Rolling Away

            by Anna Capurso

 

Harold was hunched in a corner, obsessively running his hand across the ground.  Dust bunnies and chips of paint collected in his hands, while old hairs tangled around his fingers.  He picked up a rubber band and stretched it around his wrist.  The buzz of fluorescent lights echoed off the mustard yellow walls of the hallway, but Harold couldn’t hear the deafening sound; his hearing had dulled since his younger years.  Scratching his bushy, graying beard, he placed a hand on his back to relieve the pain from standing up.  He walked to the end of the hallway, past closed white doors marked by numbers.  The last door was his, and as always, Harold had to kick it to overpower the sticky coating between the door and frame.  More chips of white paint fell to the ground.  

“Damn thing,” he muttered, “I’ll have to fix that one day.”

As he stepped inside, a comforting whiff of incense filled Harold’s nostrils, which immediately triggered a headache.

Harold was very fond of his room; it only had space for the necessities.  In one corner, (which he called the Bitchen, because it was both a kitchen and bathroom) a toilet, refrigerator, stove, and sink were hidden by a faded tie-dye curtain. The rest of the room was empty, except for a mattress in the corner, a rocking chair, a handmade wooden table, which supported his vintage record player, and a rubber band ball.  Harold had kept the ball since the early seventies when he found it in a parking lot.  It hadn’t meant much to him then, but as years past, the ball began to dominate his life.  The small space he had in the Bitchen was dictated by rubber bands, which he would dry, cut, and melt together into various sizes to add to the growing ball.

Once inside, Harold put his daily findings on the Bitchen counter.   Rather than sizing and cutting the rubber bands like Harold usually did after a hard day’s work, he decided to put on his favorite record and took a seat in the rocking chair.   With the rubber band ball resting in his lap, Harold leaned back and looked at the wall.  It was covered in hundreds of posters and photographs, perfectly arranged and neatly tacked to the wall, of all the Grateful Dead shows he had attended.  Stroking the ball, he lit a stick of incense and stared at the posters until he drifted off to sleep.

 

The next morning, Harold awoke still in the rocking chair.  The rubber band ball had fallen on the hardwood floor and rolled a few feet away from where he sat. As he stood up suddenly, his back cracked in rebellion.  Tripping over his own feet, Harold lifted the ball to meet his nostrils.  The sharp smell of rubber made him grin and he gave it a quick kiss.  Sunlight streamed through the crooked blinds and beams of dust lit the smoky room.  He suspected it must be around six in the morning, because the smell of doughnuts frying had drifted up into his room.  He lit some more incense and walked to the window sill.  Peeking through the blinds, Harold saw only a few people outside.  They looked like clones; each wore a suit, carried a briefcase, and bustled along the sidewalk while talking anxiously on a cell phone.  Harold ruffled his hair and changed into a dirty shirt from the floor. 

“Today’s a good day,” he remarked, grasping his rubber band ball tightly, and then proceeded out the door and downstairs.  

Harold always felt special entering the doughnut shop from the back entrance.  It reminded him of all the times he had entered the Dead shows from the band entrance, even though he wasn’t actually in the band.  He imagined himself running up onstage, dozens of lights blinding him, and as he took a bow to the deafening cheering from the crowd –

“Good Morning Mr. Harold!” a high voice shouted as he entered the room.  Harold sighed and left his daydreaming for later.  He hated it when people addressed him as “mister”; he wished people still called him Harold the Hippie.  But he excused the boy’s mistake.  

“Hey Michael, what’s happenin’ man?”  Harold asked the little boy who was coloring at a table.  

“I am learning more English words today!  And then I go to Chinese school later.”  

“Groovy.”  

Michael was always thrilled to tell Harold his daily activities and tried to use his new English words.  Harold appreciated Michael’s optimistic view of life and enjoyed how he always had an opinion to share.  However, Harold still felt a little uncomfortable around the young boy, even though he had known him since his birth.  Aside from Michael’s, all of the small, round tables were empty, and Harold chose one in the far corner by the window.  The flimsy wooden chairs always worried him, so he sat down carefully and placed his rubber band ball on the table.  Before it could even begin to roll, Harold snatched the ball and placed it in his lap.  Until a woman in her thirties came in from the kitchen, Harold’s eyes remained fixed on the ball.  Without a word, the woman brought him coffee and a glazed doughnut.  

“Good morning Lily,” Harold said, as he watched the ball out of the corner of his eyes.

“Yes,” she replied.

“She does not want to learn anymore English words, she decided yesterday,” Michael chimed.  “But I’m learning lots!”  Harold smiled as he sipped his coffee and began to daydream.  

 

At nine o’clock, when Michael had gone to school and pedestrians had already passed through the shop on their way to work, Harold decided to take a walk outside.  He strolled along the curb and peered into the gutter every few seconds.  He always gazed into lonely places like gutters and corners.  Whenever he spotted a rubber band, Harold darted into the gutter and picked it up ferociously, as if everyone else in the world were racing for the same crusty band.  Harold walked for blocks, neck bent, watching the gutter pass by.  Counting the steps between rubber bands relaxed him.  Once he had to take five thousand steps until he found another.

“Today is a great day,” Harold said as he picked up a wet band that left a sticky black residue on his fingers.  

On his walk, Harold thought of his old Victorian home in the Haight Ashbury.  The farther he walked, the deeper he fell into memories.  His life had once been a seemingly unending, spontaneous adventure.  He was one of the most well-known and loved hippies in the Haight, and had been there from the very beginning.  Everyone had known him and a stroll along the sidewalk always resulted in long conversations with new admirers.  He was Harold the Hippie.  Young women with long hair flocked to his side and grasped his hands, while young men strove to mimic his style.  

But most of Harold’s memories of the sixties had turned bitter.  He resented all of the hippies who had left the Haight as soon as times became hard, and he felt betrayed by all of his friends who had forgotten him.  At sixty-eight steps, his thoughts paused.  He darted toward a rubber band.  

“Cooool,” he said as he stretched the band multiple times, checking its elasticity before placing it on his wrist.  

 

When the sun began to dim, Harold returned to his apartment and placed his day’s findings on the table.  Twenty-three rubber bands were collected; this was one of his highest findings yet.  He sat rocking, picked up a rubber band and stretched it around the ball.  Harold loved the sticky feeling of the bands and the way they could stretch, and then snap back to place.  After a dinner of frozen hamburger meat, Harold carefully placed his ball on the windowsill and went to bed.  

That night, Harold twitched in his sleep as he dreamt of the sixties.   He was in Golden Gate Park, surrounded by faces he hadn’t seen in over forty years.  They were still young and vibrant, but Harold’s graying beard and wrinkles remained.  He knew exactly where he was located, but he felt lost and began to panic.  It was an unusually beautiful summer day.  Everyone lounged on the grass and was completely oblivious to Harold’s frantic cries for help.  He paced back and forth, tugging at his beard.  A young woman who worked at Harold’s favorite bookstore strolled by.  He tapped her shoulder feverishly, but she seemed unaware of his presence.  

“Excuse me,” he shouted, but she continued to walk by.  

After several similar encounters, Harold couldn’t even remember why he was asking for help.  He felt sick to his stomach and could barely breathe.  

“Why am I lost?” he cried.  

At that moment, an overwhelming pain shot through Harold’s arm.

He awoke abruptly, sweating and panting.  

“Shit!” he said.  

The sharp pain still remained in his arm.  Harold gasped, as he lifted his bloody hand off the bed. Tiny glittering pieces of glass were embedded into multiple cuts.  The sheets were soaked in blood.  Cool air entered the room from a large hole in the window next to his bed and shards of glass lay on the blanket.  

He felt faint, “Where’s my ball?” he thought, “Where’s my ball!?!”

 

Throwing off his covers, he ran outside, through the doughnut shop and onto the sidewalk.  The ball wasn’t on the pavement below his window.  People stared at him, as he wore only his tighty-whities and clutched his bloody hand.  

“Oh my god,” Harold repeated frantically.  

He got down on his knees and uninjured hand and peered under a parked car.  Overwhelmed, he continued to crawl from car to car.  After searching beneath each vehicle on the block, he entered every store and pleaded with the employees for help.  The workers took one look at his crusty beard, stained underwear, and bloody hand and pointed to the door.

With no hope left, he began to run.  His feet pattered up and down the sidewalk.  People in restaurants laughed and seemed mesmerized.  Passer-bys jumped out of the way and turned their heads to watch.  Michael’s Chinese class was on a field trip, and crowded the sidewalk ahead.  Harold ran mindlessly, full speed in their direction.  The boys ignored their teacher who pointed to a tree and attempted to continue with her lecture.  

“That’s my friend, Mr. Harold,” Michael said, pointing and jumping up and down.  “That’s my friend!” he continued.  

The flustered teachers attempted to gather the children in the street as Harold burst through the group.  

“That man is insane,” one of the teachers remarked.

“That looks fun!” Michael’s classmate laughed.

Michael began to unzip his pants.  He nudged his classmate, “let’s follow him.”