Fractious Read Free Page A

the bench, took off his bright green top hat and whacked me over the head with it.
    Stunned, I rubbed my head. Even though it hadn't really hurt, I was still shocked.
"What'd you do that for?"
    I heard Crista say, "Who are you talking to?"
    The leprechaun said, "Fuck's your problem?" in a perfectly normal American
accent.
    I was expecting the typical Irish accent typically associated with leprechauns and was
highly disappointed. "I don't have a problem," I told him.
    He stood before me, real as the pigeons on the statue of Frank Sinatra that dominated the
park. "You have been sitting in front of my fucking tree for the last week," he said. "You gotta
have some kinda problem to be doing that."
    "What difference does it make?" I said, still rubbing my head where his bright green top
hat had hit me. "You'll just disappear into it anyway."
    "Well you've been sitting your dumb ass in front of my door, and I can't leave if you're
sitting in front of my door."
    "You live in a tree?" I said.
    "Where else should I live?!" he yelled, and planted his hands on his hips.
    "I dunno," I shrugged. "A house maybe? An apartment? In the sewer? Hell, live in your
car, but people do not live in trees!"
    Now, during this little exchange Crista had moved to the far end of the bench and
looked as if she was getting ready to bolt. You have to give her props for not getting up and
running away the instant I began talking to the leprechaun she so obviously could not see.
    "So," I said after a moment had passed during which I stopped rubbing my head, "are
you a leprechaun?"
    "Fuck you!"
    "A foul mouthed leprechaun?"
    "I'm not a damn leprechaun!" he yelled at me. "Stay away from my tree. Stay away from
my door. And stay the hell away from this park! I catch you here again and you're gonna lose
what's most precious to you."
    Unable to think of anything precious at all, I said, "What would that be?"
    "Your balls, damn it!" He whacked me over the head with his bright green top hat once
more, before donning it and sauntering off to his tree. He disappeared into it again and was gone
completely.
    I sat there, more dumbfounded than usual.
    "What was that?" Crista said.
    Her voice brought me back to what I usually knew as reality. "The leprechaun," I said
matter-of-factly. "He told me to stop sitting in front of his door. And he hit me with his bright
green top hat." I rubbed my head again, realized what I was doing, and stopped. "He cusses a
whole hell of a lot."
    "A cussing, green top hat wearing leprechaun," Crista said, as if she were trying to get
her head around the concept and failing miserably.
    "Bright green top hat," I corrected. "Did I forget to mention that it was bright green?"
    "Yes," she said. "And I think you should go see a doctor. Like, now."
    "He was here!" I insisted, suddenly and insistently. I grabbed her hand and put it on top
of my head. "Feel the lump? Right there. That's where his hat hit me!"
    Crista pulled her hand away. "You should really go see someone," she said. Then she
walked away.
    I watched her go, thinking to myself about what had just occurred. A little man who
stated that he was not a leprechaun and apparently did not want to be called such had just hit me
over the head with a bright green top hat, cussed at me, and then gone back into his tree. I was
just beginning to think that maybe the gunman had hit me harder than the doctors thought when
the little man, who was not a leprechaun and apparently did not want to be called such, suddenly
reappeared out of his tree again. He sauntered over to me, bright green top hat in hand then used
said bright green top hat to hit me in the face. My head rocked backwards on my neck before I
turned and locked my eyes on his face.
    "What was that for?" I said with a slur.
    "I don't fucking like you." He returned to his tree and disappeared.
    I went home.
    * * * *
    I tried really hard to draw the leprechaun that was not a leprechaun but who I could not
stop calling a leprechaun because that