Harold
by chris conroy

Character study written as the first assignment of the year for Creative Writing. "Genius tollbooth collector" was on the list of ideas the instructor handed out at the outset of the unit; I decided to be uncreative and go with that instead of forging ahead on my own, and decided to be doubly uncreative by re-using the "character wakes up" exercise we worked on in class. The prompt for this assignment was to have the character "experience an epiphany." Whatever.


    At 4:02 A.M., the alarm began to buzz. Harold threw his thick, meaty hand over his head and smacked the device soundly, silencing it with a single blow. Unleashing a resigned groan, he pulled himself upright, leaning against the cool plaster wall at the head of his bed and rubbing the blear out of his eyes. He tossed his legs over the edge of the bed, and his right foot landed squarely on the upturned spine of his leatherbound copy of James Joyce's Ulysses, left face-down and open on the floor. The resounding snap of cracking paper and glue shocked him into wakefulness. Reaching down, he picked up the volume like a buckshot dove, inspecting it gingerly and allowing a sharp hiss out from between his teeth as a page fluttered down to the floor. Frustrated, he grabbed it roughly, shoved it back between the covers and tossed the novel onto his bedspread. After another deep and ponderous groan, he rose to his feet and shuffled across the room to the sink.

    It was always dark in his basement room, but with the sunrise still hours away he was negotiating his way through the assorted debris of his everyday life -- scattered in half-sensible piles around the entire apartment -- only by feel, and by the orangeish ambient streetlight that weakly trickled through his ground-level windows. He stubbed his toe on a bookend shaped to resemble a pair of Rodin's lovers, and an artfully composed, Hunter-S.-Thompson-esque curse escaped his lips as he kicked it, spitefully, across the room. Satisfied by the clatter it made, he tried not to think about how he'd probably jammed his toe even worse in the process. It was worth it.

    The apartment's bathroom was set off from the rest of the living space only by its lack of decades-old brown pile carpet; the owners of the building had simply exposed the concrete flooring in one corner and banged in a toilet, sink, and enclosureless shower. There was a rod on the ceiling he could hang a privacy curtain on if he so desired, but he'd never bothered; nobody else ever came into the apartment anyway. He lived alone and always had, ever since Yale. Besides, the rent was too low to be ignored: if that meant sacrificing cool white tile for more books every month, he was more than satisfied to deny his bare morning feet the pleasure.

    With no heed for the mess or the splash of water -- the concrete was already picking up a slight sheen of mildew anyway; he figured there was no longer any point in being cautious -- he went about his morning rituals, listlessly scrubbing his teeth with generic toothpaste. For a brief moment, he began to whistle Barber's Adagio For Strings, which had been stuck in his head for about a week, but found it too difficult with his mouth full of spit and foam and gave up quickly. He slapped his jowls roughly to evaluate their texture; no point in shaving today. It was only two days' growth, and come on, he justified to himself, nobody coming through the toll plaza would lay eyes on him for longer than five seconds anyway. No point in getting fancy.

    After a sputtering, poorly-pressurized shower, he pulled on a (basically) clean pair of boxers (inwardly bemoaning, as he did every morning, the way his bearish stomach hung over the waistband) and thudded over to the "kitchen" table to have a bowl of cereal. While he munched aimlessly, he blasted through Sunday's Times crossword (24 down: "abecedarian") and aimlessly scribbled anagrams for "I hate my job" in the margins of the classified section, allowing himself an adolescent snicker at "I jam the boy." Cold milk dripped down onto his bare, flabby chest, and he jumped involuntarily; dabbing it up with a paper napkin, he applauded himself for his ritual of never dressing until after he'd eaten.

    He dumped the remaining milk down the bathroom sink, and while he watched it swirl clockwise down the drain, his brain involuntarily threw up the name of the Coriolis Force. He strode across the room and pulled his work uniform up off of the cardboard box he'd casually thrown it on top of the night before. After buttoning his shirt, he checked his Rolex -- the only even remotely opulent thing he owned, a gift from an absent friend -- and was utterly unsurprised to note that it was exactly 4:25 A.M. As usual, he was running perfectly on time.

    It was while he laced his boots, his thoughts absent-mindedly reflecting on the time he'd just read, that the realization struck him, and for a moment he paused. Today was March 24th. He was officially older than his father at the time of his death. For fifteen seconds, he sat in utter, motionless silence.

    A cat yowled outside. He finished tying his boot.

    At 4:35 A.M., he stepped out of the door to his apartment, pulling on his orange mesh safety vest, carefully negotiating the bulky volume he held in his hand (The complete Divine Comedy -- lunch-hour reading) through the too-tight armhole. He really needed to lose some weight. Clomping his way up the slick stone steps to street-level, he set off down Steuben Avenue towards the bus stop. He would be at the bridge in twenty-three minutes, and would clock in flawlessly at 5:15. He would make an effort not to mouth off to his supervisor today. He would read his way at least through to the Purgatorio before the end of his break. And he would not think of his father again.


originally posted January 30 2002

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