I always want to apologize to Harry. Present tense, even though today is the anniversary of his death. Present tense, he is still around. I see him every day. Whether it's his own artwork, as seen above, for a story I have in SCREAM FACTORY. Sean Doolittle owns the original. Last week, Holly Day emailed me about unearthing a copy of VICIOUS CIRCLE, which had work by her and, unknown as I was to her at the time, myself. I emailed back on who Sean was, of the books she could find of his at Borders now, but back in 1992, when VC was a project for, I believe, business school, Sean ran into Harry and me at Minn-Con and thought we were enormously famous. Harry and I joked about that later, and when I last saw Harry and mentioned Sean's crime novels, he took a drag from his cigarette and, in exaggerated Harry fashion, vociferated that he "knew that young kid would make something of himself one day." I can still smile about Harry and the way he could deliver lines.
I see him every day through his loves, and when I talk with Diana on the phone (which is not nearly enough, but as with Facebook and Twitter, I'm just not a phone kind of guy). Hans Bellmer. Harry absolutely loved his work. He was fascinated with the work involving dolls, and so I have two images, the other being similar to something Harry himself might construct. Wires and painted wood and odd little window frames, boxes in his back room labeled DOLL PARTS and CHINA CATS, though I think the latter was Diana's stuff. You never knew from Harry's inventory.
I want to apologize to Harry (and Diana, as well), for not visiting nearly as much since I moved to Burbank. As I'd gotten older, I felt guilty about sleeping over, and my ride to Oak Park was doubled in time because it was no longer a straight ride down Pulaski to the Blue Line. Yet we still emailed and exchanged postcards, but I should have visited more. The mid-90s seem so, so long ago, the days of watching HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and TARANTULA, laughing and enjoying them just the same. And so it is I think not just of him, but of all the good times I had...we had, and it seems as if I can just reach far enough, I can pull those years back and relive them again.
I even see Harry in the moon. Yea, you got me. I think it's the whole harvest moon thing. So at 2 AM all week, as I wait for my border collie Mitch to take his piss, I stare up at that crazy half moon. And now I'll stare at my reflection in the window for awhile.
