Barry Hannah - Airships

Harry Monroe studied the standing brooch on her chest. Do you pull it out? And because the brooch looked silly sticking in the old lady, he walked to her quickly and snapped it out, then flung it down the hall at the back of the house.

He unlocked the door, and there was big Mr. Silas, asking, “What is occurring? I’ve got the lover here.” The old man was riding piggyback on Silas’s huge shoulders; he had combed his white hair back with his own drunkardly, lonely spit, using his fingers, and he was scared to death. The two men waddled in, looking at Mother Rooney.

Monroe ran at Silas and slugged him in the eyes and Silas abandoned the old guy and fell into the dining room upon Monroe. A brawl could be heard by Mother Rooney. The table went over. Silas was reaching for Monroe, who kicked away and whimpered, and that was what the brawl amounted to.

The old boy lay dazed in the lobby, fallen where he was shucked off Silas. He had landed hard and didn’t move. Then his body, with its ruined hairdo, started sliding on the slick boards, face up, down toward Mother Rooney. He moved on down and she saw he was really a red old drunk.

The first ambulance crew thought he was the one and rolled him out expertly. The second crew noticed the woman bleeding. But she was standing now, and went out to the ambulance walking. One of the ambulance men had to go in and break off Silas from Monroe, and now Monroe was another case, and Mother Rooney sat beside him and petted him, all the way to the hospital.

Barry Hannah is the author of eleven other books: Geronimo Rex, Ray, The Tennis Handsome, Nightwatchmen, Captain Maximus, Hey Jack, Boomerang, Never Die, Bats Out of Hell, High Lonesome , and Yonder Stands Your Orphan . He has been honored by the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and was nominated for the American Book Award for Ray and the National Book Award for Geronimo Rex , which won the William Faulkner Prize. He also received the 2003 PEN-Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.