Feisty Fern #10

Hot, wet air poured in Harry’s police car window like bathwater. After the last drag of his cigarette, he tried to breathe the humid air, but between the moisture and the smoke he was failing. Breathing that Richmond air after a smoke was like drowning.

Harry flicked the cigarette butt out onto the Broad Street sidewalk. Sweat soaked his short sleeved summer uniform and ran down his forehead into his eyes, unable to evaporate into the saturated air.

“The heat of the Virginia summer is a frigid ice capade compared to the fires of hell!” a man cried from across the street. He wore a dirty white T-Shirt with a black cross on the front. Scraggly black hair, graying at the ends, hung around a leathery face. A greasy beard reached down and licked the collar of his shirt. There was a white plastic bag in his right hand. He was the type of guy who had plenty of room to walk down a crowded street, due to his smell, if not his appearance.

Harry’s blue eyes focused on the shouting man. The brow atop his chubby face was furrowed with deep wrinkles. He sat straighter in his squad car, trying to unstick his sweaty ass from the vinyl seats.

“Stop sinning in the bars of the Fan; the Fan cannot keep you cool in hell!” the religious man continued.

Harry was parked east of Belvidere, and the religious man walked past him moving west. He also continued admonishing the sinners of Richmond’s Fan district.

Two teenagers, one with a shortly cropped red Mohawk and the other with his ears gauged with rings over an inch in diameter confronted the man.

Harry stepped out of his police car. He walked down the street, opposite the religious man.

It was difficult to overhear what the teens said to the man, but the man’s reply was easily heard. His gibberish was impossible to decipher, but its message was clear. The two teens left. Speaking in tongues had a way of keeping non-believers at a safe distance.

A red handkerchief from Harry’s back pocket wiped the sweat from his face. Black boots clicked the sidewalk. He blended into a small crowd as best a man in a blue uniform can. People crossed the street to avoid the shouting fanatic, which gave Harry more cover.

The preacher stopped just outside the bus stop across from Aladdin’s Express. The sun shone off the tinted black glass on the sides of the bus stop shelter in the places that weren’t covered in flyers and posters.

The preacher pulled a can of spray paint from the plastic bag. He gave a quick glance around. The can clicked as he shook it rapidly.

Harry broke from the crowd and started across the four lanes of traffic.

Green paint sprayed onto the tinted glass in a soft arc. The preacher reached the can back by his right ear and shook vigorously again.

A hand closed around the can and tore it from the preacher’s hand. The unwashed man turned and looked up at Harry, who was several inches taller. He was intimidating despite his fat face and sweaty appearance. And it was not just because of his badge. His blue stare looked down into sad eyes, which were set in under jutting brows. They stood like that, probing for answers in each other’s face for several seconds.

Harry raised the can of spray paint. The preacher covered his face with his hands. His nails were ragged and had dirt under them. With a quick motion, Harry added to the preacher’s graffiti rather than punishing him for it.

Before the preacher could uncover his face, Harry had walked several steps toward his car. The preacher looked and saw that the Jesus fish he set out to paint on the bus stop had been completed by the police officer.