One of the shortest stories I’ve ever written clocks in at under 1500 words — a miracle, for me.
It’s based on a true story from some years ago, maybe the early to mid-’90s, the details of which I no longer remember. I do remember that the true story, too, took place in New York City. And without any hesitation at all, I can say I never forgot the most surprising ingredient in the story; that was part of the true story, as well.
Forager
Clay was lost that night somewhere way the hell out in the West 50s. Wind-blown, tacking erratically from one side to the other of the narrow cross streets, holding himself erect in painstaking dignity as he traversed the broad avenues. Muttering. Cursing the drivers of the rare passing cars. Enjoying but at the same time trying like hell to walk off the effects of the nearly full bottle of MD 20/20 that the teenage couple had left behind in the park when they fled, yelling, from his ragged bearded countenance suddenly rising up out of the bushes, fumbling with his stubborn, twisted zipper.
Shutting his eyes a moment, still in motion, he collided, kaboom, smack in the bull’s-eye of his goddam crotch with one of those goddam standpipes, and lurched, doubled over, around the corner of a building and into an alley. That’s when he saw it.
