiscence ! Here I am ! I remember you when you were skinny and cried about a Longfellow poem! Your rash! Everything! Edna, Nannie, Fran! Puking at the drive-in!”
“I thought so,” said Pete to Tardy, low, his smile dropped aside. “Would you get me my piece, my charm?”
“Your spiritual phase!” the filthy hairy fellow was screaming. “Your Albert Schweitzer dreams! Signing on the dorm wall with your own blood !” shouted the awful man who was clogged in the hedge.
“Yes,” Pete said, lifting the weary corners of his lips.
Tardy lugged out the heavy piece.
Pete took it and jammed home the two big ones.
“Remember Juanita and her neat one? Played the cornet with her thing and you did the fingering?” screamed the wretched fellow all fouled in the hedge.
Yes.
He cut half his hedge away when he fired the double through it. The dagger blew out in the street along with the creep that held it. All the while Tardy’s mother stood with crossed arms.
The son stopped his giant trike. He said, “Ernnnnn,” to his dad on the porch.
“Albert,” said Pete. “Take care of the stuff in the street,” and within minutes the son was back with the wagon attached and the scoop.
“It makes me not hardly want to kiss anymore,” Tardy said, fft
Biblioklept 