The Book of Harold Read online

  He looked like he might say more. He paused, his mouth moving into the slightest smile. I glanced at the faces watching him, hungry faces. Harold only nodded and stepped down from the car. He put a hand to Gilbert’s arm. “Let the dead bury their own,” he said quietly. “Say goodbye, Gilbert.”

  Harold took a step, continuing south. Gilbert didn’t move. “I’m sorry, Harold,” he said, and Harold turned. “I am sorry, but I can’t do that.”

  Harold’s face wrinkled.

  Gilbert shook my hand, he hugged Irma and Shael. Beddy squeezed him till he laughed. A thin laugh. Harold only watched. “Goodbye now,” Gilbert said and made his way back down the sidewalk. He had a slight limp in his left leg that I hadn’t noticed before. I wondered if it was a new ailment, or one I could only see as he was walking away.

  Glow and Shadows

  When night came, the five of us huddled in an alleyway that smelled like piss. I was hungry, the emptiness in my belly spreading throughout my body. This was walking with the Son of God.

  It was dark, but we weren’t sleeping. How could we with the rain and Gilbert’s absence? We weren’t talking either. Each of us had our spot and we kept to it.

  Shael was hovering over her Sabbath candles. She shielded the flame from the rain with her hunched shoulders and bent head. Her face glowed and shadows flickered against the alley’s walls. I knew those shadows. I closed my eyes and refused to watch them. A wind swept through the alley and spat more water at us. I opened my eyes to see Shael’s candles blow out. Her face was as dark as the shadows.

  “What the hell is this, Harold?” I asked.

  “It’s a rainstorm, Blake.”

  “Why’d you bring us here?”

  “So God can find us.”

  “Can’t God can find us in a hotel room? Couldn’t he have found us back home?”

  “Then you tell me, Blake. Why are you here?”

  “Because you’re here. You led us here.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come. You invited yourself.” He rubbed his eyes. “Wherever you are is exactly where you’ve walked.”

  “That’s not an answer.” I stood up. “I want an answer.”

  “I’m not here to give you answers.” He stood up as well. “Look around you. Feel the stones. Stop being so afraid. You’re afraid of everything.”

  “How can you say that? How can you? I’m here. I walked.”

  “You came because you were afraid of being left out. Fear decides everything for you.”

  The rain let up a little and Shael relit her candles. Again the glow and shadows filled the space between us.

  “Do you see?” he asked, looking at all of us. “You already know this story. I don’t have much time.”

  “What does that mean?” Beddy asked.

  “You know what it means,” I said. “He wants to die.”

  “Beddy, don’t worry. I’m following God,” Harold said, pressing his forehead.

  “You think God wants you to die?” Beddy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Harold said. “I have no idea.”

  Another gust of wind and the candles went out again. No one spoke. I sat back down. So did Harold. For a while, no one said a word.

  “Blake.” He turned and looked at me, water falling from his hair. “Call your wife.”

  I thought to ask, but I didn’t. I went to find a pay phone and do as I was told.

  I called my mother-in-law collect, waiting for an answering machine to not accept the charges. But instead my daughter’s voice answered.

  “Tammy?”

  “Hi, Daddy.” Her voice was softer. No anger in it. That scared me. “Mom is sick.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “No, Dad, she’s real sick,” she said. “She’s in the hospital.”

  That’s how the walk ended for me. I had my daughter order me a ticket for a midnight bus. Harold offered to walk me to the bus station.

  I said goodbye to the others in that alleyway. Shael hugged me and whispered goodbye into my ear. I couldn’t speak. I just nodded. Beddy teared up, said he’d see me soon. It wasn’t true. This was a final goodbye for us, and somehow I knew it. I could feel the ending. Dear God, I wanted to stay in that alley. Stay with those wet fools. Leaving was ripping me. Irma was last to say goodbye, her hug tight, fierce as a mother’s. I could smell her. My throat felt full. She let go, touched my face with the palm of her hand. I turned and walked away with Harold by my side.

  Harold’s Confession

  The rain was strange that night, quieting the world. The streetlights and headlights were mellowed by the drizzle, and on the emptier streets the soft splashes of our steps were the only sounds. Harold and I headed towards the bus station some miles away. Before long the rain eased up, only an occasional drop falling. Already I was feeling a lonely so thick it ached in my muscles. Hidden inside the lonely was a panic, a little beast waiting, urging me on—she’s sick! Run! Run!—wanting me alone so it could pounce. But for now, the quiet of the night and the rhythm of our steps kept it at bay.

  We walked. I wanted Harold to say I would be okay, or insult me, or something. But for a mile or more he said nothing. We were out of downtown before long, walking through quieter streets lined with small old houses. Warm yellow light coming from the windows. Homes, people’s homes. Inside, I imagined families, children, maybe having a meal, maybe sleeping.

  After two miles or so Harold spoke.

  “Phil. He was my best chance,” he said. “I lived in three countries before I turned six. California, England, Argentina, and then to Texas. My father was in oil. He was a greedy, cold man. He died in Texas and we stopped moving.” His tone was one I had never heard from Harold. It was hard to hear. His voice was clear, but very quiet. It was as if he wasn’t talking to me, he was just talking. “My mother remarried a chemistry teacher. Phil. He was kind, always kind, and he loved my mother dearly. He was also terribly boring. At the time, all I saw was boring. In all the years we shared a house, I never called him dad. Just Phil. One time, just once, he tried calling me son. It was high school graduation, just after the ceremony. Everyone was standing around the high school gym. ‘I’m proud of you, son.’ He said it fast. I could tell he had rehearsed it. Maybe practiced in a mirror. My mom was holding his arm and smiling. It was embarrassing. I pretended I hadn’t heard and ran off with some friends.”

  Harold was quiet for a moment. I was afraid to say anything. Afraid I would break this mood.

  “It would have been good to be Phil’s son. And he would have liked to be my father, I know. But neither one of us could believe it. We both believed a greedy dead man was my father. That’s what I’d been told. Didn’t even know I had a choice. Even my mother couldn’t believe that Phil could take that role. So much of those years could have been better, but we didn’t know how to believe it.”

  We reached the bus station, but Harold kept walking and although I felt the panic urging me home, I didn’t dare interrupt.

  “All the things I just believed. Just did. Never imagined anything more than I was given. Even my fantasies were just scenes from movies or books. But at that company banquet last year . . . remember?”

  I nodded.

  “The next day was my birthday. Did you know that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No one did. But it was. While sitting there, during the first of the speeches, I could feel one of my headaches coming on. I tried to focus on my water glass. Sometimes that helps. But the pain came and that growing void. I couldn’t hear the speech or eat my food. The headaches are like that. I can’t stomach noise or people. So I crawl into my head, pull the curtains, and lock the door. That’s what I was doing that night. I stayed in my head. Just me and my thoughts. I thought, ‘What if I’m actually a relative of Hitler and never knew it?’ and ‘What if I’m the reincarnation of Da Vinci?’ Just a game, you see. Then I thought, ‘What if I’m the Son of God? God’s favorite. What if I believed it?’ It was a question. A game. But a
s soon as the question popped in my head, I knew it was true. Immediately I knew I was the Son of God and the headache was gone. Just like that. Then the vice president called my name and held out that plaque. The whole world seemed so silly and beautiful. That’s how it happened.”

  Dark rainbows floated in the puddles. They swirled as we stepped. A car passed, its high-beams blinding me for a moment.

  “There was no voice? No flash?” I asked.

  “It was like a voice.” He paused for a moment, sniffed the air. “Maybe it was a sort of voice. The voice said, ‘Jump,’ and I jumped. I’m midair now. I’m falling. I still don’t know if God is going to catch me, and sometimes I’m sure He won’t. Sometimes I’m sure no one is there. But, wow, the falling. That’s the point. God be praised. If it’s a lie, what a wonderful lie.”

  “You’d live for a lie?”

  “What was I living for before? Really? If it’s a lie that God is my father and calls my name, I choose to believe it. And believing it is as close as I’ve ever been to truth.”

  “Yeah, but if it’s not real . . .”

  “I tell you, Blake, even if it isn’t real, He is still the biggest thing in my life. He is closer to me than I am to me. I disappear. It’s not just that I see God, it’s that I see nothing but God.”

  “What if it’s all just another migraine, Harold?”

  “No. Not like that. The woman with the jar of pennies, the river, Shael. Like the rain on that tree, each drop catching light. Same light, different drops. I see that light. And when the drops dry, the light will be all there is. There is love, Blake. There is love enough to burn everything away.”

  We had walked around in a circle and now we were again heading toward the bus station.

  “What will you do now, Harold?”

  “Preach,” he said. “I’m going to stand up on walls and tell them about that love. I’m going to feed them mouthfuls of God. Some are waiting. Some will choke because they can’t remember how to swallow. Some will hate every word I say.”

  “You really do want to die, don’t you?”

  “Who ever heard of a messiah growing old?”

  We walked into the station. It was bright. All the quiet was lost. I collected my ticket and we sat in plastic chairs waiting.

  “Harold,” I said. “I’m afraid.”

  “I know. Listen to it like you listened to the pain while walking. Don’t feed it,” he said. “There are some hard things coming your way. My way too.”

  The bus pulled up outside, a loud, grumbling thing.

  “Blake, do you remember Steven? The one who ran the music store?” Harold asked. “Give him this if you see him.” He handed me a folded piece of paper. “I never got a chance.”

  “What does it say?” I asked as I slipped the note into my pocket.

  “That’s none of your concern, Blake.”

  I reached out my hand and shook Harold’s.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said. “You’re a good friend. And we’ll see each other again.”

  I started to climb aboard the bus but turned and asked Harold one last question.

  “Austin isn’t really holy, is it?”

  “Of course it is.” He smiled. “Holy travel makes a holy destination.”

  For a moment, standing on the steps of the bus, I saw my chance. I could be what he was. I could be a son. The idea was like a bubble in my heart. But I walked on, the doors closed, and the bubble burst.

  Bus

  I sat by the window and let my head bounce against the glass as the bus rumbled east. It was cold outside so the heater pumped hot, thick, sweat-scented air. Ten minutes from the city limit of Austin, the panic squeezed. I felt sick, angry at every person on that bus. Two days earlier I had been lying under live oaks with the others, watching the green against the blue and believing I could smell God on my hands. I had loved everyone, but this was the morning after. No affection, no gratitude for the people sharing this trip. Their loud, ignorant conversations. Their racist slurs. The yelled threats aimed at their children. For God so loved the world? Maybe God should take a night ride across Texas on a Greyhound bus.

  That bus was the world. Too small for the crowd, the floors sticky with soft drinks and spit, filled with pointless words, and the driver just driving, hardly aware of his passengers. Now and then he piped through on the intercom, but it was a blown system filled with static. So, just like with God, we couldn’t understand a word.

  “He said the next stop was Gidder.”

  “No he didn’t. He said Bridder.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Next would come a holy war.

  I wanted off. But I wouldn’t get off. I only fell asleep.

  The road thumped and thumped and thumped beneath me. I rolled around in a groggy, restless sleep. My dreams were smeared with crying babies and the stink of people. Every so often the bus stopped and new bodies pushed their way in. Hours passed, and I felt no closer to Houston. The night didn’t want to end. People. The couple fighting in a language I couldn’t recognize, an old man talking to himself in the very back of the bus, the hungry-looking teenage girl sitting next to me and whispering in my ear, “I’ll suck you for fifty dollars.” When I shook my head, she said she was sorry and disappeared. The squealing laughter from somewhere else, the drone of the engine, the large man leaning over me to try and see shooting stars. “The news said there’d be hundreds of ’em,” he said. “Too many to even see.” The woman telling her daughter she had no more diapers for the baby. All the seats were full, the windows were dark, and the bus rocked back and forth. Why weren’t you on that bus, Harold?

  Slowly the sky went from black to blue, and Houston lay before us.

  Sorry Sight

  It wasn’t until I got off the bus that I remembered Harold’s note for Steven. I pulled it out, uncrinkled the paper, and read the words.

  Who said you’ d like what you see?

  Tomorrow I stab Peter and leave this place.

  The Damage I Did to Peter

  I woke this morning with courage. I cleaned the basement. I sat on my cot and waited with my sharpened brush behind my back. He was late. For the first time. I thought perhaps he wouldn’t come and I’d have to die. It wasn’t a bad thought. What will I gain by being free? Nothing but being free. But that’s something, isn’t it?

  The lock turned and I put my doubts away, like a child with his toys. Peter came in with a tray.

  “Good evening,” I said. He nodded slowly. I wouldn’t jump while he was looking. I waited. His steps were slow. Perhaps he was distracted. Good, I thought. Easier that way. Finally, he turned his back to place down the tray. I jumped. In my mind’s plan, I landed on his back like a monkey, wrapped one arm around his head and stabbed his neck with the other.

  But the reality of what happened was disappointingly different. My jump was pitiful, almost a falling forward. I landed low, wrapping my arms around his chest, more like a baby chimp. Peter yelled. Well, not quite a yell. More a groan of annoyance. The tray fell, my dinner and a stack of papers scattered. I clung tight with one arm as Peter twisted around. With the other, I reached up as high as I could and stabbed. I gave it all the strength I had. I prepared myself for the sensation of skin puncturing. Readied myself to keep pushing the point further in. But I hit something hard and the brush snapped.

  “Ow!” Peter said, as if a small wasp had stung him. With a flick of his arms, he threw me off and I fell. The ground knocked the air out of me, and my head smacked against the leg of the desk. The paintbrush was protruding from the shoulder of his sweater. There was no blood.

  Peter looked down at me, pulling the stick out and rubbing his collar bone. Still no blood. Maybe he’ll bruise.

  “I didn’t think you’d do it.” His voice was angry, like a disappointed parent. “I read it: ‘I will stab him in the neck’ over and over, but I didn’t believe you’d have the nerve.”

  “You . . . read . . .” I still didn’t have the breath.


  “Did you think I wouldn’t? You left them out. It was easy to take.” He groaned and rubbed a little more. “You bastard.”

  My pants were wet. At first I thought I had soiled myself, but it was the soup Peter had been carrying. I was sitting in soup and yellow pages, still gasping for air. I tried to gather the pages—my pages—tried to lift them from the soup, but they fell apart in my hands.

  Peter stared. I stopped and stared back. His eyes were strange, not gray, not cold. For an instant, I was sure he would kill me.

  “Ha!” he yelled. He stuck the pointed stick at me, not as a weapon, more like a magic wand. “It’s true,” he said, and smiled. A real Beddy smile. I found it more frightening than the anger. “It’s all true. Harold and 4 and salvation and all of it. And you believe it too. That’s what you’re confessing.”

  “You had no right to read these,” I said, a wad of wet paper in my fist.

  “Oh yeah, and you have the right to stab me.” He was smirking, more boyish than I’d ever seen him. “Your writing is what got me. I hate that Harold Be Thy Name movie. Never believed a scene. But you. I believe your stuff. I mean, hell, you shot him and still believe in him. Oh, God. I really get it!”

  “No,” I said.

  “And here’s the punch. I forgive you. For stabbing me, for everything. I completely forgive you. In fact, here’s your stick back.” He knelt down, opened my fist, and put the handle on top of the wet pulp. “Nice touch, by the way. A paintbrush on one end, a dagger on the other. Creation and destruction all in one.” He winked. He actually winked! He stood up and put his hands on his waist. “See, I gave to the one who tried to kill me. I just gave to God. How about that?” He shook his head. “I see it now. Wow. This feels really different. Really good. Thank you.” Then he quickly knelt again and pushed his face close to mine. His voice went quiet and serious. “What is it you want, Mr. Waterson? Do you want to escape? I can give you that too.”