#every so often

Bandages soaked in tannic acid had been Geoffrey’s rather outdated idea of first aid, which caused the affected areas to form a hard, black shell over top. As Harry examined himself he could see that the left side of his jawline had gone black in a crescent-moon shape that mercifully stopped just short of the corner of his eye.  The lower half of his left ear was now a withered mockery of what it had once been. The burn wounds continued down the side of his neck and onto his back – these had been the parts where the collapsed building had pressed most heavily to his skin – and he had been lucky, he thought, that the fire had started on the face of the building opposite the side that had struck him. This good fortune had bought him time. Had Billy arrived any later the flames would have eaten all the way through the wood and his clothes would have caught, leaving him in even worse condition than he was currently in.

The physical pain was difficult to bear, and soon he was hunting through his cabinet for some colloidal silver and some painkillers. The emotional damage was immeasurable and it had no treatment. His mind wandered back to the family in the punch bowl, the carnage, the sounds, the smell. The horror of it was too big for his body and his mind began to slow. It was as though he were attached to the present on a thin thread, and dwelling for too long on the events of the last two days threatened to sever it. He would float through the day, he told himself. He would do his best to be a real doctor, and a good one at that, even to the likes of Danny Smalls. Anything less and he would lose the war he had been fighting with himself for nearly ten years.

When an impatient knock at the door pulled him away from his painkillers before he could take a single dose he knew the moment of truth had arrived. He steeled his nerves, approached the front hallway, and prepared himself to be annoyed beyond measure the moment it opened. It turned out that he didn’t even need to lift a finger for Danny to deliver on that front. Harry’s hearing was magnified, as it so often was when his headaches came about, and he heard the visitors’ voices through the door clear as day.

“Uncle Marty, why can’t Danny stay with us?” He heard a young voice say from behind the door.

“Because he’s very sick and needs to be with a doctor.” Marty explained.

“He’s lying to you, kid. This guy’s not a real doctor!” There was the voice of Mr. Smalls, and Harry’s face contorted into a grimace at the sound of it.

“Danny-” Said Marty.

“He puts tinies in jars, Mikey. Keeps them as specimens. He doesn’t even have a licence!”

“Danny!” Marty’s scolding grew in intensity.

“He exploded your uncle’s motor car, too. That’s why we had to take a taxi.”

"Really?" The little boy chirped.

Harry’s fingers curled around the doorknob and squeezed it so tightly that, if said doorknob were Danny Smalls, he would have squeezed the little man to death. Then he breathed in deeply, just as he did whenever his father was coming over, then swung the door open with a flourish. He beamed at the smug little American ass-hat with all the fake zest he could muster.

“Mister Smalls! What a pleasure. You look… alive.” He said as he locked eyes with the tiny man standing in Marty’s palms.

It was the closest thing to a compliment Harry could pay him. Danny’s face was swollen and bruised, and his own fake smile matched Harry’s, he noted, though Danny’s was arguably faker. The miniature now sported not one, but two obnoxiously charming, microscopic gold teeth – a canine and first premolar, to be exact. Harry’s own teeth began to grind at the sight of them.

“…Harry.” Danny replied, barely maintaining his own feigned enthusiasm. “You’re looking awfully vertical yourself.”

“Are you a real doctor?” Interjected a young boy of about seven years old with a messy bird’s nest of blonde hair, who Harry pegged as Mikey.

Marty cleared his throat uncomfortably from where he stood at the center of it all, and extended his hands towards Harry as he lectured the boy.

“Now now, Mikey, doctor Avery here is a very competent professional. I’m sure Danny will be well taken care of.”

“Oh of course he will be, Mr. Hammerson.” Said Harry as the skeptical child monitored his every move.

He held out his right hand for Danny to step onto it and-

“Not like that!” Danny barked.

Harry’s smile soured and he added a second hand into the mix.

“NOT LIKE THAT!” Danny responded, and swatted Harry’s fingers with the hairpin when they drew close.

Mikey was giggling at his misfortune all the while.

“What’s the matter?” Asked Harry.

“Straighten out your fingers.” Danny ordered. “I can’t climb over things like Joe can. Hold them like you’re feeding a horse. You ever fed a horse? You know how to feed a horse, don’tcha?”

“I know how to do it! I could show you.” Mikey volunteered, which only added insult to injury.

Harry, who had been born in a remote hamlet in rural Manitoba, felt his right eyelid twitch at the mere question. The absurdity of it! Had Harry ever fed a horse? The horse named Diamond that pulled him and his siblings to the schoolhouse on a wagon every day? The family horse that Harry fed each morning? That horse?

He looked down his nose at the spoiled little movie star and through his bared teeth he growled,

“Yes, Mr. Smalls. I know how to feed a horse.”

Then he straightened his fingers out as flat as they could possibly go and simmered with frustration while Danny stroked his chin and evaluated them.

“Okay. Tilt your hands outward a little bit more and I’ll get on.” Danny said.

“Thank the Lord.” Said Marty.

There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that Marty was glad to be rid of Danny. He could tell from the dark circles under the poor man’s eyes that the little tyrant had been keeping him up at night. As Danny limped onto Harry’s hands, he could sense from the feeling of his gait alone that he shouldn’t even be on his feet.

“Hinterhaus ordered bedrest.” Said Marty, reading Harry’s look of growing dismay.

“So why isn’t he in bed?” Asked Harry.

Marty raised his eyebrows and gave Harry a look from over his spectacles that seemed to say, you know damn well why he isn’t in bed.

“Have fun.” Was Marty’s answer.

With that, the lawyer turned and left with Mikey in tow.

“Can I stay too?” The little boy pleaded. “Please? I wanna stay and play with Danny.”

“Later. Let the poor man rest!” Marty said, and as the two set off down the street Danny called after them.

“Annoy your uncle for me, will ya’? He hid those toy soldiers of yours in his desk at the office, by the way.”

That got an impish smile out of Mikey, who was no doubt learning well from his role model.

“Wait! Mr. Hammerson!” Harry stood helplessly in the doorway as the words escaped him.

He could feel Danny’s weight in his hands, his unsteady balance, his shaky right foot. He knew that Danny needed some form of monitoring from someone, but when the two stopped and looked back at him, it took everything in him not to say, please take him back, I’ve made a terrible mistake. His own sense of shame was the only thing stopping him from doing so.

“…I’m sorry I exploded your motor car.” Was what Harry said instead.

That, to Harry’s surprise, was met with hysterical laughter from Marty Hammerson.

“Don’t you worry about me, doctor. I’m sure to bag a landmark insurance case thanks to you.” He said, and kept laughing all the way down the street.

Lawyers, Harry noted, rivaled only miniatures in their eccentricity. He let the door sing shut behind him and looked down at Danny, whose displeasure matched his own. Noting that Danny preferred Harry’s right hand, he let his left hand fall to his side and although he saw it coming a mile off, he resisted the urge to flinch when Danny rapped his thumb with his walking stick and gave him more orders.

“Walk very slowly, now – ow! And don’t make any sudden movements.” Said Danny.

Harry, who was all too eager to put him down, chauffeured him to the parlour table as smoothly as he could manage and lowered him onto it.

“That’s good – that’s good.” Said his new backseat driver. “Don’t tilt your hand like that. Think of it like an elevator platform. There! Thank you.”

Danny hobbled off of Harry’s hand. As Harry knelt before the coffee table, he watched him turn and look up at him as if to study him.

Neither man said it, but it was obvious they were both thinking the same thing:

Now what?

Harry rose, licked his chapped lips, and tried to come up with a plan on the spot.

“I’m going to get you a bed.” He said.

“You don’t already have one?”

Harry scowled over his shoulder at Danny as he left.

“That’s just how we do things in Canada, I’m afraid. If you want luxury medical care, go back to Hollywood and pay a premium for it.”

To Harry’s immense satisfaction his words appeared to get a rise out of Danny. He watched in delight as the movie star’s face reddened and he raised a finger to protest.

“Hey, you listen here, Henry-” Danny began.

“Harry.”

“Whatever!”

Harry was long gone before Danny could utter another word of his rebuttal. In the upstairs bathroom he fetched the hand towel, which he had kept freshly laundered, and the soap dish, then took a moment to appreciate the wrongness of what he was about to do. He had been keeping the bed comfy and fresh for whenever Joe decided to join him in the bedroom again. To give it to Danny felt almost like a betrayal of sorts, much as Joe would have done the same thing.

When he returned to the parlour his eyes fell on a headline in the paper: RIVERDALE ZOO RESCUED FROM RUIN.

Danny had spotted the headline too and clicked his tongue indignantly at it.

“An entire town burns to the ground and everyone’s carrying on about the firefighters saving the zoo. Never mind that they were too late to save the people! Go figure.” He said.

As Danny tutted over the tabloid Harry took a moment to evaluate him in detail. His face was covered in bruises, and Harry could tell from the bandaging on his head that he had likely suffered a concussion. He wasn’t even using his right leg now, opting to put all his weight onto the hairpin instead. A tailored tan suit covered the rest of him, but Harry could only guess from the way that Danny was clutching his side that he had taken a share of abdominal damage as well.

By the time Harry set the soap dish onto the table all the pettiness had drained out of him. Jealousy or no jealousy, licence or no licence, healing the sick and injured was simply what he did.

“Could you sit down on this for me, Mr. Smalls?” He said, as though he were addressing any other patient.

Danny turned around, and his face twisted into a smirk at the sight of the soap dish.

“This your idea of a hospital bed?” He quipped.

Harry didn’t bother to tell him it had been his idea of a miniature’s bed. He could already guess how Danny would react.

“If you don’t like it I could always send you back to Marigold Acres.” He argued instead.

That managed to extract some degree of compliance out of Danny. Chagrinned, Harry’s patient hopped over to the soap dish and sat down on it with his bad leg sticking out, scowling at it as if in anticipation. He seemed to know what Harry was about to say next.

“That leg doesn’t look very good.”

Harry could faintly hear Danny breathe the words not this again through his new gold teeth. He glared up at Harry with all the hatred a Hollywood manly man could possibly harbour for a doctor trying to help him and said,

“Come on. Don’t we have bigger things to worry about? Don’t you wanna find out where Joe’s gone off to?”

Harry did want to do that as a matter of fact, and as Danny sat there and scowled at him Harry could only resent the fact he was stuck on babysitting duty instead.

“I do, and I plan to, but if you want to come with me you’ll need to be able to walk.” Harry said.

He ventured over to his black bag and pulled out a lens from his ophthalmoscope, then loomed over Danny as politely as he could as he examined him through it. With the gears in his swimming head finally starting to turn, he knelt down closer and extended a hand towards the injured leg, causing Danny to lurch back and reach for his hairpin as if to strike. Harry froze.

“I’m not going to touch it.” He assured his patient. “I just want to know what happened to it.”

“Torn ligament.” Danny admitted, and Harry grimaced at those words. “It was almost healed too, then it had to go and get worse on me.”

“And whose fault was that?” Harry sneered as Danny’s leg shook under the magnifier.

He couldn’t help but marvel at the details the lens was able to pick up. Now he could see every seam on Danny’s pant leg. 

“Hollywood’s when you get down to it.” Said Danny, as Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “The first time I tore it, they gave me two weeks to get better. After that, I had to get back to dancing.”

Harry winced at the words first time.

“And you listened to them?” He asked.

“Of course I did!” Said Danny. “I’d be out of a job if I didn’t. I’m no Charlie Chaplin. Tiny guys like me, we’re replaceable. A dime a dozen. We might fetch a pretty penny here and there if we have a nice face, but that’s all we’re good for.” Harry could see that Danny had gone rigid with anger through the lens. “They buy your face first and then they mold you into whatever they want you to be, and there’s plenty of faces just like mine in the world.”

Harry set the lens down as he listened. He was finding it harder and harder not to feel a little sorry for Danny.

“If the execs say you gotta dance, you dance for ‘em, and you do it all with a smile on your face.” Danny concluded.

Harry had no idea what to make of it. He had imagined Hollywood to be a magical place of fun and excess, not the nightmare Danny was describing.

“How long have you been doing this to yourself?” Harry’s voice was shaky with bewilderment.

“Since Taking the Cake, so a little over a year before I stopped.”

Harry found it unsurprising that Taking the Cake had been the culprit from what little he had seen of it. Now he wished he had paid closer attention at the movies.

“That was the one set in a kitchen, wasn’t it?” He said, hoping to rope Danny in to sharing one of his war stories, and Danny lit up.

“Yeah! You’ve seen it, huh? Didn’t know you were a fan of my stuff.” He laughed as Harry internally bristled. “It’s that part with the waffle iron, where my leg gets stuck in it and my pals are pulling me out. In one of the takes I really was stuck, and they nearly pulled my leg clean off by accident.” Danny scratched his head. “I think that was the one that made it to the final cut, come to think of it.”

Harry hadn’t been paying attention to that part of the film, but it would be sure to haunt him the next time he came across it. It was eerie to think that any director would be willing to show a real accident to an audience.

“It’d get worse, then it would get better, then it would get even worse than it had been.” Danny continued. “Then it almost healed, almost… and then the fire happened and undid all my progress.” Danny gestured unceremoniously to his injured leg. “And that’s my leg. Might as well cut the damn thing off at this point.”

“I don’t think we have to go that far…” Harry trailed off and scratched at his own bandages as he tried to think. “I could try splinting it if you’ll let me, or… help you splint it yourself.” He added, hoping it would entice the skeptical looking Danny to agree to it.

“I dunno, Doc… you’re kinda big. And unlicensed.” Danny tilted his head from side to side as he sized Harry up.

“I’ve treated Joe before.” Harry said. “And you saw that interview. You know the CPSO has a vendetta against miniatures in the office.”

Although Danny’s nose was wrinkled, Harry knew he had him when he said, “okay, just don’t tie it too tight.”

“I won’t.” Harry assured him. “Whatever you say goes.”

“That’s a new one.”

Harry couldn’t deny that there was a small sense of satisfaction that came from tending to Danny like a wounded bird. At the very least, the little rascal wouldn’t have any right to turn the children against him now, provided Harry splinted him properly.

Of course, this raised the question of how to splint him. Harry was hardly one to entertain guests, so he had no toothpicks available. Even if he did, he questioned how well such a thing would scale to Danny’s leg. He leaned in close once again with the lens in hand, his fingers creeping closer towards his guarded patient.

“I’m not going to touch you.” Harry repeated, though Danny reached for his hairpin all the same.

As he studied Danny he was fascinated by how differently built he was compared to Joe; tall and sturdy-looking as Danny was, he would have presumed Joe to be the dancer between them if he didn’t know any better.

“Hold on.” Harry said.

Taking mental inventory of all the bits and bobs lying about the house, Harry’s mind landed on the wire that held up his picture frames. It would be the right size and thickness to support Danny’s weight, but still bendable enough for Harry that, if he was lucky, he could form a makeshift brace out of it. The photograph of aunt Emily that hung in the hallway made a worthy sacrifice for his experiment. He took the portrait down and haphazardly cut the wire from the back to size with a pen knife. The shiny metal wire reminded him of the leg braces he encountered on polio patients, and he twisted each wire into a capital-B shape, hoping that he could run some gauze through each loop and curve them around the back of Danny’s calf and thigh to keep the leg from bending. He then left a small length of wire at the bottom that he bent to each side to sit underneath the foot.

It would take care of the leg well enough, Harry reasoned, but it wouldn’t do much for the pain. His mind wandered back to the salix bark that he had harvested on his outing with Joe. He set the kettle down to boil in the hopes some pain management might make Danny easier to work with. As he dug around for gauze to cut down to size, the pain from Harry’s own wounds threatened to wear his patience thin.

He returned to the parlour with his supplies in hand and his blood ran cold when he was met with an empty table.

“Danny!?”

Harry’s eyes darted from the couch, to the piano, to the staircase in search of any kind of movement. A million nightmare scenarios played out between his ears as he wondered what he would say to Marty and the Hills in the event of Danny’s untimely death. Yet he owed it to Joe to keep himself under control, and that was what Harry tried his best to do as he scanned the floor in search of the severely injured man who was about the size of his thumb, thankful that he didn’t own a cat. 

Then there was a rustling sound from the hallway behind him, and Harry turned around to see that Danny was making a bold, though no less pathetic attempt to climb onto the telephone stand from the cord on the phone as Joe often did.

“Danny, what are you doing?” He asked.

“I need your telephone directory.” Danny grunted.

“Why?”

“So I can cross-reference the names in it with the ones on Dawson’s list.” Danny explained as he threw all his upper body strength into heaving himself up the cord.

It didn’t get him very far. He made it half an inch and slid back down, only to start over again. From where he crouched over Danny Harry could see the wild look in the tiny man’s silver eyes, and he couldn’t even bring himself to resent him now. He could only feel sorry for him, for the both of them were truly stuck in the same boat.

After one final attempt, Danny relented.

“I know you’re gonna say no, but can you grab it for me?” He asked.

Harry savoured the way Danny lit up in surprise when he took it down for him. Then he sternly rolled it up and jabbed it in his direction.

“Only once I’ve splinted your leg.” Harry said.

Danny nodded reluctantly, and Harry held out his hands as flat as they would go and carried him back to the table.

“I’m surprised you don’t have walkways like the Hills do.” Said Danny. “Lifts, too. I bet Joe would love those. That way he could get around the whole house if he wanted to.”

“I’m sure he would…” Harry trailed off, stricken with guilt at the fact that he had never even thought to build any.

As he glanced about the parlour, he realized there were precious few places where a miniature could reach eye level, and Harry made note of it for later as he placed Danny back on the table and set the directory down along with him. That was when the kettle whistled to a boil and dealt Harry psychological harm in the process. He kept his eyes glued to Danny for as long as he could as he raced to shut the dreadful thing up. Remembering Billy’s ginger tea recipe, he adapted it accordingly and tossed in a coin-shaped slice of the bark. He could only hope that the end result wouldn’t turn Danny too green in the face. To his surprise, when he returned to the parlour he found that Danny was right where he had left him this time, though his eyes were still glued to the phone directory.

Harry sank down to his knees and looked from the wires and gauze to Danny.

“So.” He began. “How are we going to do this?”

“You’re the doctor.” Was Danny’s curt reply.

“Yes, and I’ve heard a thing or two about what you like to do to doctors.” Those words got Danny to crack a smile, oddly enough. “I have two wire splints here. You see them? I have some gauze as well. How would you like me to do this?”

Danny appeared puzzled at first, but as Harry’s cheeks began to redden he quickly got the message.

“Well, I’m not taking my pants off if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Relieved, Harry nodded and readied his splints.

“I’ll tie it on over your trousers then, though it won’t be as secure. I’ll have to pull it tight but not too tight. Let me know if it hurts or if your leg feels cold or tingly.”

“Whatever you say, Henry. Let’s just get this over with.” Danny sighed.

“That’s doctor Henry to you.” Harry beckoned Danny forward. “Sit down, and keep your leg as straight as you can…”

Deciding Danny’s trouser leg would provide reasonable padding, Harry took the thin ribbon of gauze and loosely threaded it through the loops in the wire splints, then began to tie the wires onto Danny’s leg. He worked slowly, gradually bending the microscopic loops to conform to the injured leg as he went, taking great care not to make the damage even worse as he did so. Danny, to Harry’s surprise, hardly protested. It wasn’t like treating Joe, who kept his teeth gritted and his eyes shut. Danny was all too used to the presence of giant fingers, to such an extent that he struck up conversation almost immediately.

“So… did you really put Joe in a jar?” Danny asked as casually as one would ask about the weather.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and stopped tying.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re a bad guy or anything. It’s just…” Danny’s tone became cloyingly tactful. “You know what you giants used to use jars to do to us, right? What you still use jars to do to us...?”

Harry ran a hand through his hair and returned his focus to his work as sweat gathered on his temples.

“I can hazard a guess.” Said Harry.

“So why’d you do it?”

That was the million-dollar question Harry couldn’t answer, and it cut through him like a knife.

“I lost my temper. I wasn’t thinking.” Was the most he could say of it.

As his large fingers kept on threading the gauze through the loops, he appreciated how delicate even Danny, the tallest and broadest miniature he had encountered yet, appeared in comparison. It was only now in hindsight that he appreciated how scary those hands must have been to poor Joe when he had reached out and snatched him.

“What else did Joe tell you?” Said Harry.

Danny snorted.

“Joe didn’t tell me about that. Billy did.”

“…oh.”

The splint was only halfway tied, and Harry feared that tying the rest of it would take an eternity. To rush the process would cause harm to Danny, so he gritted his teeth and kept working slowly and steadily.

“He didn’t tell me about it be mean.” Danny said. “Hell, Billy’s anger issues have anger issues.” The miniature laughed. “He just… y’know, he told me to be careful. That’s how he is.”

Harry could hardly fault Billy for doing such a thing. He would have done the same thing with Joe, he now realized.

“I wish I knew why I did it.” Harry said, more to himself than to Danny.

“Maybe that’s the wrong thing to be wondering about.” Danny suggested.

Harry furrowed his brow in response.

“Maybe – ” Danny grunted in what Harry thought was pain, and Harry withdrew his hands momentarily “ – what you need to sort out first, is why you don’t do that stuff ninety-nine percent of the time. I mean… look.” He gestured to Harry’s frozen hands. “You could mess my leg right up if you really wanted to, you could make sure I never walk again, but I can tell by the way you’re handling this you care too much to do that.”

Harry nodded, though that prickly, possessive part of himself bristled. Did Danny really think they were friends all of a sudden?

“May I keep going?” He asked.

“You may.” Danny said.

Jars. They were another thing that had been given little mention in On the Life and Death of the Miniature. Harry wished he had asked Joe about them when he had the chance, and about Saint Loretta, and everything Joe had experienced from his miniature worldview. The realization sank into Harry that he had fancied Joe on a superficial level for his art and his size, but not for the real nuance of his existence, yet it was the latter he missed the most now that he was gone.

“Joe mentioned a saint of his once. Saint Loretta. Do you know anything about her?” Asked Harry.

Harry pulled the threaded gauze tighter and monitored Danny’s face closely as he did so. The man was frustratingly hard to read. No matter what Harry did to him, he just kept on smiling.

“Never heard of her.” Danny replied.

With the gentle tying of a bow, the splint was complete.

"Now we just have to test it out." Said Harry. Noting that the hairpin had fallen several inches away from where Danny sat, he motioned to pick it up and move it closer to him. "I'm just going to..."

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Danny barked.

His voice rang out louder than Harry had ever heard it before. The giant stopped, and looked from Danny to the hairpin. Although he would have a dreadful time standing up without it, a look of genuine fear had crept into Danny's face for the first time since his arrival, and his one outstretched arm shook in alarm. Thoroughly confused, all Harry could do was draw back his hand yet again.

Danny rubbed his forehead and sighed.

"Look, I get that it's your house and I get that you're the doctor and everything, but could you do me a favour? If I don't ask you to do something for me, don't do it, all right?"

A frown spread over Harry's face and Danny crossed his arms in defiance.

"Why? So you can gallivant about when I'm not looking?" Harry protested. "You shouldn't be on your feet, even you know that, and you shouldn’t be stumbling around either. If I don't help you up then-"

"-then whatever happens to me is my choice, and you'll just have to respect that."

Much to Harry's consternation he could only watch as Danny scooted across the table towards the hairpin.

"Maybe Joe liked to be coddled like that, but I don't.” He said.

Coddled. The word struck a nerve with Harry. He hadn’t really coddled Joe, had he?

“You don't understand the damage that kinda stuff does to you. One minute some kind soul is helping you pick up your walking stick, and the next thing you know they start making up your own mind for you. Deciding what you get to eat, where you get to go, when you get to use the bathroom... all of it for your own good, of course." Harry watched as Danny took the hairpin in his hands and slowly pried himself off of the floor with it, hoisting himself onto his good leg first and then wedging his splinted leg underneath himself until he was able to put weight on it. "It's like a trap, Harry. It's a cage. It closes in on you and you never get out again. Before you know it, you're a person who's treated no better than a thing."

Danny exuded defiance as he stood on his splinted leg, and Harry's heart sank as he took in his words. He thought of all the times Joe had defied him like that. All the times Harry had thought himself justified in coming to his rescue. Something Joe said on the night of the argument weighed heavy on his conscience.

You're just like those other doctors. Making me prove shit to you. My honesty, my capabilities, my own fucking humanity, and no matter what I do it's never enough! You don't want it to be enough because your mind's already been made up!

Joe had been right: Harry's mind had been made up. He had made the mistake of thinking he knew what Joe really wanted, or what he really needed, or what he really thought. Now here he was, doing the very same thing to Danny.

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." He muttered.

Danny limped irritably around the tabletop as he tested out the splint.

"Don't apologize. I've heard a million apologies, Henry. Just do better. That's how I'll know I can trust you." Danny said, and stopping cold he added, "Now that that's over with, can you unroll this phone directory for me?"

-

The splint and the salix had done the trick to mollify Danny, at least for the moment. The man still refused to sleep, Harry noted, though he had slowed down considerably. By the time afternoon rolled around Danny was reclining in the soap dish with his leg elevated and using the hairpin to flip through the pages of the phone directory. With his own wounds still throbbing, Harry seized this golden opportunity to take a dose of morphine and lie down for a spell. As he walked past the ring in the upstairs bedroom, now reunited with the diamond that he had haphazardly set onto the shank, he thought back on what Danny had told him. What had it been, Harry wondered, that had made him lose his temper? What was it that didn’t make him lose his temper?

Obnoxious whistling filled his ears. Danny was all the way downstairs, but with Harry’s heightened senses the little bastard may as well have been sitting on his shoulder and whistling straight into his ear canal. He could feel his temper rising again, and his eyes wandered to the remains of the jar. He imagined himself with an intact one, lifting Danny up as he had Joe, telling the little man off with fire in his eyes. Something felt off about it. It wasn’t the sort of thing Harry could motivate himself to do at this point. Danny was still a person to Harry, too much of one to put into a jar like a caterpillar.

As the whistling pierced through Harry’s eardrums, he recognized the tune of the song. He could vaguely recall the lyrics.

“Life is a book that we study

Some of its leaves bring a sigh

There it was written, my buddy

That we must part, you and I…”

Harry’s mind wandered to the recent string of endings in his life. His father had rejected him, his licence had been suspended, and all the while the world had whispered into Harry's ear that Joe was something less than human whose judgment was not to be trusted. Harry had killed his entire relationship with Joe by believing it. When he thought about Billy Hill, a man whose anger issues allegedly had anger issues, who had effortlessly rejected those notions and won the trust of an entire town of tinies nonetheless, Harry felt only envy. He wondered how Billy had done it, and what deficiency in himself was keeping him from doing it.

It wasn’t fear alone that had driven him to trap Joe, he realized. The fear had been only one piece of the puzzle. Harry had put Joe in that jar because he had looked at him and seen a thing instead of a person; a lousy sneak-thief perhaps, a threat to the way the world ought to be most certainly, but not the friend that he was. Furious with himself, he took the broken ring and shoved it into his desk drawer, then eased himself down onto the bed.

It would take time and effort to repair things with Joe, if Harry could ever find him at all. For now, all he could do was languish about in a nauseous haze. His stomach turned at one very important thought: if he was to have any hope of regaining Joe's trust, he would have to start by winning Danny's. In the meantime he would carry forward as he always did whenever he was faced with loss. He would do so quietly, with an empty space carved out of his soul that would never heal again.