Mary And The Giant

People hurried along Columbus Avenue, and Mary Anne shaded her eyes with her hand to see if he was coming. She held the baby across her shoulder, and the people moved by her on both sides. Presently she saw a gaunt, ambling shape making its way along, hands in its pockets, coat flapping, hair long and umcombed.

"There he is," she said to her son. "You're facing the wrong way." She turned him around to see. "See?"

"You sure look good," Paul Nitz said, arriving shyly.

"You don't; you look like a bum." She kissed him. "Let's go eat. Did you shop?"

"We can shop on the way home," he said.

"Don't you have any money?"

As they walked he searched his coat pockets, bringing up ticket stubs, paper clips, pencils, folded notes. "I guess I gave it to you." He squinted in the glare of the sidewalk. "To one of you, anyhow."

Lagging behind him, Mary Anne strolled along, hugging her son and looking into store windows, as Paul Nitz searched the rest of his pockets. Once she yawned. Once she stopped to peer at a display of imported Scottish pipes and then a shelf of harmonicas. Once she caught up with her husband and leaned against him while the three of them waited for the streetlight to change.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Sleepy. Would you look good smoking a pipe!"

"I'd look like the wrath of God," he answered.

The light changed and, with the other people, they crossed.