The Book of Harold Read online

  “Blake,” Gilbert tapped my shoulder as we started walking. “Aren’t those your shoes back there?”

  “Oh yeah. Thanks.” And I ran back to retrieve them. I didn’t put them in my bag. I tied the laces together, draped them around my neck, and waited for a chance to lose them along the way.

  That day we walked through a subdivision, Wooded Estates or Oak Terrace or something. A carefully crafted collection of boxes. Great for walking—well-kept sidewalks, trees for shade, and low traffic. You could stroll all day long, but leaving was nearly impossible. There was no direct route out. The roads looped back into themselves, cut into each other, or just ended in cul-de-sacs. It took us an hour to discover the subdivision’s one exit was the same road we had used to enter. All that walking and we had gotten nowhere.

  At the exit/entrance, the sidewalks ended, the glossy grass stopped growing, and not a house or a tree was to be seen. So we walked single file on the rocky shoulder of a farm road. If I had been driving, I would have described it as a slow country road with mild traffic. While walking, it was a narrow hell. Just a long slab of black asphalt bordered by rock and dust and two dry ditches. Every minute or so, a car sped past and we moved closer to the ditches.

  We passed an entrance to another subdivision but didn’t enter.

  “It’s the same as the other,” Harold said. “It doesn’t lead anywhere.”

  After an hour or so we came to the first building we had seen on the farm road. It was a strip mall comprised of a gas station, a movie-rental store, and a pizza delivery shop. A suburban outpost with all the essentials. Most of the group walked into the gas station to refill water bottles. Harold and I stood outside. I took off my bag and lifted the shoes from around my neck. Harold touched my arm and pointed to a disheveled man peeking into a dumpster.

  “He might need shoes,” Harold said. I looked at the man, bearded, dirty, and, for all I knew, extremely dangerous. Then I looked at Harold.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Try.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Okay then, don’t,” he said. And somehow he won the argument. I took my shoes and shuffled over to the man, still picking through the trash.

  “Excuse me,” I said. He turned around, looking sheepish and surprised. I guessed him to be my age, but with the beard and the dirt, it was hard to tell.

  “Here,” I said, holding out the shoes. “I thought you might need these.”

  He examined them for a moment or two before answering. “No thanks,” he said.

  “I’m giving them to you,” I explained.

  “That’s kind and all, but I don’t need them.” He started to turn back to the dumpster.

  “These are good shoes,” I said. He turned back around.

  “I’m sure they are, but I’m fine.”

  “They’re leather.” I pushed them a little closer to him.

  “I don’t want your shoes, okay?”

  “Take them. Yours are crap.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Screw me? Screw you.”

  That’s when he hit me. Then I hit back. In a second Harold was between us. The other guy walked off, turning around every few steps to yell something about “fucking yuppie shoes.”

  “Better luck next time,” Harold said. I picked up my shoes, tossed them into the dumpster, and went inside the gas station to get ice for my bottom lip.

  The Hot Tub Incident

  One night, early in the walk, we had the luxurious luck of happening upon an unwatched apartment hot tub. My feet and back have never been so grateful.

  The five of us sat for an hour in that bubbling tub, talking about movies, camping trips, how little of high school algebra we remembered. Eventually Irma and Gilbert headed back to our makeshift camp in an empty lot. Shael climbed out soon after, her body steaming as I stared. Harold saw me and winked.

  We soaked, chatting about nothing, watching the dark sky.

  “You know my favorite concert ever?” I said. “A James Taylor concert I went to in college. I was there with a girl I was seeing and some friends from the fraternity. We were all stoned. He was too, I think. It was great. It was as close to a spiritual high as I ever had.”

  “Music is like that.”

  “But I don’t even like James Taylor. I hate James Taylor. It wasn’t the music. It was the crowd and the girl and the weed. It was all of it. It was the moment.”

  He nodded. “Like you happen upon this secret—you’re surprised to find it. So clear, so real. But you can’t hold on to it or even look at it straight on. It’s gone as soon as you try.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re left without even the words to describe it, but you know it was there and it was what you are meant for.”

  “That’s it.”

  “God making us hungry for God.”

  “I’d like to know God,” I said. I said it casually, letting my hand skim the water’s surface.

  “You’re sure?” He leaned back and looked up at the sky.

  “Yeah. I want that purpose. I want to be a part of it, you know?”

  “That’s not God. That’s just tinsel on the tree.”

  “Sure, okay. But I do want God.”

  “What does that feel like, to want God, Blake?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like wanting. I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to know? Because I can show you.”

  “Yeah, I want to know.” As soon as I said that, Harold pounced. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and pushed me under the water. The hot water jets and bubbles thundered in my head. At first I thought it must be a joke and tried not to panic. I watched the drain. A minute passed. I started to struggle. I was a strong man, but Harold had me pinned. I let go a mouthful of air. My lungs tightened and I could feel blood—blue, oxygenless blood—scream through my heart. I threw out my arms, grabbing and clawing. I scratched Harold’s hand and saw his blood cloud the churning water. But Harold didn’t loosen his grip. My throat tensed and my head pulsed. I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. I knew I would try to breathe in the water. My body was going to suck in no matter how hard I tried to tell it not to. I was going to drown, thrashing away like one of my kittens. Harold let my ears above the water. My mouth and nose were still under.

  “There,” he said. “Like you want your next breath. That’s how it feels to want God.” Then I was up and gasping and crying. Harold leaned back. That was the first time it occurred to me that this walk might end poorly.

  Relic

  I paint with the basement’s weak watercolors. I wait for Peter to bring me dinner. I try to guess what shade of pastel his sweater will be. It was purple yesterday. I pretend not to notice when the other Pastels bring people to the door and let them peek through the window at me.

  They haven’t killed me. They haven’t called the police. They just look at me. I’m beginning to suspect they’re proud to have me. Like a relic. A holy artifact. Powerful stuff. It makes a place a smidge more holy, gives a church something to brag about. Of course the Pastels can’t brag too much about me without losing me. Most of the world wants me dead. Which is fine. I will be soon enough.

  Peter treats me like a relic. Impersonal and polite. I try to speak with him.

  “I want to thank you for taking such good care of me,” I said.

  “No need. I’m paid well.”

  No smiles from Peter, but he always brings my meal. Always sees to my needs. Brings me paper so I can confess.

  Peter must be in his early twenties. Beddy was about the same age. Peter is more clean-cut and has gray eyes, but I could imagine him as Beddy. Let that hair grow out a little, get him to smile more. He could be Beddy.

  Beddy

  We met Beddy our first week of walking. Most meals during the walk consisted of a loaf of bread, a can of soup, maybe some cheese. But every now and then we treated ourselves to a Waffle House. Harold believed Waffle Houses to be holy. The smell of grease was incense, t
he sizzle of eggs and bacon was the murmuring of angels. He loved the jalapeños they’d put in his hash browns. Loved the artificial butter spread for the waffles. And there wasn’t a waitress who served us that Harold didn’t feel he could marry.

  He loved the clientele—ragged people sitting one to a booth, often poor, some crazy, others just lonely. Groups as well, laughing and sipping coffee and watching the cooks drop eggs onto the grill, scatter potatoes, lay a thin steak next to it all. It smelled sweet, smelled brown. No matter what time of day or night, the Waffle House smelled of breakfast and Harold saw breakfast as a meal of hope.

  “Lunch is a meal of necessity. Dinner is a meal of remembrance. But breakfast is hope and there’s nothing tastier.”

  That day, though, was a headache day for Harold. He ordered no food, just coffee. He said nothing, lost in the coffee, adding more cream and studying the spirals, just as he had on his last day in the office. Shael occasionally put her hand to his neck, and he would look up and smile, but he’d soon return to the coffee. I remembered what he had said about his migraines, how the mirrored hole slowly filled his sight, and I knew each time he looked up he saw less and less of us.

  In the made-for-television movie, Harold Be Thy Name, he’s always moving, frantic and very alive. But there were hours or days of slowness that he slipped into. Sometimes this just meant he was a little low, a little less energized. Other days it meant he wouldn’t say a word to anyone.

  While walking his moods set the pace. Some days the others and I would have to jog to keep up. Then there’d be days when we wouldn’t walk at all. We’d stay in some campground and Harold would wander off and sit alone for hours.

  That morning we sat around Harold and his coffee. The rest of us ate omelets and hash browns, talking about the ending of It’s A Wonderful Life. I looked at the sky and tried to guess whether it would rain.

  That’s when I saw Beddy in the parking lot. He crawled down from the passenger side of an eighteen-wheeler’s cab and tossed his pack over his shoulders. His hair covered his ears and hung down around his eyes, and he hopped a little as he walked.

  The moment Beddy pushed through the Waffle House door, Harold woke up. It was always sudden, like the weather breaking. He raised his head and chuckled a little.

  “Feeling better?” Shael asked.

  “Much.” He sipped his coffee.

  Beddy glanced around the room. His eyes fixed on Harold, who had his back to him.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” he said from the door, laughing, and bounced to our table. When Harold turned, I could see that Beddy had made a mistake. “I don’t know you, do I?”

  Harold shook his head and invited him to pull up a chair. Beddy sat his lanky body down and rubbed his eyes.

  He looked hungry, a little worn down. But when the waitress asked what he wanted, he just ordered water.

  “Are you sure?” Harold asked. “It’s on us.”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “That’s less than important.”

  “Well, okay.” He smiled and ordered a waffle and eggs.

  “Been traveling long?” I asked.

  “Since California.”

  “What brings you to Texas?” Gilbert asked.

  “Oh, you know, life, looking.”

  Beddy had left a brother in Santa Cruz, called to Texas by a dollar bill pinned to the ceiling of a coffee shop. “Each bill has something written on it. Ever seen that? Stuff like ‘Johnny loves Jane’ or ‘Class of 2010’ or whatever and some one sticks it up. But the one right over my head, I mean a direct shot, says ‘You have to go to Texas!’ So I think ‘Hey, I’ll go to Texas.’ My brother wanted me to stay with him. Said he could get me a job selling barrels. But the bill had spoken.

  “So I left the next day in this old clunker of a car. No AC, wouldn’t go over seventy, and half the time it just wouldn’t start, but man, I loved that car. Tires so thin you could feel the road change texture. The thing couldn’t climb a hill without slowing down to twenty-five. And so loud, that engine all rumbling and bumping, so loud I could sing and not hear myself. Couldn’t hold a grudge against that car. It carried me up and up to the top of the ridge, to places where you can see for years. You understand?”

  We nodded, watching him lean forward to us and bounce in his chair. His breakfast arrived, but he never slowed his story, somehow aiming the words past the mouthfuls of food. “That sun, hiding behind those mountains like some shy child. I mean, holy. And the sunlight in the morning, orange-yellow morning glow, filling the car until you think you can breathe it in. Sometimes I’d roll down the window just to let more in or feel the temperature change from state to state or hour to hour. All that change in one day.”

  “So how long did it take you?” Gilbert asked.

  “To get to Texas? A while, once the car died.” he said. “It just didn’t want to go anymore. I stayed with it for a day or two, next to a rock hard sandcastle cliff out in Utah, all brown-orange and lonely. Everything’s old in Utah, everything stretching up, out, and back. It was good lonely, still hurts, still hollow, but being lonely in a beautiful place is finer than being lonely on my brother’s couch.”

  An Introduction to Haroldism

  Solo Pilgrimage

  According to the Third Conference for Haroldistically Sympathetic Churches, a devout Haroldian should aim to take two pilgrimages in his or her life. One is with a community. The other journey is made alone. The solo journey has no rules. Some make it a weekend hike. For others the journey takes years. Thousands of people choose to make the pilgrimage by retracing the steps of the founder of the rite: Bedrick (Beddy) Hobbleton. His route from Santa Cruz, California, to Rosenberg, Texas, has become one of the most frequented pilgrimages in the world. Those who travel it are affectionately called “Bedheads.”

  There are several excellent texts to guide you if you plan on making the journey, including The Genuine Journey, Hobbleton’s Travels, and The Bedhead Cruz: A Complete Guide from Maps to Prayers.

  Bedheads have become a major industry for Santa Cruz, and a pilgrim should be wary of the “essentials” local vendors advertise. Many overeager travelers are duped into paying high prices for poor quality used cars that are “guaranteed to break down in Utah!” It is rumored that dealers retrieve the abandoned cars along the route and tow them back to Santa Cruz, only to make quick repairs and sell them again.

  Of course, there is no way to know the exact route Beddy Hobbleton actually took, and there is much debate over the subject. Nevertheless, one route has become the most popular with Bedheads.

  Take Route One up the coast to San Francisco. Once there, take IH 80 to Fairfield, then State Highway 12 west until it hits 88 just outside of Lodi. Follow that west until you reach US Highway 50. This will be your road through Nevada and Utah.

  There are some highlights along the route: Austin, Nevada, with its popular hostel and yearly folk festival; Great Basin National Park; and the aptly named Confusion Mountain range in Utah. Many believe it was in this desolate region that Beddy’s car was abandoned, but some claim it was further east. Whatever the facts, this section of desert with its howling winds and rocky terrain has become a popular place for meditation and prayer.

  Traveling by foot and hitchhiking, Beddy most likely made his way through the rest of Utah and into Colorado along IH 70. It is believed that in Grand Junction his journey again followed Highway 50. Many Bedheads pause in Montrose, Colorado, to carve their names in one of the trees of Mesa Verde National Park as it is believed Beddy did during his travels.

  The path continues east along Highway 50 until Pueblo, Colorado, where it turns into south IH 25. In Raton, New Mexico, the path leads west along Highway 87 through Clayton, New Mexico, home of the Hobbleton Museum. Highway 87 takes you into Texas and through to Amarillo, Texas. From here, Highway 287 leads into Dallas where it is thought Beddy applied for work at The Sixth Floor Museum dedicated to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He was n
ot hired. IH 45 leads to Houston and Highway 59 to the now famous Waffle House of Rosenberg, Texas.

  Along the route to Texas, you will find no end to restaurants and hotels catering to the Bedhead market. Hundreds display signs claiming “Beddy slept here” or “Beddy ate here.” It has been noted that if Beddy Hobbleton had slept and ate at every establishment that claims him, it would have taken him over two years to reach Texas. By most accounts he was on the road for just under five weeks before meeting Harold.

  As We Walked

  So many miles. So many steps. Such a simple thing can carry you for such a long way. We avoided the direct routes. Harold led us down back roads, through small towns, across farmland, only occasionally touching major highways. Hardly ever a straight line.

  “Maybe a map would help,” Gilbert said.

  “It’s not about maps,” Harold answered. “It’s about muscles. We’re learning how to walk.”

  We could feel our calves harden and our backs growing stronger than the strain. We slept outside, next to a plastic playscape, under a bridge, on the groomed grass of a golf course. We tossed through night-noises: passing cars, barking dogs, squirrels rustling tree branches. We woke in blind darkness feeling bugs crawling on our faces, but it was only our sweat or the wind. We blinked our eyes open to stillborn pale dawn. Then, as if someone had slapped breath back into it, the sky would glow pink.

  I remember Gilbert as he walked rattling on about the evils of government control and taxes. Shael smoking and quiet. Irma humming. Beddy whistling, hopping up and down. Harold in front, his red poncho hanging from his arms like unused wings.

  From the beginning, I missed my wife and daughter. Missing them was the closest I’d felt to them in years.