Consciousness returned to Harvey very slowly and he pushed himself into a sitting position, with the hand that wasn’t hurting. He couldn’t decide which hurt worse, his head, or his hand. He did know that there was an awful lot of blood around him, and that what used to be the index finger on his right hand was now only a bloody, fleshy red stump. It hurt, in a burning, throbbing, far away sort of pain, but not as much as he would’ve imagined, if he had ever imagined losing an appendage. He felt his body break into a cold sweat. For a moment he thought the coffee he’d had for breakfast was going to make an unwanted reappearance. It didn’t and after a moment Harvey’s head began to clear a little. He tucked the hand with the missing digit into his armpit. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but he could apply pressure that way, maybe slow the bleeding down a little.

He pushed himself up from the floor, his shoes slipping a little in the coagulating blood. Somehow he managed to get himself upright, and he stood in his own plasma assessing the damage and trying to decide what to do. He was surprised that Mack hadn’t heard the noise and come to see what the matter was. Surprised, and grateful. The last thing Harvey wanted was to put more stress on Mack.

A sense of despair covered Harvey like a blanket and he decided not to put off the inevitable. Mack and the rest of the world were better off without him, and his attempt to make things right were a waste of his and everyone else’s time. He spotted his finger on the floor below him, a graying stump in a small puddle of rusty blood. He bent down and picked it up, his head throbbing in protest as he did so. The appendage felt cold and hard and a little greasy. Harvey’s stomach roiled and he quickly slid the thing into his shirt pocket. If they were gonna bury him in the next few days, he thought he should at least have all of his body parts with him.

     He regretted leaving the shop this way for Mack to clean up, but he’d tried, hadn’t he? To do right by Mack?  To do right by Sheila? Nothing he did worked. He was tired, and he was ready to see what the other side of life might have to offer. It had to be better than this. He turned, and went through the lobby and out the door, the little bell jingling happily behind him.

Mack had heard the loud thump somewhere in the building, but he was on the phone with an important client, who just happened to be complaining about an order that had arrived late last week because Harvey had mislaid the order form. He hadn’t found it until after noon on the day it was to have been delivered by nine a.m. No harm was done, the diner had had enough meat in the freezer to fill the morning breakfast orders, but this was the third time this had occurred and Lisa’s Diner was threatening to take their business elsewhere.

Mack managed to calm Jim down (there had never been anyone at Lisa’s diner named Lisa), but he was done looking the other way where Harvey was concerned. He had been as patient as he could, but it was affecting his business and the time had come to do something about it. He hung up the phone, and sat in his chair for a moment working through his anger and trying to think of a way to deal with the situation. In spite of his recent difficulties, Mack still considered Harvey a friend, and knew he was in pain.

Finally,  he decided that maybe he’d give Harvey an ultimatum. “Take a couple of weeks off, Harvey,” Mack would tell him. “I’ll even pay you. But then you come back on a trial basis, maybe with less hours during the week. And if you screw that up, then, well...”

That was more than fair, wasn’t it? Joe, the assistant, was good enough to handle the shop on his own by now, and Mack was sure he’d appreciate the extra hours. Mack pushed himself up off his old desk chair and headed out into the shop to find Harvey, and to see what the big noise was earlier. Turning the corner into the kitchen area, Mack stopped short. An overturned footstool, a spilled bucket of water, and, was that, blood?

What the hell? Mack thought to himself. “Harvey?” he called, stepping closer to the mess on the floor. Yes, indeed that was blood on the floor. “Harvey!” he called louder, looking around. He heard the bell on the front door jingle as it opened. “Harvey?” Mack called, stepping into the lobby.

“What’s going on?” Joe stood in the lobby, eyeing the weird look on Mack’s face.

“I dunno.” Mack answered, gesturing toward the kitchen. “I came out of the office and found all this, but I don’t know where Harvey is.”

The two men walked into the kitchen. Stepping around the mess, Joe said “Have you checked the bathroom? Looks like he cut himself or something.”

“No, Mack said, I just came out and saw this when you came in.”

“I’ll check the bathrooms. You check the alley.” Joe answered. They split up, searching the shop.

A few minutes later, they met again in the kitchen. “Nothing?” Mack asked.

“Nothing.” Joe answered. “What should we do?”  

“Would you mind cleaning this up?” Mack asked, indicating the mess.. “We’ve got a half an hour til we open. I’ll call Harvey’s house and see if he’s gone home.”

They set to their respective tasks, Joe having more success than Mack. The last phone number Mack had for Harvey was disconnected, and Mack had no other way of reaching him. He looked up the number for the local hospital, and called to see if they’d admitted a Harvey Bangor. It took him a moment to convince the receptionist that he wasn’t making a prank phone call and then she told him that no one by that name had been admitted. He stepped outside the front of the shop, and looked both ways down the street, thinking he might see Harvey, but there was nothing. Should he call the police? Maybe he shouldn’t have had Joe start cleaning up the mess yet. Too late for that now, he thought. As unreliable as Harvey had been of late, it hadn’t even crossed his mind that the mess in the kitchen might be a crime scene. Instead, he’d immediately chalked it up to Harvey’s absent-mindedness. After a moment, he went in to help Joe finish cleaning up. The first customers of the day arrived just when they were putting away the cleaning supplies, and Joe tied on an apron and stepped behind the counter to help them. Mack went to his office to get his keys, jacket and cigarettes. He let Joe know that he was going to be gone a bit, around town to a few places Harvey might’ve gone. Joe, in his usual calm manner, just nodded and waved Mack away as the next customer came in the door.

Mack jingled out the door, unlocked his car, and climbed in. He drove around town, first to Harvey’s house, which was empty, and then on over to Sugar Mellon’s. He stepped inside the darkened bar, waved to old man Joseph, who was in his usual seat at the bar, and spotted a dark mass of what looked like Harvey at the other end of the bar. The figure had a bottle of beer in front him, a shot glass, and a half empty bottle of some kind of whiskey. Harvey, despite his name, was a straight beer and straight whiskey kinda guy. Sometimes people who didn’t know him well would buy him a Harvey Wallbanger as a joke, but it just ended up pissing him off and he’d had more than one bar fight because of it. He hated his mother for his name, and had moments where he hated his father for not changing it when he’d had the chance.

Mack could see that Harvey wasn’t in the hating or fighting mood at the moment. As he got closer he saw that Harvey sat with his head hung low, one bandaged hand fiddling with the empty shot glass and the other resting on the whiskey bottle ready to refill the glass. Which he did, somewhat sheepishly, when he glanced up and saw Mack approaching. Harvey tossed back the shot as Mack pulled up a bar stool. He grimaced from the taste and then turned and looked Mack in the face, trying to determine through his somewhat blurry vision what kind of mood Mack was in.

To his surprise Mack didn’t look pissed. He looked tired, and maybe a little worried, but Harvey detected no anger in his face.

“Why was there blood all over my floor?” Mack asked, getting straight to the point.

Harvey laughed dryly and then raised the bandaged hand from the shot glass. Blood had seeped through the bandage where his index finger used to be. Mack felt his stomach lurch. Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t this. But his demeanor gave no indication of his feelings.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Slipped.” Harvey said simply. “Had the blade uncovered.”

“Where’s the finger?” Mack asked, picturing the call he’d have to make back to the shop. He imagined poor Joe crawling around on the floor looking for a bloody severed appendage. But Harvey reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a little package wrapped in gauze. Mack nodded gravely, his wrinkled face still not registering any emotion.

He gestured for Mary, the bartender. “Can I get a beer over here?”

He looked at Harvey. “Don’t you want to go to the E.R.? Get that reattached? We can have Mary put that thing on ice and I’ll drive you over.”

But Harvey was already shaking his head. “Doan matter,” he slurred. “Too late for that anyway. Been over an hour. It doan even hurt n’more.”

He laughed that dry, tortured laugh again. “I think I’ll put it under my pillow t’night and see if the tooth fairy comes.”

Mack was silent. It wasn’t his usual tendency to get too involved in what wasn’t his business and he didn’t have the desire to butt in too much even now, but he figured he could at least stay here with Harvey until he felt it was time to take him home. He didn’t know how many drinks he’d had in just the short time since he’d left the shop, but it didn’t appear that it would take much more before it was passin’ out time for Harvey Bangor.

“Scuse me for a minute, will ya Harvey?” Harvey raised his bandaged hand and waved Mack away.

Mack stepped outside the bar and made the call back to the shop, filling Joe in on the events of the hour, and telling him that he’d be back this afternoon, after he got Harvey home and safely passed out in his bed.

“You’re a good one, Boss,” Joe said, and meant it.

Mack grunted in response, and headed back into the bar. He sat quietly next to Harvey, whose head and shoulders seemed to have sunk even further since Mack had walked outside. Mack nursed his beer slowly, glancing surreptitiously at Harvey every couple of minutes but not attempting any conversation. Harvey wasn’t drinking so fast now. In fact, it had been a bit since he’d refilled the shot glass, and now he was just holding tightly onto the bottle like it was the only thing keeping him from falling off the bar stool. His eyes were closed, and once in awhile he would jerk to right himself as if he was feeling like he was going to fall. Mack finished his beer and gestured for Mary to bring the bill for both. It was steep-- a bottle of whiskey didn’t come cheap at a bar. He paid the bill, left a tip, screwed the lid on the bottle and stuffed it in Harvey’s backpack. It would be a nice surprise for him the next time he reached into his pack. He jostled Harvey to try to wake him a little. Harvey groaned, but opened his eyes.

“Let’s go big man,” Mack said. Harvey mumbled something unintelligible, but tried to cooperate as Mack threw one of his arms around his shoulders, and helped Harvey out to the car.

Back at Harvey’s place it was a struggle to get Harvey inside but Mack managed. With a grunt and a string of cuss words he finally dropped Harvey unceremoniously onto his unmade bed, got his feet up on the mattress and somehow got his coat off.

He turned to toss the coat onto a nearby chair when Harvey suddenly spoke, “Gimme muh finger.”

“What?” Mack asked.

“Finger,” Harvey repeated, his eyes dark. “Gimme muh finger. Wanna put it under muh pillow. The tooth fairy. Gonna make a wish. Sheila....” He mumbled and then trailed off.

Mack hesitated, and then, “Okay.” he said.

He’d learned long ago not to argue with a drunk man, but he’d be damned if he was gonna touch that severed finger. He brought Harvey his coat, and let him fumble into the pockets until he found what he was looking for. He watched with some disgust as Harvey slid it under his pillow an instant before he passed out. Mack tossed the coat back onto the back of the ugly blue chair, and then gripped the comforter at the side of the bed, and used it for leverage to roll Harvey onto his side. He didn’t want any glamorous rock star deaths on his conscience. He covered Harvey as best he could and found a trash can to place by the bed. He walked through the house, turning on a couple of lights in case Harvey woke up later. He locked the door of the house behind him as he headed back to the shop. It was getting dark already, and as he climbed into his car he found himself wondering what time the tooth fairy usually came.

Next Chapter: 3.