HAROLD EDISON: INTRODUCING...... Chapter One
In all his years with Polly he had never been able to change his wife's habit of referring to his patients with descriptions she conjured from the top hat of a splendidly magical mind. Her voice was still in his ear from the house phone having said, "The Lugubrious One is on the line likely wanting to make another deposit". Harold hated the labels but had to admit they were most intuitive and he did benefit from her observations. He picked up a whale (a grandchild's gift) and spoke into its stomach.
"Hello?"
"Harold?"
"He."
"Harold Edison?"
"Absolutely." Who else did Michael expect would be answering the phone after Polly. It was a rhetorical question. It was part of the procedure. A lot of his clients flirted with denial and it took many forms.
"I need you." The throat clearing identified the caller even more readily than the voice.
"Where are you?"
A pause. Harold could imagine Michael, having found a phone booth and managing to connect with his therapist, now looking around to discover just where he was.
"Across from the Bagel Factory." He wasn't but it would make sense to Harold later why Michael had described it this way.
"Do you need me to come to you?" There were times when Michael just wanted to hear his voice and Polly would have told Michael if Harold were with another patient.
"Yes." For Michael not to hesitate and clear his throat before answering was major.
"I'll be there in ten minutes or so."
Polly did not answer the house phone. He went outside the cottage at the foot of the garden that was both his office and his occasional abode and reverted to his usual method of tracking her. He shouted up toward the large sprawling house where they had raised five children and where one or more daughters or grandchildren seemed always on site if not in actual view.
Still no answer and he was about to resort to the final way of finding her, dialing her cell phone, when one of his granddaughters came whipping around the corner of the lilac hedge, down the brick pathway and flung herself against his legs. She was a sturdy mite and he braced for the onslaught.
"Gran says to tell you just a minute." She held on, and he bent down and picked her up, gave her a hug. She grabbed the Buddha lobes of his ears and grinned at him. Polly came around the lilacs, not in a run like Sera, but wasting no time.
"I cannot shout with this cold," she told him as she came close. She was able to cope with the idea of a cold rather than the allergy to her beloved cats. "We were in with the vegetables. What is it?"
"House call for Michael."
"Where this time?"
He had never actually been called to Michael's house, a property wandering magnificent in the Uplands. And Michael had never actually been to Harold's place. He'd met him in a restaurant. They had a street relationship. But the bills Polly sent to the impressive address were promptly paid.
"Bagel Factory."
"Panic attack?"
"Don't know. Possibly."
"Which one?"
He stared at her, through the candy floss of Sera's hair. Harold was not aware there was more than one form of panic attack. He raised his eyebrows at her, wondering what new item of information she had come across and was about to impart.
"Which Bagel Factory?" she answered his puzzled look.
He made a face and set Sera down. " Oh, I'd forgotten we now have more than one. I'll go by Fernwood and if he isn't there I'll continue on to Fairfield. Sort it out if he calls again."
"Call me when you're done." she said.
Harold had a history of finishing with a client and then going on to something else. Polly, as chief organizer of the family's businesses and personal life, needed to keep track of his whereabouts. Assessing and billing these unorthodox 'house calls' was only part of it.
She picked Sera up and carried her slung across her back like a fanny pack. Sera's giggles sprinkled through the air.
Harold watched for a moment and sent her a silent caution to watch her back. He did not get a response. "Polly," he finally called out, using voice.
"I heard you the first time," she replied, over her shoulder.
He watched her for a moment longer, caught in her retreat, held once again by things he hungered to know but which she would not discuss.
He collected the paraphernalia of civilization - wallet, cell phone, water bottle, tape recorder, convertible cap, keys, in that order, - then went out the back gate and along the lane to his garage and the sleek little two-seater that Polly called Escapade. It was more than twenty years old and they'd had it for a decade. The family station wagon, an oldie with wooden sides, was in a garage up by the main house accessible from the road.
He pocketed wallet and cell phone, threw the water bottle between the seats, dropped the tape recorder on the passenger seat, settled the cap over thick unmanageable hair (he'd not found the courage to follow one of his daughter's advice to get a buzz cut), patted the car, got in and backed it out into the lane. As usual, he debated on getting out and closing the garage door. He didn't think anyone would come along and tamper but the lane was next to the golf course path and there wasn't really anything to steal in the garage but... Just then Sera shot out from the bushes at the side. "I'll close them, Gramps," she said, stopping first to widen her mouth at the brilliant yellow car, a continuing delight to her as well. She said she liked it better than the doll house - almost!
"Thank you, Sera," he called back as he drove away. Bless Polly.
Sera. As he drove he worked, once again, through her name and wondered if he would ever get over it. She must have been two or three years old before he saw it written down and realized the spelling. He had thought she was Sarah and that her full name was Kay Sarah. When he realized it was Que Sera he felt quite foolish and tricked.
Polly had put on her understanding look when he voiced his upset and that had bothered him even more. His father-in-law had been more soothing. "I know how you feel, Hank. I thought we were naming Polly, Paulie, after me. That's how I would have put it on the registration, except the lady taking the information commented on the spelling and so I thought to check with the boss. She soon put me right. Polly. Not even short for Pauline, which had never occurred to me either. Just simply Polly. Told me we'd have a son and call him Paul if I wanted. Which we never did. So I know how you feel about the whole name thing."
Huge clouds were doing a crowd scene on the horizon as he swooped down Finlayson Street. I'll treat myself to something at the Italian Bakery on the way back, he thought and then realized he would now have to make the worst left turn in the city at the top of the hill onto Cook - he'd been distracted by Sera's name and not gone straight on Cook. Instead he made a left onto Cedar Hill, another dive down Fernwood with the sight of the Castle in the distance, several joggings to avoid left turns and eventually he reached the Bagel Factory.
Michael wasn't in view so Harold parked, stuffed the tape recorder out of sight under the seat, and went on a search. He wasn't in the Bagel shop. Harold bought a dozen assorted and put them in the car. Polly and whoever else was back at the house would be pleased.
He checked the Polish Deli and the bakery and looked up and down the street. Michael didn't normally play hide and seek, he was usually in an anxious, visible, wait.
It took a moment but Harold finally remembered where the nearest public phone was and sure enough there was Michael sitting on the bench beside it in the lobby of the Medical Center. Some street people were more appealingly dressed than he was - Michael favored droopy pants, mis-matched shirts, nylon socks visible above old black oxfords, but he was meticulously groomed and clean. Polly had met him once at Folk Fest and afterward commented, "You could eat off his hands."
Michael stood up and gripped Harold's wrist in a supposed shake but it was more for support than a social gesture. He was in a spate of throat clearings.
"Let's go outside," Harold suggested. They walked back toward where Harold had parked his car. Michael was not in his normal clench of anxiety - the nuisant nasal drip that triggered the throat clearing and which Harold could not persuade him to treat indicated a rather calm state. Something different, unusual, must have occurred.
"I found five dollars once when I was eight," Michael said, conversationally, when they were at the car and he leaned against it. Harold sat on the hood. So it was going to be a chatty session. Polly had been right. Michael seemed to need to pour out life experiences using Harold as the reservoir. Polly thought that when he was finished he would be 'normal'. Harold felt there might be several lifetimes to clear and was more hopeful of just catching up in the present.
"I found it by some garbage cans when I was coming home from school. That was when I was going to the school where I didn't have to be bussed. But they wouldn't let me ride my bike. It was a lot of money to me then and it was all my own, do you know what I mean?" He peered sideways at Harold, his neat haircut capping his face.
"Yes, I know what you mean." Michael's family was wealthy but the money that came to him through his parents had strings attached, or so Michael felt. The one job he had had, as a teenager, he'd burned his hand badly and proved to his parents what they had felt and feared and wonderfully managed to convey to him all along: he was useless.
"Well, ever since I have been looking for money and I find it. Not five dollars again. But quarters and lots of pennies. Oh, not much but it makes me feel good. You know what I mean?"
Again the look. Again the reassurance.
Now Michael did take a deep breath that turned his ribs into a washboard of sounds as it went down. Harold gave him a calm, concerned stare.
"Well, that's why I was looking in there. In case there might be money. You know?"
"No, this time I don't know. Tell me. Looking in where? And what is upsetting you?"
Michael twisted around and looked back across the street to the alley behind the Medical Center. Harold looked too.
"There. In that green box."
"The dumpster?"
"Is that what it is?"
"Mm-huh. For garbage in the amount businesses produce."
Michael continued to stare, strained. His throat clearings were a rumble.
"And did you find any money?"
"No..."
It was a pathetic sound, pleading, the breath rib-rattling again.
"What did you find?"
"A person."
Harold bit back the "what!" and pushed himself off the car to stand and turn and look where Michael was staring. "Surely not." But Michael was not one to fantasize or make jokes.
"Surely so." Michael lamented. Then he sighed. It just seemed to keep on coming and coming, stored up air.
Harold walked toward the dumpster, Michael with him. He stretched and peered in.
"Surely so," Harold agreed, turning away and wiping his hands along his sides although he had touched nothing.
He looked at Michael and Michael looked at him. "Maybe there will be a reward and you'll have found some money, after all." He had no idea what prompted him to say this.
"Do you think so?" Michael's no-longer-young , boyish face suddenly flooded with hope, pathetically so, and Harold immediately said, "God, I don't know." Then turned away from his own guilt as Michael's expression sagged and said, "Here, go and sit in my car." He handed him the keys. Michael was not one to climb over the door and Harold had locked it automatically. Michael would not think to lean inside and open the door: he expected it to open by the handle. "I've got to call the police. Oh, and keep an eye out that nobody goes over there."
"Okay!" said Michael, feeling useful.
Harold retrieved his cell phone, walked around to the back of the car and called 911.
The police came. An ambulance came. The ambulance went. The police went. It hadn't been a body but a bunch of clothes realistically arranged even down to a hat and wig.
"Artistic mischief," Harold had commented but that got him a groan from one of the officers.
"You do make our lives interesting," one his old friends on the force commented to Harold as the police got ready to depart.
"It happens," Harold agreed.
Harold and Michael sat in the little yellow convertible when the police were gone.
"I didn't panic," Michael said.
"No, you didn't. That's a great achievement. Especially under the circumstances. I started to feel sick to my stomach after I saw the body. Well, what we thought was a body."
"You did?" Michael, like most of Harold's patients, was usually surprised to hear that Harold had human qualities. Some didn't appreciate the knowledge.
"Sure. Let's celebrate the success." He reached into the back and pulled out the bagel bag, opened it for Michael to choose one. Michael looked in at the different kinds, thought for a moment, then frowned, shut his eyes, and chose one by feel." I like to be surprised, " he said but then when he looked at what he had chosen he scrunched his face. "I don't like sesame."
"I do," said Harold, taking it from him. "Choose again."
Michael could not leap to an eyes-open choice but this time he came up with a poppy seed one and he gave a thumbs up.
They sat quietly munching.
"I'll drive you home."
"Oh, I've got the car." A mournful explanation. Burdened by the details of it. Michael did not drive.
"Hans is with you? Where? "
"He's parked down the street. By the furnace store. I was going to the drug store when I checked out the - what did you call it?"
"Dumpster."
Harold marvelled at the man hired as companion to Michael who would never be a friend or confidante because he was employed by the parents. How truly amazing that he must have seen all the commotion and yet waited passively for his charge to return. He was not paid to get involved, simply to follow instructions. Michael must have told him to wait until he got back. So waiting he was. Harold hoped Hans would be more proactive should Michael ever be mugged.
Harold got out of the car with Michael and walked to the corner, looked along the street and sure enough the car with Hans in it was along a block on the other side. Harold hadn't noticed it when he was looking for Michael and Hans would not have indicated his presence.
Michael waved. Hans saw him and started the car. As this was happening Michael stood on his toes and bounced his heels together, one of the more interesting variations on his repetitive mannerisms. Harold had some and was a connoisseur of same.
"Well, thanks." Michael sighed. Lugubriously.
"You're welcome."
"We shared an adventure." Now that was an unusually positive statement.
"We certainly did. And the police may be in touch again and this will just be a furthering of the adventure." Harold had stricken the advice, "Don't worry" from his vocabulary many years ago. That was the half-empty glass of suggestion. Far better and more effective to come at it from a positive perspective. And, as usual, he was reassuring himself. He had quite a phobia of the law. Still hadn't come to the awareness of why. Polly claimed he was afraid of erupting suddenly into criminal activities. He hoped she was wrong. He thought it was because he was more surprised that people kept the laws than broke them.
Michael got in the car and was driven away. Hans had given a half-hearted wave. He was embarrassed by Michael's need for a therapist. He saw it as a weakness. Harold wondered if Hans would ask Michael about Harold's presence, if Michael would tell him why the police had arrived. Harold thought not and that they would just both drive home in silence.
No need to stop at the Italian Bakery: ten bagels remained. He called Polly to tell her he was on the way home. She answered with the voice that told him she was on another line. "See you soon," he said. "And wait until you hear what you can add to the 'Consultation' category when you send the bill."
"I'm in tippy-toe expectation," she said.
"Just don't clap your heels," he replied but she had already gone back to whichever daughter or friend or grandchild was phone-waiting for her attention.