RICHARD FEIN
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RICHARD FEIN Footnote to a Horn and Hard Art BankruptcyJuliet all alone on the balcony, and in her reverie reliving her girlhood, until below in the main dining room half a sandwich was abandoned by a man, also alone. And vulture-like she swooped down the stairs and seized it before the busboy plied his trade. The man died in a bathroom stall, hunched over and clutching his stomach. She died halfway up the stairs, never making it back to her balcony, never making it back to her daydreams. The police carried the fallen two out the restaurant door, and word was whispered ear-to-ear till by evening no one sat by any table. But Mr. Horn and Mr. Hardart got their reprieve though they were already long dead. Their names lived on, at least for a while, for the cops broke down the man's flophouse door and on a fractured mirror found a sad sarcastic note about a special spicing up of his last Horn & Hardart sandwich. And so all the patrons returned and loitered one to a table, sipping cold coffee, eating cold baked beans and drinking glass-of-water soups made of complimentary table condiments— all night until the restaurant began closing at midnight, then at ten, then at eight, and finally the once grand cheap-eats emporium closed forever, and its denizens dispersed, each one walking his own night street.
©2006 RICHARD FEIN
