His Gray Half

2. McCleron!

CHAPTER TWO:
|McCleron!|
• • •

Morning routines, on a good day, could be likened to one performed in a montage: the alarm's buzz kickstarts the sequence, as you softly peel apart your lids, allowing the blinding rays of sun to attack your retina the second they are open. In a squint you squeeze them shut again, before gently revealing it to the bright radiance that had invaded your room. Without haste, you pull off the thick yellow Winnie the Pooh sheets, and step out of bed, inhale deeply and seep in every cold larking air, warmly laced with rose and curry, and more vaguely lined fragrances you seem very unsure of. Every step and movement you make, is in perfect sync with the sonorous beats and resounding underlaid music as you dabble over to the window, to watch the performance of a little bard: a bird, chirping it's sweet melodies, in rhythms that leaves you wrapped in a very familiar reality of pink and gold.

Fortunately, background choirs, singing Nightingales, and a good day, are only the fairytales princesses get to live in, unlike Adrian McCleron. The only montages he heard every other morning were the sounds of his beating heart, quarrelling neighbors, or a scurrying rat. Today, what brought him to his universe with nothing but the smell of dirty laundry, and a mold-growing over due popcorn, was Mr Hart's pounce on his door.

"Brat!" Mr Hart wasn't one with a silver tongue, a quality Adrian secretly admired. He had always loved those who bites back when bitten, without holding back a muscle.
"Your rent is due, and it has been more than two weeks now!"

When he got no response, he could only pour out his morning frustrations at the door, in fury.
"I know you are in there, I can smell your wretchedness. I'll be back tomorrow, you better be home with my money."

He always says that. Mr Hart may have a blunt manner of speech, but he could never hide how vulnerably soft his heart is.
Maybe it was from the recent heart attacks, which were more frequent than usual. For his age, it wasn't very uncommon, as it left Adrian wondering if by sixty three he'd also be in and out of the hospital for heart related cases?

'Don't work out longer than thirty minutes!' his granddaughter regularly revisited the doctor's advise a few other morning -It was as though Mr Hart did not care about his life. As much as it would seem so, he didn't want his health to shove him far from his normal life. Even the movies Mr Hart watched were closely censored, and made certain they weren't the kind with enough pangs and bangs to spring up a serious throb in his heart. Adrian couldn't imagine himself without his just-okay-better-than-nothing muscles, and his large collection of horror movies and thrillers.

Hopefully Mr Hart would stop his binges on burgers and French fries, those don't seem too healthy for someone his age. Adrian did find himself caring than he normally should.

Adrian had not dared a word upon Mr Hart's pounding, and immediately he noticed that Mr Hart was gone from his door, he slowly tiptoed closer to it, shifted the blinds, and peeped through the key hole to be sure.

"I knew you were in there!"
Cunningly, Mr Hart might have predicted Adrian's next step, and equally stuck his eyes through the same hole, and met his, knowing that he'll be sure to use it as a means to ensure his full departure.
"Where's my rent boy?"

Adrian jolted back, unlocked the door, and handed Mr Hart a welcoming smile.

"Mr H," Adrian calls him that.
"I'll get it before the end of the week, I promise."