#hobocoat

 “Fur is murder!”

The shriek pierced Gloria Eagleton’s ears a half-second before a splash of wet doused her face. She darted a hand to her cheek, saw red on her fingertips. Blood? She felt no pain, or any cut in her skin.

The smell. Red paint. And Gloria glared at the woman who threw it.

A dripping bucket was in the hands of some skinny wretch, skeleton thin in a purple tank top that ignored the cool wind. She held it proud, grinning a look of righteous satisfaction, her pierced face caged by a nest of dreadlocks.

“The blood is on your hands!” screeched the woman, even though she stood at a paint throw’s distance from Gloria. “Your murdering hands!”

Gloria brought an arm up, following the path of the paint splatter. Her heart sank. Wet red streaked thick and hard down her fur coat, one hundred percent pure fox pelt stained from left shoulder down and around to the front. Anger bubbled up Gloria’s throat, a shout that betrayed her eighty years. “This coat was given to me by my mother!”

“Aha! A family of murderers!”

Curious heads turned as nearby pedestrians overheard the exchange, and a wave of embarrassment washed over Gloria. The shouting, the paint. She forgot all about her visit to the post office and rounded a corner, heels clacking on the pavement as fast as her bad hip could stand. Desperate to get away from the woman, from anyone who might see. Those friends of hers, next bingo meeting they’d jolly well never let her live it down. Seeing red were you, Gloria? Looking for trouble?

That much would cause nodding and thoughtful murmurs; the corner of Jackson and Staff was a space notorious for sandwich boards, megaphones, angry crowds. It was also the shortest route from Gloria’s bus stop and the post office, and it was a Tuesday. Play the odds, she’d thought. Turns out the odds was a lone nutbag with paint to throw.

An alleyway between buildings was her refuge, and Gloria stopped to inspect the arm, lifting up her elbow and pulling the fabric around for a closer look.

The coat was ruined. There was no doubt of that, and no way the paint would stand a chance of washing out. The red stain matted the silk-fine hairs, turning their glamorous shines of bark brown and burnt amber into a ravaged mess. Tears blurred Gloria’s eyes as she thought of her mother, how grand she used to look in that coat before the cancer took her. How much Gloria, as a little girl, wished she could look like that woman.

A rustle of movement, and Gloria darted her gaze, looking for a barrier that she could use to hide from whoever was approaching. But then she saw the source of the noise: a beggar, slumped against a wall, shuffling his position on a piece of cardboard that once seemed to have served as a kind of cushion. He held a dented tin cup in one hand, scratched himself with the other. The length of his wiry beard was only outranked by the wrinkles on his skin.

“Spare change, love?” The question turned into a barking cough, raspy and heaving.

Gloria was about to say no, and move away from the unknown smells emanating from the man’s body, when she saw him — really saw him. Stained jeans with holes, a limp knitted top that wasn’t certain if it was a shirt or a pullover. His bare feet caked with black. About the same age as her late husband, rest his soul.

It was cold. It would be colder tonight.

Gloria removed her coat, feeling the chill on the air. With the furry bulk shed, she looked almost as thin as the dreadlocked witch herself. She presented her coat to the man, arms outstretched. “Here,” she said. “Have this. Treat it well.”

His eyes lit up, as though the crow’s feet around them were peeling back like sunlight through a cloud. “Oh, bless you wonderful angel.” The man pushed his arms through the coat sleeves; he didn’t even care about the paint, and Gloria noticed he didn’t care.

A smile. “Bless you,” he said again.

*     *     *

Tink. Tink-tink.

Arthur Patterson jolted awake at the sound of money hitting tin, and straightaway felt a strange sensation wrapped around his body. Unfamiliar. He felt warm, warmer than normal, and then he remembered the fur coat. A woman gave it to him, didn’t she? He looked down; the coat was still there, still wrapped around him like a fuzzy cocoon, and he sighed in relief. It wasn’t a dream, thank goodness.

He bent over and looked in his cup, at the three coins inside. Shiny and golden. They weren’t a dream, either.

The person who put them there stood over him in tight jeans, black-rimmed glasses, a thin moustache trimmed with a care and precision that Arthur had long since forgotten. The guy’s collared shirt was buttoned all the way up to a neck that hardly looked strong enough to support the weight of the bulky camera that hung below, but somehow it did.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” said the guy.

“Thank you,” said Arthur, and he jingled the cup. He loved to hear that jingle.

The guy paused, as though he was thinking through his words. “I hope you don’t mind, but could I take your photo?”

My photo? Arthur found it an odd request. Who would want to take a photo of him? Or even see it? But he said “Sure,” because, hell, Arthur had nothing better to do. Maybe it would mean a few extra coins for his trouble. Maybe he could buy something for breakfast.

He started to stand, wondered what sort of pose he should offer, but the guy said, “No need to move anywhere. Just stay as you are. Pretend I’m not here.” The guy raised his camera up to one eye, started snapping. “I’m Nick, by the way. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

*     *     *

Nick Tang stared at the screen of his MacBook, not allowing himself to believe that the numbers weren’t a mistake. This post was going off the charts. The number towered above all others in the backend of ‘Street Smarts’, his fashion blog for three years, trending way higher than it had reason to.

The past two weeks had seen it climb, and at first it was nothing. It stared the same as all the others— a little traction here and there before it was inevitably replaced by the next big thing, from his blog or otherwise. But this post, this homeless guy in a stained fur coat, had been retweeted, favourited and relinked beyond anything else, with no signs of slowing down. People loved it.

Hashtag #hobocoat

What was it? Nick tried to think it through — reverse engineer it, find some manner of logic. Was it the juxtaposition of old man in plush winter wear? Sort of high class meets hard luck? His goofy smile, a genuine cluelessness in contrast to an internet’s worth of Photoshopped pouts? The post that accompanied it told a relatable enough story: gambling problems, trodden by life’s boots before a clothing donation reminded him of the hope and generosity that still flickered in the world. It was a woman, the man said. His guardian angel.

Nick’s guardian angel. Those numbers were crazy.

Absent now, he clicked the hashtag, checked what others were saying. The feed continued its weeks-long stream of support, of praise. Love this! Guy’s got style! Nick scrolled past a photo, then stopped. Was that…?

He scrolled back up.

A girl about his age, maybe older, hand-on-hip with a coat that looked a lot like the one on the old man. It wasn’t an exact match — Nick could see the synthetic fibres and mismatched trim a mile away — but it was damn close. Even down to a similar red splash, applied in an earnest attempt at homeless homage.

“Retweet if you’re all about making a statement!” @EbonyAndIrony

Hashtag #hobocoat

Nick Tang breathed through his mouth, long and slow. The numbers weren’t a mistake. That post was turning into a goddamned fashion craze.

Then his email dinged. More news channels, wanting to interview the guy who discovered the man, the coat, the story. How does it feel to bring a new look to the wardrobes of the world?

*     *     *

Summer Childs was used to the stares. Her dreadlocks, her piercings, always attracted looks of gawked attention from the sheeple, so she pretended not to noticed the same stares coming from the gormless name tag serving her at the hardware store, or from the customers standing in line behind her. They twerp behind the counter stared at her, open mouthed.

Or maybe it was at the sheer volume of paint cans stacked in her trolley. Four high, six deep.

Or maybe it was at the sheer volume of her voice shouting into her phone.

“Bullshit you’re just the messenger,” she said. “Your photo, your site, your fault. Don’t even try to pretend you had nothing to do with this.”

“It’s fake fur, Summer. You think that many genuine fur coats can suddenly appear in this day and age?” And then, as though anticipating her next question, “It’s countercultural fashion. It’s ironic. People love the anti-statement it makes on outraged activism.”

She grit her teeth. Outraged activism. Nick would be sorry he said that.

He never supported her. The beliefs, the causes. Even the horrible food he shovelled into his mouth — she knew he was eating burgers and steaks behind her back. The few times she let him go out with friends that weren’t her friends, he’d always come back smelling like—

“Did you hear me? It’s fake.”

Summer shouldered the phone as she rummage for her hemp-cloth purse. “I don’t care. It’s what it means. Fake fur is a symbol of real fur — and real fur is murder. Murder, Nick. Next you’ll be saying all those people you kill in your video games is just innocent violence.”

“Well—”

“What do you mean you don’t take card? What sort of store is this?” She forgot about the phone and stared daggers into the name tag at the counter. “This is what they pay you for? To inconvenience your customers?”

The dim-headed apron started to speak, but she thrust a handful of cash at him, and tapped the counter until he handed her a receipt.

“Summer?” said Nick. “It’s been weeks, and I was wondering…”

“No,” she said to the phone. “You’re not coming back yet. You can keep staying with those losers until I’m satisfied I’m not living under the same roof as a murder sympathiser.”

She pushed the trolley outside, wheels rattling against the uneven surface of the parking lot. Past a soccer mom SUV. Past a loading bay. Her car was parked over the road — why were these places always so busy? Why didn’t he understand that fur is murder?

“Can I at least come by to pick up some stuff?”

“You should have thought about that before you—”

Words blended into screeching rubber on asphalt, and Summer was overtaken by a blinding flash, a world that spiralled at crazy angles. Pain overtook her body. Grey, blue, grey. She heard and felt cracks, things breaking, and then screeching. Somehow her vision had turned sideways, staring aimless at a white truck teetering on two wheels, veering, skidding, overcome by speeding momentum before tipping over on its side, a thunderous crash.

Its rear cargo doors opened and an avalanche of brown animals spilled out, and Summer’s stomach lurched — they were coming for her, climbing over each other to get her, and then they tumbled lifeless to the ground, streaked with red. Hundreds of fur coats. A truck full of them.

She wanted to tell Nick, blame Nick, but her phone was gone and it hurt to move. And the last thing she saw, before the blackness took over, was red.

All that paint.

She hoped it was paint.