MOOD
When Harry wakes up he’s become a deep-sea diver from nose to toes, so under pressure he can only move, slow as molasses. Don’t ask Harry what’s the matter? He might tell you to go f- your face and ask who you bribed to get admitted to the human race? The birds outside his window know not to chirp. As he moves through his house, everything sticks to him. His dirty clothes, his razor, old coats, breakfast dishes, the hallway rug. People who meet him on the sidewalk can see he is dragging and dredging and say encouraging things, “Forget it, Harry, tomorrow’s another day.” The brave ones add, “Look on the bright side, Harry,” then scuttle away before Harry can pop off. “Keep it up, you brainless twit. Your talk smells ripe as yesterday’s fish rotting in the trash.” Where Harry plods on, the cats disappear from his path.
At work, people see the debris field stretching down the hall and out the door. Workers who like Harry bring him coffee, say nothing, and leave. Others gurgle, “Now I know what it means when time gives thumps and leaves lumps. Thanks, Harry, you are a gentleman and a scholar.” They wait for Harry to erupt. But Harry is deep, and he doesn’t even hear the bleating of these sheep. At the morning briefing, nobody sits near Harry, hoping to get through it before, oh they don’t, here he goes. “You’re gonna die at your desks, you hopeless dildos. The weather will get so hot you’ll fry when your car seats burst into flame. Then you’ll get sick, but nobody will come because it’s time to cull the herd. You’re fat and ugly and the young are planning to kill you on your trip to the bathroom.”
Everywhere Harry walks, people hear a shuddering, scritching, and scraping of the flotsam he drags behind him. His friend Bill finds him trudging around the park where he normally does his speed walk at lunch. “Come on, Harry, how did Gladys put you in such a fizzle?” “Go die, Bill.” “Come on Harry, what’s crashed against the glass that was clear and bright and now there’s a mess of mud and leaves.?” “Bill you can stick your metaphors up your ass.” “So, did Gladys say your physique can use a touch up, a smidge, light buffing here and there, or did she find you in the mental can and told you to pull your head out, or maybe she wanted to go dancing and shake it all about, but your hue turned blue and couldn’t fake it to make it?” “Who asked you Bill, did I, for this Readers Digest walk the dog out of the fog?”
“Maybe Harry, you are at an archaeological layer deeper than Gladys. Maybe you’ve stuck your brain in the funk of everything’s bunk and what’s the use? You create junk and soon nobody will pay for it, and you’ll be riding the rails with jumpy Joes who’ll steal your shoes if you fall asleep?” “But Bill, Bill, it’s true, it’s true! We’re gonna get old. Everything’s going to hurt. Our dicks will wither. They will leave us in the ditch because nobody cares. Don’t you see?” “Harry, Gladys is on the phone. Gladys, he’s deep; bring him up slow, or he’ll get the bends. Here, Harry, listen to Gladys, Jesus.”
Harry walks away a few yards, sways back and forth, then shuffles forward and back.
“Yes, I can.” More shuffling. “Hi. What? I . . . It’s fucked up. Sorry. Hi Gladys. No, I’m not . . . okay. No, not sick, sick, different sick. I don’t . . . know . . . why, Gladys. Yes, I still have it. It’s just . . . dead, dead. What that makes . . . . I can try, okay? Yes. What? What else, anything, what? Worth a spin. There is . . . yes. You, babe, you. The rest, I don’t know. I can. I get lost and forget what . . . is in front of me. Tonight? It’s so loud. Wait, wait, wait! I want to. I do. With me? Checking.” Harry wiggles and wobbles as his hands fly about like a squirrel chasing a nut. One hand dives deep into a coat pocket. H’s hand fights to extract the find, needing his other hand. Setting the phone on a rock, he seizes the jacket hem and pulls. Back arched, elbows straining, and pop, his pocket hand shot out. “Got you, you freaking little shits.” Taking the phone, “No problem, Cinderella, I’ll be at the ball, earplugs and all.”
“Few were keen enough to hear the snapping and cracking when Harry’s garbage patch breaks apart. It starts with the fizzing of the psychic bumps and bruises of little Harry, plus the face-plants and jeers of young Harry, bubbling up is the oily ooze of the daily blood-sucking confidence game of staying in the groove. Bill can tell. The birds chirp in the nearby trees, the pigeons peck around Harry’s feet, and a dog on a leash walks near, sniffs at Harry’s hand, that scratches its head on the way past. Harry walks back with Bill’s phone. To be honest, he is sheepish and weepish, which he tries to hide. With a grin, a thwack on Bill’s chest, he says, “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”