Being Henry David

by Cal Armistead

  “What kind of stuff ?” I’d rather talk about music and Thomas than answer any questions about myself.

  Thomas runs his fingers up the neck of the guitar, miming chords. “Foster care from the age of eight,” he says absently. “Bounced around to four different homes by the time I was eighteen.” He clears his throat, then pulls the strap off his shoulder and lovingly puts the guitar back in its red felt-lined case. “Feeling like nobody wants you and you don’t belong anywhere can make a person a little crazy,” he says.

  Uh, yeah.

  Just then, Suzanne comes in with a tray, and sets it down on the bed next to me.

  “It’s just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some milk, but Thomas doesn’t have much in the way of groceries around here,” she says to me. “Not that I’m a gourmet cook or anything, but that’s just pathetic.”

  “I’m a bachelor. I don’t need a lot,” Thomas says with an easy shrug. “Peanut butter. Jelly. Beer. What else is there?” He latches the guitar case shut and sets it back in the corner.

  I’m hungry, so the sandwich tastes incredibly good. And the jelly is grape, which I’ve decided is my favorite. I’ll never be able to eat the stuff again without thinking of that Ephraim Bull guy, father of the Concord grape.

  Suzanne goes back downstairs and Thomas and I sit in silence for a couple of minutes, not looking at each other while I eat my sandwich. He jiggles his leg and peers out the window, chewing on a fingernail. Trying to look patient and failing.

  “So how did all of that change?” I ask him, licking peanut butter off my thumb.

  Thomas stops jiggling his leg and turns toward me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “How did you go from angry to—” I wipe my mouth with a napkin and struggle for the right word. “Not?”

  Thomas kicks his feet out in front of him, leans back in his chair, and laces his fingers behind his head. “Well, let’s see. After I got out of jail, I drifted around for a while, and finally found a job as a custodian at a library. To stay out of trouble, I spent every free moment there reading everything I could get my hands on. The head librarian was this woman who was impressed that a loser ex-con like me was such a big reader.” He frowns and looks out the window, but I notice that Thomas’s eyes have grown soft. “She became like a mother to me, made me feel like I belonged somewhere, you know? Long story short, I went to college for American History, got a master’s in Library Science, and here I am.”

  Before I can bombard him with questions to keep him talking, Thomas clears his throat as if placing a period at the end of his story and leans forward in his chair, eyes penetrating mine. “Anyway,” he says. “Enough about me.”

  I stare down at the quilt on the bed until all the colors blend together in a jumbled multicolor blur. “So, I guess it’s my turn now,” I say. And I realize I really do want to tell him. “First, my name isn’t really Hank.”

  Lying back against the pillows, I tell Thomas everything I know, from the moment I woke up at the train station with Walden at my side, not knowing my name or where I came from, to the freak-out scene at the library. I tell him about Simon’s knife and the crime I committed in the alley. I tell him about Jack and Nessa and using Simon’s money to get a train ticket. Tell him the whole thing in a detached way, like it’s somebody else’s story, somebody else’s life.

  Then I tell him about the few memories I can access. Like what I know about my father and mother. My sister. Big eyes, blond hair, blood. That’s when it stops feeling like somebody else’s story, and it becomes completely and painfully mine.

  I have to get out of this bed.

  “Hank, take it easy.” Thomas is standing by the side of the bed, hand pressing down on my shoulder. “When you’re stronger, I’ll help you find answers, I promise. I’m a research librarian. Finding answers is what I do, remember?”

  I settle back against the feather pillows, letting them engulf me until the dizziness passes. Gazing up at Thomas’s strong presence makes a flicker of hope ignite in the center of my chest. But just as quickly, fear snuffs it out.

  “Do you think I’ll go to jail, Thomas?” Staring up at the ceiling, at water stains and fault-line cracks in the plaster, I feel like a little boy asking if the boogeyman is hiding under my bed. Except that it’s way scarier than that. Depending on what I did, somebody like Judge Hoar could send me to jail for the rest of my life.

  “I don’t know, Hank.” Thomas sits down, scratches his shaggy black hair thoughtfully with both hands until it sticks up in spikes. “Your circumstances are unique, so it’s hard to say. But look, what you need right now is a safe place to stay for a few days, and you’ve got that. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  We. The ceiling cracks and stains blur into amoeba shapes before my watering eyes. “Why would you do this for me?” I whisper.

  “Like I told you. When I was younger, some good people helped me out, and that made all the difference,” he says. “This is my chance to pay that back. Maybe you’ll do the same someday for somebody else.”

  “Thank you, Thomas.” I swallow hard, brush tears from my eyes before they can drip down my stupid face. “So what do we do first?”

  “First, get out of this bed and take a shower, dude.” Thomas punches me in the arm. “You reek.”

  After my shower, I find Thomas out in his driveway, changing the oil in his Harley. I sit on the back steps, watching Thomas work. Do I know about engines? Have I ever worked on cars or bikes? Nothing comes, but it doesn’t matter. It just feels good to be outside, warm sun on my face, my arms. It’s a relief to have let somebody in at last, somebody who might be able to help me.

  “You know, I’ve got it figured out,” Thomas says after a while, sliding a metal pan under the oil tank. He rests on his haunches and looks at me. “I know who you are.”

  Startled, I turn to stare at him. “You do?”

  He stands up and grabs a wrench from a neatly organized tool chest on the driveway. “Yep. I suspected it from the first moment I saw you at the cabin site, looking like you were transported there from some other time or place. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “And then when you were unconscious, you started talking.”

  “Really? What did I say?”

  “You were quoting entire phrases of Walden, verbatim.”

  “Which means that—” I have a photographic memory.

  “That you’re Henry Thoreau reincarnated.” Thomas interrupts, pointing his wrench at me triumphantly.

  I stare at him, my mouth hanging open.

  “I mean, just look at you,” he continues. “Dark hair, gray eyes, just like Henry. And you know his writing by heart. I think it’s a reasonable explanation, don’t you?”

  “Reincarnated? Thomas, I don’t think—”

  Thomas starts to chuckle, and I realize he’s just yanking my chain. But then he stops laughing and jabs a finger at me. “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost—”

  “That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them,” I say without thinking.

  Thomas nods to himself. After another moment, he turns to me again. “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself—” he says and waits. “Than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”

  He stares into my face, eyes intense. “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature,” he says.

  “It is earth’s eye,” I respond. “Looking into which the beholder…uh…wait, I’ll get it.” I rack my brain, and nothing comes to me. Could be from one of the pages Frankie ate. Or maybe my memory isn’t as great as I thought. “Nope. No idea what’s next.”

  “That proves nothing. Not even Henry could recite every single word he wrote,” Thomas says and shrugs. “I still say you could be him reincarnated. Why not? There are far weirder things in this world, Hank.”

  I shake my head. “You have a lot of strange ideas, Thomas.”

  “I know. I g
et that a lot,” he says cheerfully. Gotta admire a guy who’s clearly comfortable with his own quirks. “But if anything comes to you about Henry’s love life—or lack thereof—let me know. There are a lot of Thoreau scholars who have questions we’d like to get cleared up on the subject.”

  “Promise.”

  Thomas smiles at me and winks. Then he turns back to his Harley and loosens the bolt on the oil tank with his wrench, giving the job his full attention like he’s already forgotten all about me and his bizarre theory.

  Thoreau reincarnated? Ha. If that’s true, then I’m totally screwing up Henry’s second chance at life. Just one more reason to feel like a loser.

  Sitting there on the steps in the sun, watching Thomas change the oil in his motorcycle, my mind wanders to that beautiful butterscotch Tele that Thomas has in the guest room. If I’m really careful, I wonder if he’ll let me play it.

  And then I’m struck by a scrap of thought. An old memory? No, a new one. There’s that thing I forgot to remember. Something I was supposed to do before I got sick. Damn, what was that? Then I remember. Hailey.

  I never called Hailey. The last time we spoke, when I said I’d call her, was days ago. She’s going to think I blew her off.

  “Thomas, can I borrow your phone?”

  Hailey answers her phone on the first ring, and at first I have no idea what to say.

  “Uh, Hailey? It’s Hank.”

  No answer.

  “Hailey?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t call. I was sick. I mean, seriously, there was this infection, and I was really out of it for a while.”

  “What do you want, Hank?”

  Damn.

  “Well, I thought we might get together. You know. Play some music. Like we said.”

  She makes me sweat it out and doesn’t answer for a good ten seconds, though it feels a lot longer. “Sure,” she says at last, like she doesn’t really care. “Come over to my house tomorrow at four. I should be back from lacrosse practice by then.”

  She gives me the address and hangs up kind of abruptly, but I don’t care, because she’s giving me a chance to redeem myself. Standing in Thomas’s front hallway, still holding the phone, I feel a goofy smile spread across my face. I’m going to see Hailey. Tomorrow. Yes.

  10

  Suzanne drops me off on the way to her afternoon shift at Emerson (as in Ralph Waldo, of course) Hospital, and I show up on Hailey’s doorstep, holding Thomas’s guitar in one hand and a small amp in the other.

  When Hailey answers the door, I notice she’s wearing jeans and this tight purple shirt. She looks amazing. We’re shy with each other at first, so we don’t say much of anything past hi and come on in. She leads the way through a front hallway and I follow, noticing that she’s not wearing shoes and her socks are two different colors, which reminds me of her unmatched earrings the other day. Either she has a habit of losing socks and earrings or she’s making some kind of quirky fashion statement.

  Her house is one of the smaller ones in her neighborhood, which basically means it’s a normal size. The other houses look way too big for one family, like mansions. Even though it’s smaller than the neighbors, it’s decorated really nice, with fancy furniture and paintings and Oriental carpets. She leads me into a room that’s all white. No kidding. White rug, white sofas, white walls, even a white grand piano. I’m afraid to have a dirty thought in this room. Which is difficult, considering the way I’m starting to feel about Hailey.

  “Wow, you could hide a polar bear in this room if you wanted to,” I say. Lame, but a smile twitches at the corners of Hailey’s mouth, which is good enough for me.

  “My mother likes to do dramatic decorating stuff. It’s just annoying.”

  She shows me where I can plug in the amp, then I sit on one of those white sofas and tune up the guitar. Sensing that Hailey is not in the mood for small talk, I let my fingers launch into a random tune, just to warm up and get used to the guitar. It plays real nice. Smooth.

  As I’m playing, Hailey finally smiles at me, then shakes her head and bursts out laughing. She has a great laugh.

  “Cute,” she says.

  I stop playing, fingers suspended above the strings. “What?”

  “That song you’re playing.”

  I stare at her and blink like a total idiot. “I’m sorry?”

  “Come on, Hank. You’re kidding me, right? You’re playing ‘White Room,’ by Cream. My mom is a big Eric Clapton fan too.”

  Clapton. Of course. In my real life, I must be a big-time classic rock geek, and this crazy room triggered my muscle memory. I smile at her like, yeah, “White Room.” I meant to do that.

  Now that I’ve got Hailey in a good mood, I start in on the song we played in the band room, “Blackbird.” The Beatles. She lets me play the first verse all the way through before she starts singing. Her voice is quiet at first, almost a whisper, but then she clears her throat and allows her voice to rise. Again, that gorgeous, silky alto voice. Funny how just a voice can drive me crazy. I finish the song and we just stare at each other like we’re holding our breath waiting for what comes next.

  “Hailey,” I say. “Your voice just blows me away.”

  She looks down at her fingernails, picks at some red polish on her thumb, and I figure she’s just being shy. But when she looks back up at me, her eyes have gotten all shimmery.

  “Thanks, but it doesn’t do me any good if I’m too scared to get up and sing.”

  I stare at her, my eyebrows crunching together in disbelief. “Why would somebody like you ever be scared to sing?”

  “Something bad happened. Last year, at the Battle of the Bands.”

  “What, like stage fright? Hey, that happens to a lot of people.”

  “No. I wish that’s all it was.” Hailey clears her throat, avoids my eyes. “Remember the day we met, when Danielle was bugging me about looking kind of sick?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I’d thought of asking her about that, but figured it might still be a sore subject.

  “Well, it’s like this. I’m diabetic. My blood sugar was starting to crash after lacrosse practice, so I got a little dizzy. After you left, I had to drink some juice to jolt it back up.”

  Diabetic. My damaged memory banks seem to recall what that is. Something about the pancreas and insulin.“Is that what happened at the Battle of the Bands too?”

  “Yeah, but it was much, much worse. I was nervous, so I didn’t eat much that day. Didn’t even think about it. By the time I was up on stage, I went into this full-out insulin reaction. I mean, I passed out and started having this seizure, in front of everybody. They had to call an ambulance and everything. It was humiliating.”

  Tears stand in her eyes, ready to roll down her cheeks. I wish I could magically say the right thing to make it better. “You couldn’t help that. I’m sure everybody understood.”

  “The problem is, almost nobody knew about the diabetes. I’ve had it since I was about nine, but I don’t like to talk about it. Just don’t want to be different, you know? So everybody kind of freaked out, and some people still seem scared to be around me, in case it happens again.”

  She wipes at her eyes and tries to smile at me. “Needless to say, I haven’t sung in public since then.”

  I shake my head. “That’s so wrong, Hailey. You should do the show this year. Seriously. You have to.”

  “I don’t know, Hank. Maybe—”

  The doorbell rings.

  “Hang on, I gotta get that,” she says. “My parents are still at work.”

  She leaves the white room and heads to the front door, so I play around some more with the guitar. It feels so natural, fingers on my left hand flying across the frets, fingers on my right strumming and picking. Like I was born to do this. Like when I’m with Hailey and making music, nothing else matters. The ultimate escape, the best drug ever.

  I stop playing when I hear voices arguing.

  “I don’t wa
nt to, Cam. Can’t you get somebody else?”

  I pause with my fingers hovering over the strings and listen. It’s Cameron.

  “You said you’d do it, Hailey. What else am I supposed to do? Plus, not to be mean or anything, but you owe me.”

  “God, Cam. How long am I going to owe you?”

  I set the guitar down, lean it against the sofa.

  “C’mon, Hailey, you know the deal.”

  I walk to the front door and stand behind Hailey like a bodyguard, arms crossed over my chest, hoping it will make my biceps look more substantial than they actually are. “You okay, Hailey?”

  He looks surprised, then pissed to see me there with Hailey, at her house. And in spite of my macho stance, I’m praying this isn’t the time he chooses to pick a fight, when I’m still really weak.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Hailey says over her shoulder.

  Cameron looks like he wants to take me down, and I’m glad he doesn’t know he could knock me over with one finger if he really tried. But then he starts looking me over from head to toe, shrewd eyes sweeping.

  “So, Hank, where did you get that shirt?” he demands.

  I look down. Long-sleeved black T-shirt, white words. From the high school lost and found. “I dunno,” I say.

  “Why are you so fascinated by my wardrobe, Cam?”

  “Because my dad got me a shirt just like it from the Nashville Music Hall of Fame. That’s what it says on the front. I lost that shirt about a week ago. The same time you just happened to appear out of nowhere. Not a shirt you see every day in Concord, Massachusetts, don’t you think?”

  Uh-oh.

  Hailey rolls her eyes. “So what are you saying, Cam? That Hank stole your shirt?”

  “I’m just saying it’s a really weird coincidence.”