Let's Be Real - HS Short Story

001.

What Harry wanted the world to know was this: he usually went home alone after concerts, or to whatever room of the moment constituted home; and he actually preferred the solace and challenge of drafting poetry to the chaos of putting those same beautifully-crafted and hard won words into performing. 

It wasn't that he didn't like his mates or his band, he did, but the burgeoning emptiness he felt inside was something they could not quell for him. Although they did try because they recognized his nascent sadness, their dejected faces made him feel even worse.

So he played his part the best he could and suffered as silently and stoically as he could. God, why am I not happy, he often wondered, I am the envy of most guys on the five habitable continents (Harry not being sure if his seismic fame reached Antarctica and/or one could technically call it habited). Never-ending nights filled with blinking - no blinding and neurosis-producing - lights, thousands of adoring women, free beer and drugs were oddly losing their appeal. 

These young women knew facts about him that even he did not know and that was becoming a bit scary. Even more frightening were their attempts to befriend his family to get to him. The desperation struck him as profoundly sad. Who was he but just an average boy, when one got right down to it? Yet he adored his fans, all of them, even down to the quirkiest one.

But it seemed it did not matter if he was on board or not with what people thought and wrote about him. Fiction would sprout from his every action and a myriad of interpretations and assumptions (most wrong) would follow him everywhere.

Take cats, for instance. Harry did love cats, no question there. But if he really was honest and could have any pet of his choosing, he would, without hesitation, select a small herd of Nigerian Pygmy Goats. He really loved those goats. 

They were cute, gregarious, independent, good with children and excellent at curtailing the spread of noxious weeds. But like many of the troubles he faced, what would he do with them while touring? And would they, like his family, be subject to the mercurial whims of his adoring fans? On one hand, that could be great exposure for the Nigerian Pygmy Goat (that were, sadly, waning in popularity), or then again, start an explosion of unwanted animals when people got them to be like him, but quickly learned how arduous their care could be. Sigh, thought Harry. Just ... sigh. The goats must wait.

Harry's first stop on his quest for inner peace was to read One The Road by Jack Kerouc, where he tried, fruitlessly, to summon up a sense of adventure on tour and a new spice for bohemian hedonism. But it all seemed so false and like an act. Did those Beat guys really believe that stuff they said, like they were the ones to create explicit portrayal of the human condition and innovations in style? But didn't they technically steal that from other people? It was hard to know what it all meant.

Harry felt people should not be judged, whether rich, poor or hedonist and that everyone had a story; and that was what made each person beautiful. It did not seem right to hate (or conversely, blindly adore) someone just because they had more or less money, or due to responsibilities of say, owning a goat farm, that they needed to conform to pay bills and buy feed, worming and such.

Since most of the men from the Beats died after plummeting into alcohol and drug-addled haziness and obscurity, he exercised caution in taking that path much further other than a few tips here or there. Plus, where were the women in that whole literary counter-cultural movement? There should be more women, of that Harry was certain. Their absence was telling.

So he tried to relax and bumped around the anarchist, hippie, book and curios shops along Haight Street in San Francisco after a particularly grueling concert at Levi's Stadium. His grooves were decidedly off and his voice felt tender and not his own. But as often happened, soon the paparazzi was on his heels like a pack of rabid dragonflies and the door to further spiritual exploration was closed with a decisive slam. Harry was grateful he had on his black chucks and hair back in a bun, because he sure had to bust a move from those cameras.

He was able to duck into Zona Rosa unnoticed, where behind new hippie round pink sunglasses and a fedora, he was able to eat his giant spicy steak burrito unmolested. He was able to pay a filthy hippie with white-guy dreadlocks, purple capris (and an underfed, sad looking Pit Bull cross) $143.52, which is all the money he had at the moment, to escort him back to his hotel room, ensconced behind a huge wood sign that read, "Free hugs, but I should would dig some money for weed."

Before being chased by paparazzi and befriending the smelly hippie, Harry did get to check out 710 Asbury, where the Grateful Dead had their (some could argue) formative years, and that was really cool. Cripes, what a hill though, his calves were burning.

However, the next day, a decidedly out-of-context black and white image of him was blazoned on tie dyed t-shirts sold on Etsy.com for $200 a pop, pronouncing Harry the new leader of both Anarchy 2K16 and fostering in a new generation of psychedelics. God, he thought, I was just checking it all out, I had made no decisions. Maybe he should call his lawyer and shut that down, but even that small action seemed a great effort; and if someone could make a living selling shirts with his face, well, so be it, that was okay by him. He tried to see the humor in it all, but it was getting harder and harder to do that.