July 12, 2010 12:23 PM
A Tight Sift, a short story by Christina Pitrelli
The city heat almost fried me and I was starving. But Harold appeared in a dizzying wave of golden light. He took me on, fed me, and gave me shelter. After that, I stayed with him for awhile. Harold is a hero and I like to think that we were friends, although he's not the type to mention either of those.
The day that Harold saved me, he took me up to where he lived in Rick and Rhonda's apartment just below penthouse where he washed dishes, announced guests, occasionally watered plants, and did his best at facials and massages. Rhonda bristled when she saw me and looked like she'd murder me if she wasn't so grossed out. She panted and moaned and ruled the elevator with her peppery musk while complaining about everything. Her chunky flip-flops squeaked on the cold marble and her fat toes wiggled like newborn hamsters. The elevator man just stood there, wonderfully straight through it all, although he did hold up his nose just slightly (he had gorgeous green eyes that sneaked glances). Then the silvery doors parted on the living room of sharp tables and jutting sculptures arranged like a maze around a vast L-shaped sofa that muffled Rhonda's tantrums when she took them facing down.
Rick stayed away in his den with the built-in shelves jammed with books. For a solid handful, he had memorized author, title, and flap. While he hated to read, he relished the idea of being perceived as an expert and getting to say things at galas like "Have you read Grumbell's 'Geopolitical Schema for a Modern World?' Oh, it's luminous! Really just chock-full of tools we could only hope to find in the kits of modern reformers!"
Then one morning, he sat in his den with his face down on the desk and wept.
"You're gonna get drool on the laptop," Rhonda said, through bites of an egg salad sandwich.
"I don't care about the stupid laptop!"
Rhonda glared.
"Richard, I told you Dr. Wondell did his dissertation on mountain lions, didn't I? He spent nine freakin' years living with them in the wild! So why would you go and start? What do you have, like one unopened book on the topic? And you dared to contravene him? Rosalie told us he was the most important new donor in the room and that he had a delicate ego -- but where were you during that critical conversation? Oh that's right -- you were busy instructing the kid with the hors d'oeuvres tray about the history of canapes -- was I the stupid one that bought you the book about canapes? If I was, you can shoot me! Rosalie was mortified -- this was her first time finally getting to chair the event -- you know how long she's been kissing up! And it's no secret she had to pull strings to get us into this one! She said Dr. Wondell's ulcers flared up because of you and he couldn't even stay for the surprise disco thing they were doing in his honor! These were important people, Richard! Lovely, important people! And believe me we'll never be invited back! And I wouldn't wanna show my face anyway! You depress me, Richard! Sometimes you make me wanna go to sleep and not wake up for a whole year!"
Rick lifted up his head and revealed his sticky, tear-streaked face.
"Nine years?" Nine years with mountain lions? Look, what do you want me to do? How do I compete with that? And you never told me Wondell had ulcers! I could've told him a lot about those -- I'm married to one!"
He let his head fall on the desk and resumed his weeping while tapping the veneer with two fingers.
Rhonda scratched her thigh.
"Richard, I want you to get rid of all of these stupid books, and if you're not gonna do it, I'll have Harold do it -- at least he appreciates me and knows how to make himself useful around here!"
"Nonsense!" Rick said. "I would never let Harold touch my books! That is insulting!"
Rhonda scratched down to her calf.
"Look, I was being sarcastic. What I really sincerely think you should do is take your stupid, precious books and shoot yourself to the moon! You are an expert on nothing! You are always an expert on nothing! You are a poser, Richard! And I honestly, seriously think I'd be much better off with you on the moon! So whenever you're ready, please go impress whatever little green people live up there! I'll donate the books to a good cause, and then I'll turn this room into a shoe closet."
Rick jumped up from behind the desk and tried to put Rhonda in a headlock while bouncing.
"My dear, you are brilliant!" he said. "This is why you're my baby! This is why!"
Rhonda pushed him away and spit egg in his direction.
"What are you talking about?" Now she was screaming. "You never supported my dream of a shoe closet!"
Rhonda tossed her egg-coated tin-foil into Rick's waste basket and marched out of the room.
"I don't expect you to understand my dear, but thank you!" Rick said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're my queen, honey!"
Then he leaned out and called down the hall.
"Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain! Onward we go to the next frontier! To the moon, I say -- to the freakin' moon!"
He waited a moment in the silence that followed. Then he came back in and slammed the door.
Within forty-eight hours, the elevator ding assumed a steady presence, along with the rubber-squish of workman's boots and a screaming drill. A giant photo of the Milky Way arrived from a firm in Seattle, along with "The Universe and Beyond" encyclopedias, a heavily taped-up parcel of an astrolabe from a Czech mystic in Poughkeepsie, a marble model of the solar system, jumbo laminated astronomy charts, seven different telescopes, seven different tripods, and a year's supply of astronaut ice cream. Rick dug into everything like a child at his birthday.
A woman from downstairs with a sweaty upper lip was called to pack up his book collection for donation. She moved the boxes from the den to the elevator by hunching over each one and dragging it backwards in little steps.
Rick sat on the floor in his blue velour pajamas and arranged the marble planets along orbits that he drew in the carpet with his finger.
"Feel free to pull some titles for you and the kids," he said to the woman. "There're some real gems in there -- one on venture capital stuff in India -- the 'Asian Tiger,' as we call her, and if I remember correctly, it's a real tour de force that illuminates the current Zeitgeist."
The man drilling outside the door wore a faded gray conductor's hat and looked like a woodpecker. He surveyed the holes and screwed in a sign that said "Richard B. Marvin, Lunar Alientologist." Rick, munching on freeze-dried rocky road, popped out from the den and patted the man on the back. The man stood straighter and didn't say anything.
Later that day, Rick created the "Rick's Lunar Den Visitation Policy" and posted its contents beneath the new sign. Harold was to be excluded entirely while Rhonda was allowed entrance only after she'd scream and scrape the door with her pointiest shoe. He also set up an online profile and dedicated himself to becoming actively present in the "Upward Earthlings!" chat room.
Communicating as his Merlin-on-a-surfboard avatar, he squinted and typed through twenty-four hour cycles of group pontifications.
Discussions often turned to the collective dream of building "The Big Chipper," a solar-powered space truck made up of thirty-two million cookie sheets coated with a patent-pending substance called "Not Your Grandmother's Vegetable Oil." Rick had joined just in time for the annual conference call with members from around the world during which they debated the logistics of construction. With his feet propped on the desk, he bellowed into the speaker-phone, saying things like "thermo-dynamics," "supersonic," and "super-duper."
He stopped attending galas with Rhonda, ruined three cookie sheets in twelve minutes, and slept with aluminum foil between his fingers and toes to enhance his extraterrestrial magnetic potentiality. Rhonda leaned on Harold for constant support and did a lot of ranting and backed him up against things. She'd frequently fall on the sofa and sob into his neck.
Then, one blessed evening, Rhonda finally shut herself in her room and went to bed with a migraine. All of the lights were off except for a funky green glow coming out of the bottom of the door to Rick's den. Otherwise, soft rays of peach and lavender filtered through the immense living room windows and gave the illusion of smoothing the edges of all the stuff. Harold, who had been pacing behind the sofa, suddenly rushed into the dining room and stared all frozen-like at a wall next to a side table. I couldn't see what he was staring at and thought maybe Rick and Rhonda had finally gotten to him when a rustling sound surged from behind the wall and left a fat, gray, bubbling blister. Harold steadied himself and another blister showed up beside the first one. The blisters shifted and grumbled on the wall like old sisters cramped together on a crowded old bus.
Something hissed above one of the blisters and left the photographic image of the face of a smiling, chiseled man. That blister whistled a tune and adjusted it like a parent with a child on his shoulders. Then the image of a cover-girl model switched on above the other blister, and that blister inched its way up to meet it. It too adjusted, and then cleared its throat.
"Hello Harold," it said. "What is your decision?"
Harold said his answer had to be "no" because he couldn't leave Rick and Rhonda for an entire year. He feared they wouldn't survive without him.
The blisters hummed.
Harold said it was an honor to be considered.
"Yes," they said. "None are like you."
He then went on to say that he just wanted to continue serving Rick and Rhonda. That, for him, comprised a good, humble life's work: to serve, to listen, to love. The blisters howled.
"Shall we tell him?" the one with the man's head above it said. The two blisters giggled.
"There has been a change in policy," they said together. "We're pleased to inform you that you can bring your Rick-and-Rhonda with you!"
Harold's body pulsed.
"But security is tight," they said. "And there are rules."
"Upon reaching our embassy post in Crater 46753, you would be met by an incubation officer who would render your Rick-and-Rhonda comatose by injection and ship them from Earth-moon to our galaxy in a glowing biohazard module as required by law. You of course would travel separately, in a special diplomatic laser cruiser. Upon arrival on Training Planet Dove, your Rick-and-Rhonda would be taken to Quarantine Quarter to sleep in containers for the duration of your one year of intensive study. They would be given basic ventilation and a diet not worth mentioning as they would be fed through their kneecaps. At the conclusion, you would be named an Intergalactic Ambassador for Peace and Unity under the Common Oneness during the auspicious floating garden parade. The next day, you would receive your first assignment, and return to Earth where you could resuscitate your Rick-and-Rhonda using instructions to be provided to you at the same time as your textbooks on the ethical transplanetary economic theories. Your Rick-and-Rhonda would be restored to normal, but should expect to feel strong tickling sensations in the pupils and elbows for up to thirty-nine days."
Harold said that he would ask Rick and Rhonda right away.
"You are the best!" the one said.
"The very brightest!" the other said.
The photographic images switched off and the blisters resumed their murmuring as they grunted and tugged away from the wall. They pulled free and disappeared somewhere behind, leaving only a faint smell of plaster.
Harold sprinted to Rick's den and rapped the door.
"In a meeting!" Rick said.
Harold insisted that he open it with a forcefulness rivaling Rhonda.
"Alright, alright!" Rick said. After Rick opened the door, Harold commanded him to follow.
"You've gotta be kidding me, Harold!" Rick's hair was obscured by a shimmering steel colander. "My colleagues and I are in the process of developing a green face paint so authentic the alien peoples will think we're one of them! Talk about a break-through in top-secret diplomatic strategy! It's more important than ever that I don't have disruptions!"
When they reached the dining room, Harold shifted from side to side in a way that suggested he was either nervous or suddenly felt like performing a tap dance recital. But then he launched right into telling Rick everything, very loud and very fast. Rick didn't seem to understand a damn word and had the nerve to cut Harold off mid-sentence and order him to shut up and calm down. That's when Harold lost it and furiously marked the spot where the blisters had been. Rick screamed for Rhonda and the bedroom door opened in what can only be described as a desperately grateful exhale.
"Whaaaaat?"
"It's Harold!" Rick said. "I need you! Quick!"
Rhonda came smacking up the hallway with the thread pattern of a washcloth mashed into her forehead.
"Oh Harold for crying out loud!" she said.
After spending a moment engaged in obvious disdain towards Rick's new head ornament, Rhonda rushed to the kitchen, and burst back into the dining room with a spray bottle and paper towels. She knelt beside Harold and the freshly pungent wall and began scrubbing away.
"I oughta send you to the pound!" she said in that voice she only used on him. Then she suddenly drew him against her bosom and gave him a hug and a big kiss on his nose. Then she stood up and went back to bed. Rick went back to the den, and that was that.
And so, with the stench of Rhonda's musk lingering in his fur, Harold moped over to his bed located on the floor beside a basket of rotting bones. I chose to excuse myself indefinitely and thanked him and wished him well. He mustn't have heard me though, as he leaned back on his haunches and slammed me like a truck. I hit the ground steady though, supple and plump, thanks to sweet Harold.
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