Harold Creeny's Unfortunate Day
by Scott J. Callaway
Harold’s secretary knocked at his door. “Mr. Creeny, would you like a cup of coffee?”
Have you lost your mind, woman? There’s a new strain of flu virus going around, and you’re asking me if I’d like coffee brought to my lips in a cup that was handled by someone else’s germ encrusted fingers? Just imagine where their hands could have been! Or would it suit you to see me in a hospital gown clinging to life in a hospital bed where someone died yesterday?
That’s what he would have liked to say.
Instead, he conceded with “Two sugars and a cream, thank you.”
Harold had to face the facts: death was everywhere. It was in the center of every highway intersection, in the bushes of a hiking trail, inside midnight alleys, along the lining of every toilet seat, beneath cheap motel blankets, and on every slippery sidewalk. The Grim Reaper wasn’t without a plethora of methods to collect his trophies. But Harold was determined not to fall victim to death’s embrace before his time was surely well and done. There were still so many pleasures to be had in his lifetime.
“What pleasures?” his wife would say every other day, while knocking back her usual five o’clock glass of wine. “What experiences could you possibly look forward to if you’re so damned scared of everything?”
“I’m not scared of anything,” corrected Harold. “Why is it such a crying shame to simply be conscientious about cleanliness and safety?”
“Oh, so that’s what happened to my vagina! It’s just another one of your safety concerns. Then I suppose I should tell sleeping beauty here that her prince will never come!”
Harold stared down at his desk where a cup of steaming hot, freshly brewed coffee was now sitting. Regardless of what he had said to his secretary, he wouldn’t be drinking it. He only played along for the sake of appearance, lest the rest of the world regard him as did his nagging wife. He was a businessman. Despite his conviction for self-preservation, he was first and foremost an entrepreneur, and a damned good one, in his opinion. That’s why he needed at all cost to keep himself in good health and safe from danger. There was so much money to spend! The drama classes he’d taken in high school weren’t a waste of time after all.
After ten more minutes of work, Harold collected his contaminated coffee cup and discreetly made his way to the kitchenette to trash it. Now his desk was in a state of Zen once again, ready to help him take on more business endeavors. Subconsciously reaching over to his hand sanitizer, he dispensed exactly one and three quarter squirts, like an hourly mantra.
It was a hard truth that no one would ever really understand him. Like now, for instance, when he’d take the stairs every day up to and down from his office on the fifth floor of his company’s business complex. This also had been a bit of a difficult decision for Harold in the beginning. But even though the elevator was decidedly much easier and more convenient to use, he couldn’t bring himself to trust that the mechanisms wouldn’t barrel down the chute taking him to his death, or accidentally trap him inside for an entire weekend of sensory deprivation. He could already envision the hours of mindless babble: The walls are blue. The walls are blue. No, he thought, he would much rather trust the actions of his own two feet to guide his path. Though it was possible that he could trip and fall down the stairs, just as easily breaking his neck, at least this way he was in control of his every step and could adjust his pace accordingly.
If Harold had only known that today he would be fighting for his survival before he reached the bottommost step, he would have never left the comfort of his office chair and would have called his wife to say he’d be working late.
The first thing Harold failed to notice was the “wet floor” sign on the second floor landing as he made his way down the final flight of stairs. He was very caught up in his thoughts about his latest business deal, a particularly exciting one. He would finally be able to cash in enough to invest in the construction of a state-of-the-art home ventilation system that would prevent up to 99.9% of all harmful outdoor bacteria from entering his indoor breathing space. He was so preoccupied with these thoughts that he dared to momentarily let his guard down for the first time in years. As he reached the sixth step from the bottom, his feet went out from under him and he slipped, rolled to the floor, twisting and spraining his ring finger along the way.
“Oh my God!” said the building cleaner, who at the very moment of Harold’s fall had come into the stairwell and witnessed the accident. “Jesus, Mary, and, Joseph! Are you okay?”
Harold picked himself up off the floor, fending off the cleaner’s attempt to aid him, and spun in circles, checking to make sure all was well. Only his left hand ring finger was hurt. He looked at the man and realized from his shirt logo that he was one of the building janitors – the very culprit whose negligence had almost cost him his life.
“Good lord, man!” cried Harold. “Don’t you people put up warning signs for slippery stairs?”
The cleaner visibly bristled. “Of course we do!” He pointed to the second floor landing, straightening his back in a manner that said he wasn’t going to be derided by anyone.
Harold looked up, squinting. “Well, you couldn’t possibly expect people to notice it in such an out-of-way place. It’s practically hidden!” This, of course, wasn’t true. But Harold’s wounded pride was sorely in need of being assuaged like a monkey’s splintered ass. “I could’ve killed myself!”
“Surely, then, we’d have lost a proper treasure.”
Harold caught the obvious sarcasm dripping from his attempted murderer’s foul tongue. If only he had been a man of lesser integrity, he would have used his hands to seek revenge and make sure the perpetrator received his just deserts. But that would likely cause fractures to his own hands, leading to endless potential dangers in which physical disability would place him at greater risk of death. He luckily escaped the falling incident with only a bruised finger and ego. He would just have to rein in his primal urges and walk away before risking further complications. He clenched his teeth, brandishing one last hateful look at the cleaner, and walked away.
Harold was ever the more cautious during the rest of his walk to his car in the underground parking lot, scanning every step before him and the ceiling above. It wasn’t until he’d safely seated himself behind the wheel of his brand new sedan that he sighed in relief. His ring finger still ached and throbbed painfully. He absently massaged it as he processed his close encounter with death in the stairwell. It had happened so quickly. His life, with all its achievements, successes, and failures, flashed before his very eyes in less than the time it took him to dispense exactly one and three quarter sanitizer squirts. What scared him most was how vulnerable he had been, how he had zero control over his fate in that flashing instant. He hoped never again to be subjected to another moment of sheer helplessness.
Harold twitched in pain as he accidently applied too much pressure to his injured finger. He must have really hurt it. It continued to swell. He decided to gently twist off his wedding ring and place it in his pants pocket to give his finger more breathing space and to avoid cutting off circulation. Because, God forbid, he may have to have it amputated, which could lead to infection, and then a personally engraved headstone.
After his fall, Harold gave an extra few seconds of pause above his regular hesitation as he thought of driving into the midst of a swarm of unlearned and reckless drivers. But it was at this time that his second unfortunate event got the jump on him.
Out of nowhere, a stranger opened his passenger door, jumped into the car, and placed a gun to his head. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll blow your brains out!”
“What?”
If the average person were suddenly faced with the prospect of having the inside of their car decorated with their frontal and temporal lobes, human nature dictates that they would panic and beg for their lives. Not Harold Creeny. Because in Harold’s world, built around what was once believed to be an impenetrable net of safety, he could never have imagined falling prey to such deadly circumstances. Therefore, his response was not a direct reply to his attacker, but to the Universe itself, a universe that suddenly stopped making any sense to him.
“Are you deaf? I said I’ll blow your brains out! Now get us out of here, keep quiet, and follow my directions. If you do exactly as I say, you may come out of this alive.”
The captor’s last words echoed in Harold’s head, and he drove out of there without another moment’s thought.
“Turn right. Keep following this street for two more stop lights, then another right, and keep straight until I say otherwise.”
Harold was terrified. He wanted so badly to plead with the man to let him go, but he was unsure whether the man’s threat was loaded or not. The best course of action, he decided, was to play it cool and not make his captor angry. If only he wasn’t feeling so weak in the groin, then he’d feel much braver. It was hard to feel brave with a gun aimed at your head.
He turned right as he was instructed. However, just as he started down the next road, a large moving truck blocked off the street. The truck driver threw up his hands in a gesture of faked apology.
“Damn it!” Harold’s hijacker cursed in frustration. He looked around the sidewalk as if he expected the devil to pop up and drag him to hell. He pointed to an alley directly to the left. “Take a shortcut through here.”
“But it’s full of trash,” said Harold, which earned him a sharp jab in the ribs with the barrel of the gun.
“Now.”
Harold cut hard to the left and squeezed his car into the narrow alley. When he was halfway down, a black car parked and blocked the exit. He looked into his rearview mirror and noticed an identical vehicle blocking the other end, the place where he had entered the alley. Men in black jackets began running towards Harold’s car and Harold’s captor panicked. With a wild look in his eyes, he quickly got out of the car and began firing shots at men who were gaining fast.
Harold tensed and covered his head with his arms. This would be it then, he thought, to die in the crossfire of some sort of mob business. He never imagined he’d die after pissing his pants.
The gunfire stopped. The next thing Harold knew in the grip of his blinding fear was that he was being dragged from his car along with his now unconscious kidnapper, who had passed out or maybe been hit. Soon, there was the sound of a door being thrown open. Harold and his captor were forcefully taken into a badly lit hallway that led to an equally dark room. Finally, Harold was shoved into a steel chair. Five men stood around him, all brandishing guns, with murder in their eyes.
Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god! They’re going to kill me! I’m going to die in the backroom of some filthy building to be forever forgotten by the world…
“Ricky, keep an eye on them,” said the gruff looking one who Harold guessed was in charge. “These three are going to get rid of the cars, while I go and inform Tony that we’ve got him. He’ll want to be here for what comes next.”
Ricky nodded gravely.
“And tie this one up,” he pointed at Harold with his gun as they left the room. “Sorry fella, but you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Harold was visibly shaking. Whoever this Tony person was (client, employer, mob boss, the building’s electrician, or …), he didn’t sound like someone Harold would invite to church. But what was he to do? Who were these gangsters? What building was he in? Was that music in the background? He tried to remember what the sign outside had said, but he was so shaken he couldn’t have remembered the brand name of his favorite cereal. If he wanted to leave this place with his life intact, then he would have to find a way to escape somehow. He knew this for certain. The question was how?
Harold was no man of action. He didn’t have Hugh Jackman’s biceps or Jet Li’s martial arts prowess. Harold never lifted weights in his life for fear of crushing a vital organ. Finally, he realized there was only one thing he could do…
When Ricky closed in on him, Harold’s survival instincts tore a shrill, undignified scream from his throat that would put a banshee to shame. Surprised by this piss-stained, seemingly weak and pathetic entrepreneur’s sudden outburst, Ricky stumbled back in shock. He obviously wasn’t expecting Harold to react to his approach with anything more than cowering sobs. That one moment of hesitation was all Harold needed to pick up his chair and clobber Ricky on the side of the head. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
Harold stood in shocked disbelief. He never for a moment expected that his assault would work. The instant his being-butchered-in-the-woods cheerleader scream left his mouth, he knew it was all over. Any man whose battle cry sounded like an angry cat in heat needed to be put out of his misery. Now that he was looking down at both of his unconscious would-be killers, he decided not to question it and ran from the room.
He couldn’t leave through the same way he had come in for fear of encountering the other men, so he ran in the opposite direction and through the first door he could find.
Naked women everywhere. Sitting in chairs, looking into mirrors, applying makeup, trying on various levels of revealing clothing, and they all stared at Harold’s sudden appearance with mouths agape, struck dumb at the sight of a wild-eyed and disheveled intruder.
“I-I-I…” Harold’s mouth flapped the one syllable word but could say no more, while his thoughts reeled in horror. I am in a cesspool of gonorrhea and chlamydia.
The first scream rent the air, followed by several glittery items that flew through the air, aimed to cause pain. The women cursed and yelled at him.
“Get out of here, you pervert!”
“Bobby, deal with him!”
“If you want a show you’ll have to pay like everyone else!”
Harold tried to apologize and explain how it wasn’t his fault, how he was the victim of attempted murder, but his plea was snatched from his lips by a muscular bouncer who violently grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him from the room.
“Couldn’t keep it in your pants, eh buddy?” said the bouncer. “Thought you’d go in and show all of them girls what a big man you are, right?”
Customers in the main lounge turned in their seats, eyes momentarily peeled away from Sasha and Candy who were performing a double act using a single pole. A group of men sitting at a table nearest to Harold laughed and heckled at his brusque departure, slopping beer all over themselves and continuing to be slaves to their lust. Harold held back his retort. He didn’t care about his bruised and battered ego at that moment. All that mattered was being led through the front doors and into freedom, as far as possible from the mobsters.
“Don’t throw me too hard!” pleaded Harold.
The bouncer threw him out hard anyway.
Harold landed with a vicious thud on the cement sidewalk, scraping his knee and bruising other body parts. He sucked in a sharp breath of air through clenched teeth and grabbed his stinging knee, cursing all the while, because surely he would now catch some kind of flesh eating bacteria and would lose his leg. Back at the door, the bouncer crossed his arms and remained in the entryway, continuing to look on menacingly. Harold ignored him, because at that moment all he wanted to do was crawl back to his office and hide out the rest of this nightmarish day. It wasn’t fair. Why him? A man so careful about his health and vigilantly aware of his surroundings.
Suddenly, there was the sound of screeching tires urgently braking against pavement, following by the howls of a sexually depraved housewife.
“You son of a bitch!”
Harold’s head immediately snapped to attention at the sound of his wife’s piercing voice. Instantaneously, he realized the day’s troubles up to now had been child’s play compared to what was to come next. He stood up and defensively raised his hands in surrender, hoping without hope to calm his wife before she caused an even bigger scene in the middle of the street in broad daylight.
His wife stepped out of the car that she had left in the middle of traffic. The vehicles waiting to get past her honked their horns and yelled for her to move out of the way. Harold could see in her eyes that the other cars were invisible to her. He was public enemy number one.
Her eyes zeroed in on his naked ring finger and her face contorted further with rage. She seemed not to notice all his other wounds. Harold looked at his hand with horrible comprehension.
“You cheating bastard! Am I not good enough for you? Can I not get your gears into motion like those cheap whores over there? Is that it, Harold?”
She swung her hand to slap him in the face, but Harold mustered his last bit of energy and ducked in time.
“I’ve been nothing but faithful to you even after you stopped having sex with me! And to think I didn’t screw the delivery man when I had the chance, because God knows I could have!”
“Just calm down and let me explain!”
“Calm down? CALM DOWN? Don’t you tell me to calm down when for the last few years you’ve been treating me like some maid who takes care of your house, and not with the respect and attention I deserve as your wife! And now I watched you get thrown out of the dirtiest strip club in town, with your clothes all ruined and glitter all over your face! Well, I hope it was worth getting pepper sprayed!”
Harold had only enough time to briefly ponder the implications of her last words, when as quick as anything she withdrew a canister from her purse and unleashed a generous portion of Satan’s urine across his face. He blinked twice, and then pain like tiny shards of glass scraping his eyes brought him to his knees.
“My eyes!”
By that point, the spectacle on the sidewalk had drawn a modest crowd. Some of the people were now scrambling to Harold’s aid, restraining his wife from causing further harm.
“Don’t you dare show your face at home tonight!” she yelled over the heads of those trying to subdue her.
Harold had heard nothing. The only thing that was going through his mind was, oh god, I can’t breathe! It burns so bad and I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe and I’m going to die!
So deep in the grip of his pain and panic was he that he hadn’t noticed someone was trying to flush his eyes with water.
“Easy now,” said a woman’s calm voice. “Try to open your eyes as much as you can and rinse them out with this.”
“Can’t breathe!” said Harold unintelligibly.
“Yes you can or you wouldn’t be able to talk to me. You’re panicking. It’ll feel much better once you rinse your eyes out with this.”
Soon things were quieter. Surprised, Harold was able to see that he was actually in a hospital. How did he get here? He couldn’t remember. But two hours later he was leaving the hospital and going back into his chaotic world. It seems that during the incident at the strip club, one of the bystanders who had watched all the proceedings had called an ambulance and Harold was taken to the emergency room.
Harold now reflected on these last few terrible hours. He had nearly broken his neck falling down a flight of stairs, he was the random victim of a car hijacking, had been threatened with a gun, nearly became the collateral damage of the mob, had accidentally barged into a strip club dressing room, then was accused by his wife of being unfaithful, which got him pepper sprayed. By anyone’s standards, it was one hell of a day.
After considering all of this, he had learned an important lesson while being treated in the ER. No matter how hard a person tried, no matter how careful he could be, it’s impossible to evade the bad things. At some point the tragedies of life will come bearing down on you just as it does onto everyone else.
So why bother stressing out about it?
With that thought, a great weight seemed to lift off Harold’s shoulders. If bad things are going to happen, they’re going to happen. Why not just live in the moment, savoring the good things while they last? By trying to avoid every bad and unpleasant thing, you miss out on the good things, too. Finally Harold understood what his wife had been trying to tell him all along. He hoped he could still convince her of his story before she was out of his reach. But for now, it was best to give her some time to calm down.
Suddenly Harold’s world was more than business deals and safety innovations. It became something dynamic and wondrous waiting to be explored and experienced in a way he never had before. So what if his car was stolen? He could buy another one. He would finally do something with all that money in the bank! Another time, he would have stood for hours trying to decide which new and exciting thing to do first. But now things were going to change… beginning with a popular Italian restaurant. He had never eaten at a restaurant before. The thought of someone other than himself preparing his food was beyond disgusting. He had no idea where other people’s hands had been and how many mouse droppings were mixed into the rice. But the new Harold decided he wouldn’t give a damn! For the first time in his life, he trusted that his immune system would deal with any possible threat.
So, here he was, in front of the restaurant. Harold walked in and inhaled deeply the powerful aromatic scent of stranger prepared food. He surprised himself by not thinking about germs, but about how delicious everything smelled instead. That decided it. No more hesitations. It was time to eat.
When the waitress took his order, Harold asked for whatever the house special was that day. “Whatever is being featured is good enough for me!”
“I have no doubt that you’ll enjoy the salmon. It’s fresh, straight from the harbor.”
Harold sat back in his seat and smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he had someone else cook for him. It felt good to trust for a change. However, if he could only have predicted that on this particular day, during this particular hour, for this particular meal, that the chef would mistakenly miss the fish bone that had lodged in the salmon, then Harold may never have choked to death.
by Scott J. Callaway
From his fifth
floor office window, Harold watched the oversized and fluffy snowflakes spiral
out of sight. It was only a light snowfall, but he knew that could all change
in mere catastrophic moments. He stared at all the innocent holiday shoppers
below, astounded that they could concern themselves only with shopping lists of
cheap family gift ideas. It was obvious they weren’t worried about what really mattered…
But it was on Harold’s mind. That cloying thought. The ever-present possibility. He knew, unlike everybody else, that death was but a step away.
But it was on Harold’s mind. That cloying thought. The ever-present possibility. He knew, unlike everybody else, that death was but a step away.
Harold’s secretary knocked at his door. “Mr. Creeny, would you like a cup of coffee?”
Have you lost your mind, woman? There’s a new strain of flu virus going around, and you’re asking me if I’d like coffee brought to my lips in a cup that was handled by someone else’s germ encrusted fingers? Just imagine where their hands could have been! Or would it suit you to see me in a hospital gown clinging to life in a hospital bed where someone died yesterday?
That’s what he would have liked to say.
Instead, he conceded with “Two sugars and a cream, thank you.”
Harold had to face the facts: death was everywhere. It was in the center of every highway intersection, in the bushes of a hiking trail, inside midnight alleys, along the lining of every toilet seat, beneath cheap motel blankets, and on every slippery sidewalk. The Grim Reaper wasn’t without a plethora of methods to collect his trophies. But Harold was determined not to fall victim to death’s embrace before his time was surely well and done. There were still so many pleasures to be had in his lifetime.
“What pleasures?” his wife would say every other day, while knocking back her usual five o’clock glass of wine. “What experiences could you possibly look forward to if you’re so damned scared of everything?”
“I’m not scared of anything,” corrected Harold. “Why is it such a crying shame to simply be conscientious about cleanliness and safety?”
“Oh, so that’s what happened to my vagina! It’s just another one of your safety concerns. Then I suppose I should tell sleeping beauty here that her prince will never come!”
Harold stared down at his desk where a cup of steaming hot, freshly brewed coffee was now sitting. Regardless of what he had said to his secretary, he wouldn’t be drinking it. He only played along for the sake of appearance, lest the rest of the world regard him as did his nagging wife. He was a businessman. Despite his conviction for self-preservation, he was first and foremost an entrepreneur, and a damned good one, in his opinion. That’s why he needed at all cost to keep himself in good health and safe from danger. There was so much money to spend! The drama classes he’d taken in high school weren’t a waste of time after all.
After ten more minutes of work, Harold collected his contaminated coffee cup and discreetly made his way to the kitchenette to trash it. Now his desk was in a state of Zen once again, ready to help him take on more business endeavors. Subconsciously reaching over to his hand sanitizer, he dispensed exactly one and three quarter squirts, like an hourly mantra.
It was a hard truth that no one would ever really understand him. Like now, for instance, when he’d take the stairs every day up to and down from his office on the fifth floor of his company’s business complex. This also had been a bit of a difficult decision for Harold in the beginning. But even though the elevator was decidedly much easier and more convenient to use, he couldn’t bring himself to trust that the mechanisms wouldn’t barrel down the chute taking him to his death, or accidentally trap him inside for an entire weekend of sensory deprivation. He could already envision the hours of mindless babble: The walls are blue. The walls are blue. No, he thought, he would much rather trust the actions of his own two feet to guide his path. Though it was possible that he could trip and fall down the stairs, just as easily breaking his neck, at least this way he was in control of his every step and could adjust his pace accordingly.
If Harold had only known that today he would be fighting for his survival before he reached the bottommost step, he would have never left the comfort of his office chair and would have called his wife to say he’d be working late.
The first thing Harold failed to notice was the “wet floor” sign on the second floor landing as he made his way down the final flight of stairs. He was very caught up in his thoughts about his latest business deal, a particularly exciting one. He would finally be able to cash in enough to invest in the construction of a state-of-the-art home ventilation system that would prevent up to 99.9% of all harmful outdoor bacteria from entering his indoor breathing space. He was so preoccupied with these thoughts that he dared to momentarily let his guard down for the first time in years. As he reached the sixth step from the bottom, his feet went out from under him and he slipped, rolled to the floor, twisting and spraining his ring finger along the way.
“Oh my God!” said the building cleaner, who at the very moment of Harold’s fall had come into the stairwell and witnessed the accident. “Jesus, Mary, and, Joseph! Are you okay?”
Harold picked himself up off the floor, fending off the cleaner’s attempt to aid him, and spun in circles, checking to make sure all was well. Only his left hand ring finger was hurt. He looked at the man and realized from his shirt logo that he was one of the building janitors – the very culprit whose negligence had almost cost him his life.
“Good lord, man!” cried Harold. “Don’t you people put up warning signs for slippery stairs?”
The cleaner visibly bristled. “Of course we do!” He pointed to the second floor landing, straightening his back in a manner that said he wasn’t going to be derided by anyone.
Harold looked up, squinting. “Well, you couldn’t possibly expect people to notice it in such an out-of-way place. It’s practically hidden!” This, of course, wasn’t true. But Harold’s wounded pride was sorely in need of being assuaged like a monkey’s splintered ass. “I could’ve killed myself!”
“Surely, then, we’d have lost a proper treasure.”
Harold caught the obvious sarcasm dripping from his attempted murderer’s foul tongue. If only he had been a man of lesser integrity, he would have used his hands to seek revenge and make sure the perpetrator received his just deserts. But that would likely cause fractures to his own hands, leading to endless potential dangers in which physical disability would place him at greater risk of death. He luckily escaped the falling incident with only a bruised finger and ego. He would just have to rein in his primal urges and walk away before risking further complications. He clenched his teeth, brandishing one last hateful look at the cleaner, and walked away.
Harold was ever the more cautious during the rest of his walk to his car in the underground parking lot, scanning every step before him and the ceiling above. It wasn’t until he’d safely seated himself behind the wheel of his brand new sedan that he sighed in relief. His ring finger still ached and throbbed painfully. He absently massaged it as he processed his close encounter with death in the stairwell. It had happened so quickly. His life, with all its achievements, successes, and failures, flashed before his very eyes in less than the time it took him to dispense exactly one and three quarter sanitizer squirts. What scared him most was how vulnerable he had been, how he had zero control over his fate in that flashing instant. He hoped never again to be subjected to another moment of sheer helplessness.
Harold twitched in pain as he accidently applied too much pressure to his injured finger. He must have really hurt it. It continued to swell. He decided to gently twist off his wedding ring and place it in his pants pocket to give his finger more breathing space and to avoid cutting off circulation. Because, God forbid, he may have to have it amputated, which could lead to infection, and then a personally engraved headstone.
After his fall, Harold gave an extra few seconds of pause above his regular hesitation as he thought of driving into the midst of a swarm of unlearned and reckless drivers. But it was at this time that his second unfortunate event got the jump on him.
Out of nowhere, a stranger opened his passenger door, jumped into the car, and placed a gun to his head. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll blow your brains out!”
“What?”
If the average person were suddenly faced with the prospect of having the inside of their car decorated with their frontal and temporal lobes, human nature dictates that they would panic and beg for their lives. Not Harold Creeny. Because in Harold’s world, built around what was once believed to be an impenetrable net of safety, he could never have imagined falling prey to such deadly circumstances. Therefore, his response was not a direct reply to his attacker, but to the Universe itself, a universe that suddenly stopped making any sense to him.
“Are you deaf? I said I’ll blow your brains out! Now get us out of here, keep quiet, and follow my directions. If you do exactly as I say, you may come out of this alive.”
The captor’s last words echoed in Harold’s head, and he drove out of there without another moment’s thought.
“Turn right. Keep following this street for two more stop lights, then another right, and keep straight until I say otherwise.”
Harold was terrified. He wanted so badly to plead with the man to let him go, but he was unsure whether the man’s threat was loaded or not. The best course of action, he decided, was to play it cool and not make his captor angry. If only he wasn’t feeling so weak in the groin, then he’d feel much braver. It was hard to feel brave with a gun aimed at your head.
He turned right as he was instructed. However, just as he started down the next road, a large moving truck blocked off the street. The truck driver threw up his hands in a gesture of faked apology.
“Damn it!” Harold’s hijacker cursed in frustration. He looked around the sidewalk as if he expected the devil to pop up and drag him to hell. He pointed to an alley directly to the left. “Take a shortcut through here.”
“But it’s full of trash,” said Harold, which earned him a sharp jab in the ribs with the barrel of the gun.
“Now.”
Harold cut hard to the left and squeezed his car into the narrow alley. When he was halfway down, a black car parked and blocked the exit. He looked into his rearview mirror and noticed an identical vehicle blocking the other end, the place where he had entered the alley. Men in black jackets began running towards Harold’s car and Harold’s captor panicked. With a wild look in his eyes, he quickly got out of the car and began firing shots at men who were gaining fast.
Harold tensed and covered his head with his arms. This would be it then, he thought, to die in the crossfire of some sort of mob business. He never imagined he’d die after pissing his pants.
The gunfire stopped. The next thing Harold knew in the grip of his blinding fear was that he was being dragged from his car along with his now unconscious kidnapper, who had passed out or maybe been hit. Soon, there was the sound of a door being thrown open. Harold and his captor were forcefully taken into a badly lit hallway that led to an equally dark room. Finally, Harold was shoved into a steel chair. Five men stood around him, all brandishing guns, with murder in their eyes.
Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god! They’re going to kill me! I’m going to die in the backroom of some filthy building to be forever forgotten by the world…
“Ricky, keep an eye on them,” said the gruff looking one who Harold guessed was in charge. “These three are going to get rid of the cars, while I go and inform Tony that we’ve got him. He’ll want to be here for what comes next.”
Ricky nodded gravely.
“And tie this one up,” he pointed at Harold with his gun as they left the room. “Sorry fella, but you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Harold was visibly shaking. Whoever this Tony person was (client, employer, mob boss, the building’s electrician, or …), he didn’t sound like someone Harold would invite to church. But what was he to do? Who were these gangsters? What building was he in? Was that music in the background? He tried to remember what the sign outside had said, but he was so shaken he couldn’t have remembered the brand name of his favorite cereal. If he wanted to leave this place with his life intact, then he would have to find a way to escape somehow. He knew this for certain. The question was how?
Harold was no man of action. He didn’t have Hugh Jackman’s biceps or Jet Li’s martial arts prowess. Harold never lifted weights in his life for fear of crushing a vital organ. Finally, he realized there was only one thing he could do…
When Ricky closed in on him, Harold’s survival instincts tore a shrill, undignified scream from his throat that would put a banshee to shame. Surprised by this piss-stained, seemingly weak and pathetic entrepreneur’s sudden outburst, Ricky stumbled back in shock. He obviously wasn’t expecting Harold to react to his approach with anything more than cowering sobs. That one moment of hesitation was all Harold needed to pick up his chair and clobber Ricky on the side of the head. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
Harold stood in shocked disbelief. He never for a moment expected that his assault would work. The instant his being-butchered-in-the-woods cheerleader scream left his mouth, he knew it was all over. Any man whose battle cry sounded like an angry cat in heat needed to be put out of his misery. Now that he was looking down at both of his unconscious would-be killers, he decided not to question it and ran from the room.
He couldn’t leave through the same way he had come in for fear of encountering the other men, so he ran in the opposite direction and through the first door he could find.
Naked women everywhere. Sitting in chairs, looking into mirrors, applying makeup, trying on various levels of revealing clothing, and they all stared at Harold’s sudden appearance with mouths agape, struck dumb at the sight of a wild-eyed and disheveled intruder.
“I-I-I…” Harold’s mouth flapped the one syllable word but could say no more, while his thoughts reeled in horror. I am in a cesspool of gonorrhea and chlamydia.
The first scream rent the air, followed by several glittery items that flew through the air, aimed to cause pain. The women cursed and yelled at him.
“Get out of here, you pervert!”
“Bobby, deal with him!”
“If you want a show you’ll have to pay like everyone else!”
Harold tried to apologize and explain how it wasn’t his fault, how he was the victim of attempted murder, but his plea was snatched from his lips by a muscular bouncer who violently grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him from the room.
“Couldn’t keep it in your pants, eh buddy?” said the bouncer. “Thought you’d go in and show all of them girls what a big man you are, right?”
Customers in the main lounge turned in their seats, eyes momentarily peeled away from Sasha and Candy who were performing a double act using a single pole. A group of men sitting at a table nearest to Harold laughed and heckled at his brusque departure, slopping beer all over themselves and continuing to be slaves to their lust. Harold held back his retort. He didn’t care about his bruised and battered ego at that moment. All that mattered was being led through the front doors and into freedom, as far as possible from the mobsters.
“Don’t throw me too hard!” pleaded Harold.
The bouncer threw him out hard anyway.
Harold landed with a vicious thud on the cement sidewalk, scraping his knee and bruising other body parts. He sucked in a sharp breath of air through clenched teeth and grabbed his stinging knee, cursing all the while, because surely he would now catch some kind of flesh eating bacteria and would lose his leg. Back at the door, the bouncer crossed his arms and remained in the entryway, continuing to look on menacingly. Harold ignored him, because at that moment all he wanted to do was crawl back to his office and hide out the rest of this nightmarish day. It wasn’t fair. Why him? A man so careful about his health and vigilantly aware of his surroundings.
Suddenly, there was the sound of screeching tires urgently braking against pavement, following by the howls of a sexually depraved housewife.
“You son of a bitch!”
Harold’s head immediately snapped to attention at the sound of his wife’s piercing voice. Instantaneously, he realized the day’s troubles up to now had been child’s play compared to what was to come next. He stood up and defensively raised his hands in surrender, hoping without hope to calm his wife before she caused an even bigger scene in the middle of the street in broad daylight.
His wife stepped out of the car that she had left in the middle of traffic. The vehicles waiting to get past her honked their horns and yelled for her to move out of the way. Harold could see in her eyes that the other cars were invisible to her. He was public enemy number one.
Her eyes zeroed in on his naked ring finger and her face contorted further with rage. She seemed not to notice all his other wounds. Harold looked at his hand with horrible comprehension.
“You cheating bastard! Am I not good enough for you? Can I not get your gears into motion like those cheap whores over there? Is that it, Harold?”
She swung her hand to slap him in the face, but Harold mustered his last bit of energy and ducked in time.
“I’ve been nothing but faithful to you even after you stopped having sex with me! And to think I didn’t screw the delivery man when I had the chance, because God knows I could have!”
“Just calm down and let me explain!”
“Calm down? CALM DOWN? Don’t you tell me to calm down when for the last few years you’ve been treating me like some maid who takes care of your house, and not with the respect and attention I deserve as your wife! And now I watched you get thrown out of the dirtiest strip club in town, with your clothes all ruined and glitter all over your face! Well, I hope it was worth getting pepper sprayed!”
Harold had only enough time to briefly ponder the implications of her last words, when as quick as anything she withdrew a canister from her purse and unleashed a generous portion of Satan’s urine across his face. He blinked twice, and then pain like tiny shards of glass scraping his eyes brought him to his knees.
“My eyes!”
By that point, the spectacle on the sidewalk had drawn a modest crowd. Some of the people were now scrambling to Harold’s aid, restraining his wife from causing further harm.
“Don’t you dare show your face at home tonight!” she yelled over the heads of those trying to subdue her.
Harold had heard nothing. The only thing that was going through his mind was, oh god, I can’t breathe! It burns so bad and I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe and I’m going to die!
So deep in the grip of his pain and panic was he that he hadn’t noticed someone was trying to flush his eyes with water.
“Easy now,” said a woman’s calm voice. “Try to open your eyes as much as you can and rinse them out with this.”
“Can’t breathe!” said Harold unintelligibly.
“Yes you can or you wouldn’t be able to talk to me. You’re panicking. It’ll feel much better once you rinse your eyes out with this.”
Soon things were quieter. Surprised, Harold was able to see that he was actually in a hospital. How did he get here? He couldn’t remember. But two hours later he was leaving the hospital and going back into his chaotic world. It seems that during the incident at the strip club, one of the bystanders who had watched all the proceedings had called an ambulance and Harold was taken to the emergency room.
Harold now reflected on these last few terrible hours. He had nearly broken his neck falling down a flight of stairs, he was the random victim of a car hijacking, had been threatened with a gun, nearly became the collateral damage of the mob, had accidentally barged into a strip club dressing room, then was accused by his wife of being unfaithful, which got him pepper sprayed. By anyone’s standards, it was one hell of a day.
After considering all of this, he had learned an important lesson while being treated in the ER. No matter how hard a person tried, no matter how careful he could be, it’s impossible to evade the bad things. At some point the tragedies of life will come bearing down on you just as it does onto everyone else.
So why bother stressing out about it?
With that thought, a great weight seemed to lift off Harold’s shoulders. If bad things are going to happen, they’re going to happen. Why not just live in the moment, savoring the good things while they last? By trying to avoid every bad and unpleasant thing, you miss out on the good things, too. Finally Harold understood what his wife had been trying to tell him all along. He hoped he could still convince her of his story before she was out of his reach. But for now, it was best to give her some time to calm down.
Suddenly Harold’s world was more than business deals and safety innovations. It became something dynamic and wondrous waiting to be explored and experienced in a way he never had before. So what if his car was stolen? He could buy another one. He would finally do something with all that money in the bank! Another time, he would have stood for hours trying to decide which new and exciting thing to do first. But now things were going to change… beginning with a popular Italian restaurant. He had never eaten at a restaurant before. The thought of someone other than himself preparing his food was beyond disgusting. He had no idea where other people’s hands had been and how many mouse droppings were mixed into the rice. But the new Harold decided he wouldn’t give a damn! For the first time in his life, he trusted that his immune system would deal with any possible threat.
So, here he was, in front of the restaurant. Harold walked in and inhaled deeply the powerful aromatic scent of stranger prepared food. He surprised himself by not thinking about germs, but about how delicious everything smelled instead. That decided it. No more hesitations. It was time to eat.
When the waitress took his order, Harold asked for whatever the house special was that day. “Whatever is being featured is good enough for me!”
“I have no doubt that you’ll enjoy the salmon. It’s fresh, straight from the harbor.”
Harold sat back in his seat and smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he had someone else cook for him. It felt good to trust for a change. However, if he could only have predicted that on this particular day, during this particular hour, for this particular meal, that the chef would mistakenly miss the fish bone that had lodged in the salmon, then Harold may never have choked to death.
Copyright 2014 Scott J. Callaway
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