Harry's Peace

A Short Story

Harry Jackson, seated at the kitchen table, took little notice of the darkness until the clock on the mantel sounded 9:30 p.m. Comfortable in the stillness of the house, he burrowed through memories of past days and missed chances. He was never the kind to ask where his life took the wrong turn. He considered every step, moment to moment, every choice that brought him to a kitchen table in an empty house in the dark. 

A chime broke his thoughts. The gong reminded him of the line in the John Donne poem, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls." At 67, there was no one to ask other than the ghosts he confronted in memories of his life. Once, the long retired carpenter had a wife and son. Their were in those thoughts for hours before the chime intruded. 

"Beth" he said with a long sigh, as he looked at the familiar objects around him in the dark. Cancer took her 15 years ago. That was about the time Harry stopped worrying about lights. Now, only Harry made his way slowly through the rooms in the house on Fourth Street. Many days in darkness he sat at the table head in one of a set of slat back seats at the handmade oak kitchen table, his familiar space. 

Harry's  eyes dimmed as he moved to switch on a light. The man looked at the 60-watt bulb under the industrial shop light shade that hung about two feet from the ceiling.

Beth would hate that, he said to himself and smiled.  The lamp cover matched nothing in the room. Harry did not care. He said in a low tone, "I don't know what I'm doin' here either." 

In the 20- by 15-foot room, his five-foot six, posed seated in the same way every day. Like a museum exhibit, the  thin, but muscled frame, an object unnoticed, except by those who come to observe. Harry's fixed posture made its own statement - he is available - yet no one ever visited. 

The bulb gave life to a tight circle of objects that stretched not far from the chair at the head of the table, Harry's throne in what he called his "keep." He once read that word meant castle. Harry liked the sound, and the way it made people react. He only used the term when he felt like king of that domain. His space in the house. The old carpenter made the round table and chairs.

Harry read the morning paper and drank his first cup of coffee there, ate there, and often perched there to listen to the radio. He most enjoyed talk shows. The voices gave him a sense of company. He argued with most of the hosts, but still tuned in to fill the air.  He looked at the stove, cupboards over the sink, refrigerator, and pantry door in the shadows.  The living room and rest of the house was dark. That was when he realized that he did not care. The bulb sprayed enough light for the work he planned at the wooden table. That was what mattered.

On that Dec. 11 night, the solitary man used the space to think. Seated in his chair,  Harry tossed a white pad of lined paper onto the bare surface to write his son Clinton a letter. He began the task in the afternoon. The first line was hard to figure. Harry moved slowly toward the task.  

"Dear Clinton," he mouthed, as he scratched the words with a lead pencil into the paper. In his mind, he pictured the younger man's face. "No," he said as he rubbed with his right hand to erase those words. He flicked the leftover shards of rubber eraser from the sheet and laid the pad flat for another try.

"Hey Clint," he whispered. The right corner of his mouth slightly rose into a half smile. He wrote those two other words. Harry pushed into the task a little at a time. He felt the pressure of the hour. 

"I am not going to lose another day," he said to no one in the room. Deep in self-chat, as if some unseen parent made him write the message as punishment, the father weighed every word in his thoughts.