Day 3: Jenny Hanniver

The final version appears rather late on June 3rd.  1:21am on June 4th, in fact.  But I'm glad I kept typing.  I like what happened.

Jenny Hanniver

“I know what you're thinking. A man in a bar makes an outlandish claim, and you figure that the best thing to do is to ignore him and hope he blows over. But I'm sick and I'm cold, and I'm going to say what I'm going to say whether you hear it or not. But you might as well do me the courtesy to listen.”

I looked at him, then, and nodded.

He'd caught me fair and square. He had walked in unsteadily minutes before, water dripping from his hair and his sleeves, and he had leaned to the left as he sat on his stool; he had nearly fallen off when he raised his hand to signal the bartender for a beer. I had taken care not to notice him at all, and sat quietly, not looking to either side. That's how you avoid an entanglement with a wet, surly drunk. And then I gave myself away.

“Mermaids exist,” he had said, and I hadn't reacted. I didn't scoff, or argue with him, or hike off to another corner of the bar. I just sat there as quietly as possible. That's how he knew that he'd gotten my interest.

I drained the last bit of moisture from my glass and signaled for another beer myself. If I was to be trapped by a nut job, I wanted to be comfortable.

“I know this from personal experience. I don't mean I've seen them leaping in the waves, or singing their sirenic songs from the rocks. That's nonsense, you understand? I know them from personal experience. Personal experience where I held one in my arms, friend. Personal experience where I was in love.

“I know what you'll say. First of all that I am delusional.

“Second of all, if I disabuse you of your ridiculous assumption that Science has told us all that there is to know about the creatures that live in the seas and the rivers and that therefore there are no mermaids--if you accept my premise at all--why then you will tell me that I am a sick man, to consort with a creature that is half woman, half fish--why, you will say, that's bestiality. A sickness. That I am sick! Well, I am sick. The cold and the wet tonight have made me sick. But my mind is whole, and I'm no goddam pervert!

“Perhaps I am unkind. Perhaps you accept my premise, and think my love is true. Fair enough: you're a kind and open-minded man. But let me tell you my story. Will you let me do that, Buddy?”

What could I have done?

I could have abandoned my beer, and him. I could have stumbled out the door into the night and the drizzle. I could have refused to hear.

But I wanted to hear.

I nodded.

“Thank you, friend.

“We'd dropped anchor on the Hudson. Just outside Cold Spring. My friend had chartered a boat for the Fourth of July. He hated crowds, and so he spent a little piece of his parents' money to sail us away from that idiocy in the City, up the river to a place where we could drink in peace.

“It was a warm night, so after we watched the Cold Spring fireworks--ten minutes in all--we went to bed. I decided to sleep on the deck. Everyone else went below. Soon I heard their drunken snores.

“I couldn't sleep. Perhaps it was the noise of the water on the side of the boat. Perhaps it was the sense of exposure, or the moon shining in my face. But my eyelids would not shut.

“I walked to the edge of the boat, and dangled my feet over the water.

“I had a momentary fantasy of slipping over the side and floating downstream, past the Bronx and Manhattan, tumbling through the tides of the Hell Gate and the East River, under the bridges, all the way to the harbor, and from there out past Staten Island, past the Shore, being swept into the ocean, being swept out into the ocean surf, where I would drown under the stars. And no one would ever find me again.

“Have you ever had that one?”

I shrugged.

“I'll bet you have. If not on a boat at sea, or on a bridge over a fast-moving river, then at the edge of a high balcony or cliff. I'm not making an assumption about where the fantasy takes place, Friend. I'm just saying: we've all had the thought.

“As I looked down into the water with my dark thoughts, I saw a face. A very serious face, staring up at me. Being drunk, I did the most natural thing: I stuck out my tongue.

“The face disappeared beneath the water. I laughed, because I was sticking my tongue out at a bit of shadow, something that didn't exist.

“But then the face reappeared. I panicked a little bit, because I thought I was going crazy, a little bit. But I did what comes natural. I stuck out my tongue again. This time the face did not disappear. Instead, she stuck out her tongue at me, so I went bblllht!”

Making that sound, he spattered the top of the bar with his saliva. I looked for the bartender, but the man and I were alone. I pushed my half-empty glass away from me, and listened some more.

“When she saw me give her the Bronx Cheer, she disappeared again. And I breathed a little, because I thought, maybe I'm not crazy after all. But curiosity killed the cat, eh? I went to the aft of the boat and sat there, my legs dangling over again, tempting my darker thoughts, looking at the moon over the water.

“That's when she pulled me under. Not for long, you know. Just long enough for me to scream bloody murder and swallow some water. When we came up again we were a good thirty feet from the boat and I was choking and not breathing well enough to really yell.

“She pulled me up on the shore. She was naked, and as beautiful a woman as I'll ever see. No fish tail or scales or anything like that, nothing I could see. But I knew. Or I was starting to guess.

“I coughed up the rest of the water and lay there gasping for a spell. Thank God it was warm. She watched me from a distance. Then she came closer and knelt by my head. I looked up into her eyes. Blue, I think, although it was hard to tell in the moonlight. Her hair was dark, and her skin was, too. Like I said, in the light it was hard to tell.

“She's just staring at me. So I try the old John Smith: 'Who are you? Where are you from? Why did you pull me in the water? And what the hell, why did you pull me out again? I'm grateful you didn't drown me. But couldn't you just say Hi?' Of course, if she's really a mermaid then who knows what language she speaks, right?”

I shrugged again.

“She stares at me still, like I'm some sort of ugly, deformed toad. Then she spoke.

“It was like water being poured into a bowl. I don't know if she was even moving her lips, but this sound fell from her mouth into my ears. It was late, I was drunk, and I'd been dragged through the waters of the Hudson, but that was when I shivered. Her words went right through me and I have no idea what she said.

“She stopped speaking, and waited, as if I was to answer. But now I had run out of things to say. I looked into her wide set eyes and I wondered what she really was seeing. What use are eyes like ours under water? What use were hers in the air?

“I reached up my hand to touch her hair. She let me. Her hair was wet and coarse, but it was hair. My fingers brushed her temples. Cool to my touch, but her skin was soft.

“So I pulled myself up on my elbows, and I tried to kiss her. And she let me.

“She didn't press back. Her lips were cold, and slippery, like they were coated with oil. I felt her breath on my cheek, it was warm. She smelled like the river.

“I leaned back and looked into her eyes. I think she was looking into mine. Up close, her eyes looked like they were covered in a translucent film. But I was very close, you see? In almost every other way, she was exactly like a regular woman.

“And I thought she understood what I wanted.”

The man looked into his empty beer glass. I waited for him to speak again. His story disturbed me, but I was not sure why. Perhaps it was because I thought it might be true.

He sniffled, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“I was an idiot. What did she want? Should have asked myself that.

“It doesn't matter. I found out soon enough.

“It's not like you think, Pal, it's not like that at all. I don't mean it was some kind ethereal holy union. It was physical--I mean I wonder why my friends didn't wake up with the two of us thrashing around on the gravel there. And it was love. I didn't know it then, but I know it now, like I know that fire is hot and water is wet.

“But it's not like you think, Pal. You don't know anything if you think you know what happened to me that night.

“The next morning my friends found me asleep on the deck, covered in scratches and mud. I told them I went for a drunken swim, and made it all the way to the bank of the river and back. Which was true in a way.

“Everyone wanted return to the City that afternoon, but I convinced my friend to keep the boat another night. And another night after that. Everyone else left, took the train back to Manhattan or Hoboken or Queens. But my rich friend put up with me for nearly a week before he insisted on giving up the boat and getting back to his own life in the City.

“The night before we left our spot on the river--my friend again drunk in his berth--I waited for her to come to me. I didn't know how I could tell her that I had to leave. I was sure that by then I'd lost my job and if I didn't get back to the City I'd lose my apartment and everything else. I didn't know how I could tell her that I would come back again soon, no matter what. But that night, at least, I would see her one last time.

“She didn't come. Maybe she knew.

“The next morning we sailed back down the Hudson. I hadn't lost my job, as it turned out. Everything was back to normal, aside from one really uncomfortable conversation with my understanding boss.

“I never made it back up the river. I can't tell you why. Fear, perhaps. Fear that she wouldn't be there. Or perhaps I was afraid she would.

“That was five years ago. I finally did lose my job, my apartment, everything. But I've talked enough, Pal, that's a story for another day.”

He heaved himself off the stool and staggered to the door.

“Thanks for the beer, Friend.”

And he was gone.

I think he was lying. I think he did lose his job. And I think he did go back up the river to see her. I think he goes up there still.

Still, it was a good story. Worth a beer.

But my sister's got some explaining to do.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein