Colonel Dan Mitchell, US Army, Retired Known to many Manhattanites As the homeless man with the nickname The American Hero.
Vince Sherman had always been an idiot. But tonight he out did himself.
“Un-fucking-believable!” he blurted out again for the umpteenth time, spilling his whisky on his expensive designer suit. “No, really, a witch, I swear! Looked like a scarecrow- skinny as a rail, dark eyes, dressed in tatters… And the main thing is I don’t even know what made me do it! I was driving on I-95 when, like an asshole, I decided to take a short cut. But then, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have seen what I saw! And I’m telling you – Un-fucking-believable!
The party was just beginning, so it was no wonder that the crowd gathering around Vince, who arrived either already drunk or stoned, and mostly likely both, was quite large. They all had their smug faces, haughty smiles, and impeccable suits… I knew some of the people standing around him, some I did not. As usual.
I was at the antique gallery of Richard Mills (who was the type who couldn’t stand it when anybody called him Dick or Richie), a thin blond gay man with sad eyes who moved to New York from London four years ago, and having opened his gallery immediately decided to use it to organize a “Men’s Club”, as he called it. Once a month he gathered the glitterati from show-biz, artists, gallery owners, and wealthy playboys, who never knew what to do with themselves. Her Majesty’s loyal subject dreamt of creating a comfortable homosexual haven for himself, but instead he had to endure crowds of boorish drunken men, who at the end of the evening, having had their fill of free booze and good times, would start calling their wives, girlfriends and mistresses to continue the fun.
“And you, Steve, what are you doing here?” I would have asked myself any other time. But tonight I knew exactly what I was doing at Richard Mills’ soiree. Everything was perfect. Everything was happening exactly as it was supposed to. Life had taken a wonderful a turn. The world was magical. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one of joyous trepidation.
I’d barely warmed a glass of rich whisky in my palm, and was putting it back on the tray when I first heard the words of the drunken, laughing Vince Sherman. Because so many people were not listening to his story, it was clear that it was really intended for only one person in the world. Me.
I had to hear it again, before Vince either became completely incoherent, or switched to his favorite subject- the joys of sex with hermaphroditic prostitutes.
Thankfully this hadn’t happened yet, and Vince was basking in the ironic attention of the other guests, still regaling them with his adventure. Once again. For the fifth or sixth time. I had already gotten the gist, as had everyone else standing around with drinks in their hands. Basically, Vince was on his way back to Manhattan from parts unknown when he decided to take a shortcut, exited I-95, and while driving through some little backwater town (Don’t forget the name! Don’t forget the name! I repeated to myself like a mantra) he crashed his Mercedes full speed into a pile of metal from some old tractor blade or something.
“Son of bitch! It was right in the middle of the road!” Vince explained to his listeners, his eyes bright with enthusiasm “A nasty pile of rusted metal! No, seriously! Right. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Road! And I was going 60! Un-fucking-believable!”
Whistleroad Town, if you believed Vince, was one armpit of a town. He had fallen into complete despair that he was forced to wait until morning to get help, when, for a few bucks, some local wino introduced him to the town’s only point of interest (I already knew I would never forget the name) – the local freak who could supposedly make miracles.
“The shack she lived in – Uncle Tom’s cabin had nothing on this place! Jesus Christ, what a dump!” Vince took a long swallow of whisky and his eyes glistened, but not in a good way- he had definitely taken something else besides alcohol tonight. “I went in. She apparently wasn’t sleeping, although it was 4 o’clock in the morning. Hoooweee, was she ugly! Beaten something fierce with the ugly stick! And how old – maybe 20, maybe 40, who the hell knows? And her name, fantastic – Han-nah!! I shat a brick when I heard it! So we spent a couple of hours together.”
“ ‘So what tricks can you do, Miracle Lady?” I asked her. She said nothing. Then it dawned on me. I said, ‘Can you turn ten bucks into a hundred? Here take this’… So I go to take a ten out of my wallet, and she doesn’t even touch it, and I look again – a C note! A real 100 dollar bill! What the hell are you all laughing at? I’m telling you, it was unbelievable… So then, I’m telling you, listen to this, my wallet is black, right? Can you make it turn green? I take it out again – and it is green…”
The crowd, already warmed-up from the free booze, laughed raucously and derisively. “I’m telling you!” protested Vince, dropping his glass which shattered into a spray of sharp fragments. He awkwardly pulled a big worn and disgustingly green wallet out of his back pocket. “Look! I swear to Christ!”
But the other guests laughed even louder, for a moment drowning out the live music; in the depths of the studio a string trio invited by the aesthete Richard was performing something understated and beautiful.
“Fine, screw you, then! If you don’t believe me, then don’t!” an offended Vince grabbed another glass of whisky off a tray. “Morons! And do you know how it ended? Well, listen!… ‘Fine,’ so I say, ‘That’s enough. Thanks. But maybe you can conjure up a tow truck right now, ‘cause in this shitty Podunk town my cell doesn’t even work.’ So she just sits there for a second then says, ‘You don’t need a tow truck. I fixed your car.’ So I look outside- and I’ll be damned! There’s my baby- all in one piece, good as new. And what’s more- that fucking plow blade, the one I crashed into, is standing right there a couple of feet away, and it hadn’t even moved. So right there I started believing in her miracles… Big Time… I even got a little scared…”
“Time to lay off the drugs, Vince, my friend. No, no kidding. If you start having these bad trips, they’re not a good sign,” suggested someone I couldn’t see.
“You don’t believe me?” asked Sherman, but he already had calmed down, and took another swig of whisky. “Well, I guess that’s to be expected. I wouldn’t have believed it myself either.”
“And what’s she doing living in that shithole, anyway, this Hannah of yours? Huh? If she can do anything?” asked a flushed pig-faced man standing next to me, “Something here doesn’t add up?”
“You won’t believe it, but I asked her that myself! She lowered her eyes and spoke so softly, “I can’t ask for anything for myself. It is not allowed. I can only ask for others… Or else the gift will disappear… So at the end of the night I gave her a fiver. I thought she might make a fuss, say that it was too little, but she just lowered her eyes and said ‘Thank you’. I woke her up in the middle of the night, made her do some magic tricks, got a new car – and for only five bucks! And all she said was a pathetic ‘Thank you.’”
The crowd of listeners began to break up. Some were laughing; the majority already discussing something else, already having forgotten about the nonsense of Vince Sherman.
Except for me. I believed every word. I came here expecting a miracle, about which I had been forewarned. And it happened – I heard it, as soon as I entered the cozy, dimly-lit gallery. I had not even had time to take a sip of whisky. And now, I am going to keep it all to myself- it had been too long since I’d had any miracles in my life. Especially the good kind.
All that was left was to leave and not attract any attention. I moved closer to the door, and stopped by the window. Autumn in the Village was in all its splendor, and it was absolutely beautiful. It looked like a greeting card for a mysterious holiday which only a few people know about.
All of a sudden I felt the brush of a light, almost feminine hand. I turned around. The founder of the “Men’s Club” Richard Mills looked as he always did – in a silk shirt of an undeterminable color, narrow shoulders, with a shock of silky blond hair, thin fingers with an ideal manicure, puppy-dog eyes…
But Richard was much more pleasant than all of his guests – who were pushy and arrogant, drinking his whisky and breaking his glasses, swearing and shouting. I thought suddenly, “Why do you need all this? Manhattan is full of gay clubs where a refined man like Richard would find himself welcomed with open arms.
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