Inside the Possum Coat by Patrick G. Roland

“You scary pretty,” she said, settling onto the lattice bench. She wasn’t her, but she looked at me the same way, as if she knew the part. Ever since Celeste’s funeral, I kept finding her inside strangers. I checked the time out of habit. The second hand trembled near the six. The woman was small inside a brown trench coat made of possum fur, seams hand-stitched with thick black wax taxidermy thread. The woman kept her eye on me, then threw a coin into the fountain beside us.

“One wish for you,” she said.

I didn’t get to make one. It all moved too fast. Like most things.

“Dis one mine!” She hurled another over the fountain into the big-leaf bush. I tracked its shimmer, but her donut breath broke my aim. Sugar-rot. It transported me back to that night in the park—two years ago, Celeste dropped two hot chocolates, blamed steaming mittens, pointed at the toppled porta-potty.

I looked at the fountain, thousands of wishes crowded the bottom. I pictured a 1965 quarter, my private favorite, the year the Dead formed. I hummed, trying to tug one back. She joined, our harmony sounded like conjuring a ghost we’d both loved differently. All those wishes, not one of them for her. Mine? Only she knows.

I tried to conjure my wish back to the surface, ask it a question. Scarlet Begonias was playing somewhere in the back of my skull. Suddenly, a quiver ran through my stomach. This morning’s back-alley fries and a shot of Malort. I pushed from the bench and stumbled toward the fountain. The taste of wormwood writhed in my throat. I hadn’t cried since Pittsburgh. Hadn’t prayed since the hospital chapel. I thought I might start now, right there beside the fountain, where strangers’ wishes rot. The fountain sparkled like a communion chalice. Holy, useless, and maybe just mystic enough to take this from me. I stumbled toward it, holding my breath.

The bottom of the fountain looked like a cloudy mood ring, dotted with silver. Calming. Like the aurora tattoo on Celeste’s thigh. The one she said was an ocean wave. I always said I would take her north to dance under a rippling sky. A hand palmed the back of my head and shoved my face into the murky water. Ice cold. Her nails tickled behind my ears, like they’d been there before. American Beauty, 1970, drifted up.

I pushed back but noticed some of the coins were pennies. I wondered if my wish was a penny. The hand pulled me back out of the fountain. I sputtered fountain water onto my shoes.

“You gonna ralph, still?” she asked, drying her hand on the possum fur. “Cool dip make me feel better.”

I shook my head and slid algae from my hair with two fingers. I looked at the second hand on my watch as it froze on the six. I looked at her hair. It had a green tint, too, but not from fountain water. Cold water walked down my spine. I didn’t let myself shiver.

“This your backpack?”

I nodded.

“It too fancy for you,” she said, and rummaged.

“Thirsty,” she decided. “You got no change. You da poor man. I da rich lady.” She rolled up her sleeve and scooped two dollars and a string of something green from the fountain. She wiped them both on my sleeve, and limped off. Somewhere overhead, the escalator kept grinding upward. It reminded me of the ventilator in Celeste’s hospital room.

The woman could’ve been a hundred years old. Could’ve been twenty-five with a hard life. She spent one of her wishes on me. I didn’t spend a single one on her.

She returned with a Mountain Dew, condensation beading into small constellations, and she draped the possum coat over my wet shoulders. “For sitting with me,” the woman said, “since you don’t like to talk.” My lips parted, but her dark-celadon hair brushed them shut.

Warm and scratchy, it nuzzled my neck. The scent was sawdust and cinnamon. Dad’s woodshop that winter. The winter Celeste first complained of headaches. She danced to oldies music while I rough-cut reindeer from yellow poplar to sell half-off. She said people would buy anything if it was half off, even if it gave them splinters.

At the escalator she folded, slow as dusk. A crowd gathered. Two guards emerged from behind the long-leaf plant. A woman in baggy clothes began CPR.

I stood, needing one more look before I couldn’t. I won’t miss another last look. I took a step. She looked at me. Or at the coat. As I stared, I thought about why I kept seeing her in strangers, even in the nurse who held her hand when I couldn’t.

Something was tapping in the possum pocket. A photo of a man stuck to a silver watch. His hollow face staring.

Paramedics slid a white sheet over her and rolled her away on a gurney with one wobbly wheel.

I had no change, so I tossed my watch into our fountain and floated the picture on the rippling water. Green streaks from my hair drifted across the surface. And I wished that every coin she ever threw would swim back to her palm, still slick, still cool from the water, follow her into whatever dark sky would have her, and sit beside her there, and call her scary pretty. And mean it.

I stood by the bench, wrapped in purring possum heat, humming Brokedown Palace or maybe Stella Blue. I pulled a picture out of my backpack and slid it into the fuzzy pocket. “Celeste,” I said. Out loud this time. I left the backpack for someone fancier. The coat shifted against my shoulder, making a low hum soft enough to put me to sleep.

Patrick G. Roland

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay – A silver fountain against a black background