Chatters on the Tide

by Robert Mitchell, Jr

  Chapter 5

  The clock on the VCR read 7:58 PM when he woke up. Harold got up and pissed, splashed his face with water, and went out the door in a hurry. His dress shoes were still in the floorboards of the Acura. He tugged them on as he drove.

  He got to his attorney’s office in minutes. There was a light on in an upstairs window. He knocked on the front door, but nobody answered. He went to the back door and knocked again. When he returned to the front, Parkinson was there waiting, shirttail untucked, tie hanging loose.

  “What do you want Greg? Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “No, it can’t. I want to work something out. Give me some hoops to jump through. What can I do?”

  “Look Greg,” Parkinson said, “it’s way after office hours. Can’t you just come by tomorrow and we can talk about it? Honestly, there’s no point; we’ve been through it a million times. But I’m willing to re-address it tomorrow, okay?”

  “That’s fine Mr. Parkinson, but I was thinking,” Harold said, “that if I filed bankruptcy, I would get to keep a house, right? Why couldn’t I keep my grandparent’s house? You get to keep one house right? And a car? I read that somewhere.”

  “That’s true, when you file Chapter 7 you may get to keep a house. But the house you want to save is your grandparent’s house, not yours, and debts you want to forestall aren’t yours either. You see, the problem is, in the eyes of the law, you might not be truly bankrupt. You aren’t legally divorced. Your wife is working and paying your mortgage. You own cars and furniture, the two of you have lots of assets – some IRAs and so on. Now if your wife would agree to apply for a loan...”

  “Leave her out of it,” Harold said.

  “Then the house has to be sold to pay off your grandparent’s debts, unless you can write a check for them. You’re not living in that house are you?”

  “No,” Harold said.

  “That’s funny. The letter I mailed to you there didn’t come back.”

  “It wouldn’t, there’s no forwarding order. Besides, I get the mail there once a week or so,” Harold said.

  “If you’re living there, get the heck out as soon as possible. That house will be listed on the market very soon, and there will be repercussions. I’m the executor Greg, this is all my job. I know it has been hard with everything else that has been going on with you. We’ve both wracked our brains to come up with an answer. You know how many times I sat at that kitchen table and ate your grandma’s cooking? You know I want to help, but you have to help yourself. If you and Catherine can’t unite and get a loan, or agree to liquidate some assets, your grandparent’s home will be sold to pay the debts. If there’s anything left over after everything’s paid, that’s what you’ll get. And that’s that. Now, no offense Greg, but if there’s nothing else, I’d like to get back onto the couch with wife and finish the movie I was watching.”

  “Sure Mr. Parkinson, sure,” Harold said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “I’m not trying to be harsh Greg, it’s just that everybody has a limit, you know?”

  “No, it’s okay, I understand,” Harold said. “If I come up with anything, I’ll come and see you about it during your regular hours.”

  Parkinson shut the door, and Harold left. He flopped into his car and sat there for a minute. He grew edgy in the dark, turned on the interior lights and sat thinking about what his attorney had said. He also thought about the hands in the bay, about the water and the hands. In the dream he had bought beer and driven out to the bridge. Just before he jumped, he had thrown over an empty beer can. He reached in his pocket and dug out a couple scraps of paper. Examining them he found that one of them was a 7-11 receipt for beer stamped 8:49 PM. He dropped it as if it was a snake, turned off the interior light, and fished out a cigarette from the glove box. There were empty beer cans in the floorboards.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t a dream, he thought. I smell like the bay and I’m covered with mud. Holy shit, I got stinking drunk and jumped off a bridge. I need to have a smoke and figure this all out. You can’t stop me from smoking now Bonnie.

  Admitting to himself that the dream was real made his memory of it solidify. Harold thought of his wife and recalled the image of her that had flashed through his mind while in the water, the one of her suffering after his suicide. It made him sick with emotion. He put his head on the steering wheel and tried to get clear.

  The sensation of being stared at stiffened him, and he stiffened. He looked around at the dusky street. Nobody seemed to be out, nobody was staring at him, but even so he made sure the doors were locked and pulled away. At the corner of Parkinson’s place he thought he saw someone standing, a silhouette cut in half by the corner, but he didn’t brake. Perspective changed when the Acura moved down the block, and the shape moved behind the house.

  At a stoplight he lit another cigarette and looked in his rear view mirror. There was nothing there. He dragged hard on the smoke making it crackle and burn hot and it made him dizzy and a little sick. He could not stop looking in his mirrors. At the next stoplight he checked the back seat and again found nothing.

  Pulling up in front of the house, he locked the car and set the alarm, then went inside.

  His first stop was the bathroom where he threw up; his second was the living room coffee table where he poured himself a drink. The Wild Turkey was gone. All that was left was a pint of Jack Daniels, and he splashed some of it into the forty-year-old Flintstone’s jelly jar he had been using since he moved in. Settling into the sofa with the remote, flicked around for a while, thankful that Grandpa had loved his cable TV. Two hundred channels and some Jack Daniels would blanket everything. He would sort it out tomorrow.

  Around ten o’clock, during a daylight car chase on the tube that lit up the room, he thought he saw movement outside the front window. Getting up he peered between the curtains and saw a figure disappear around the side of the house heading toward the rear. Harold sat the jelly jar on one of Grandma’s lace doilies and ran to lock the doors and windows. Out the bedroom window he saw a shadow swoosh by. At the back door he thought he heard the sound of the knob being tried. Running back to the living room, he looked out the front curtains again, saw nothing.

  He froze for second and listened. Footfalls on the back porch. Hurtling out the front door, he ran to Lucas’ house and pounded on the front door. He put his back to it nervously and scanned the yards waiting for the stranger to appear.

  “Hey neighbor, what’s up?” Lucas said, standing there in his A-shirt and boxers.

  Harold whirled around and almost yelled. “Can I come in? There are some prowlers outside my house, and...”

  “Sure!” Lucas held the door for Harold and shut it quickly behind him. “Come on in and we’ll call the police.”

  “No police,” Harold said. “No police.”

  “No police? How come? Do you know the guys?” Lucas asked.

  “No; I think I might be going nuts.”

  “Could be, could be. Look, have a seat. Opal!” Lucas cried. “Put some clothes on Baby!”

  They went through the front room into the cramped den and settled into worn, unstylish, very comfortable chairs. The only light was the Discovery Channel beaming from the T.V.

  “Would you like a drink or something?” Lucas asked.

  “Whiskey,” Harold said, “would be great.”

  “I was thinking along the lines of caffeine-free Diet Coke.”

  Opal appeared out of nowhere in a dime-store Chinese robe. “Diet Coke, Sprite, and I think we have some Dr. Pepper, but it might be flat. It’s in a two-liter. But we got ice.”

  “Sprite’s good,” Harold said. Opal brought him an ice-cold can of simulated Sprite, the store brand, and gave it to him with a hand that sported a rose tattoo spiraling to her wrist.

  “We gave up alcohol a long time ago, I’m sorry,” she said. “But I can still remember what it was
like when I really wanted a drink sweetheart.”

  “Harold,” Lucas said, “This is my wife Opal. Opal, this is Harold.”

  “Please, call me Greg,” Harold said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you Opal.”

  “Nice to meet you Greg,” Opal said.

  “You know,” Lucas said, “you should really go by Harold. Your parents named you Harold for a reason. Calling yourself Greg is no different than calling yourself Rip, or Rock, or Chuck. Hell, why not just call yourself Rick Danger and get it over with.”

  “Cut him some slack,” Opal said.

  “Then Rick Danger it is,” Harold said with a half-hearted grin.

  “Greg’s a jerk,” Lucas said. “But I bet Harold’s a helluva nice guy.”

  “You’ll never know,” Harold said, ”Because there’s no Harold here. Just Greg, who’s scared out of his mind.”

  “Well, tell us what the heck happened,” Lucas said. “Looks like you’ve had a few drinks tonight, and you smell like a Labrodor...”

  “Lucas!” Opal scolded.

  “...and them clothes look pretty much slept in.”

  “It’s okay,” Harold said. “It’s okay. I’m the one who barged in here like a schoolgirl on Halloween.” He took another sip of ersatz Sprite. “I fell down in the yard when I was running from the prowlers.”

  “What a crock of B.S.,” Lucas laughed. “Look, why don’t you sleep here tonight and you can tell us your story in the morning when you’ve showered and had some breakfast.”

  “No, I don’t think so...” Harold began.

  “Look. You won’t let me call the police and you won’t let me put you up for the night. What the heck did you come over here for anyway? To have a Sprite and stink up my favorite chair?”

  “Well...”

  “Opal, would you draw the boy a bath while I go next door and make sure his place is all locked up?”

  “Sure thing Honey,” she answered.