Harold: Apology

The day was a mild kind of warm, the kind of beautiful people film in movies. The kind that takes expensive digital filters to create. Harold had timed the walk at roughly five minutes, and soon he would be on his way just ten minutes after that. He could be at the courthouse in less than a half an hour if the bus was exactly on schedule, which it rarely was. Harold didn't care whether he was five minutes late or not, though there was an element of wanting everything to be perfect, all he really cared about was showing up.

The bus pulled up in the same kind of awful way it always did, and Harold got on, shuffling carefully up the metal steps. He bent his knees to make sure as not to strain himself, carefully balancing his weight on one foot and then the next. He would've taken his usual spot at the head of things (he liked to look over the bus driver's shoulder while in motion, it put him at ease). Instead, he chose a seat in the middle, not far enough back to be associated with the child sized vandals, but not at the front with the rest of the holligans. If they recognized him, it didn't show. Everyone's head just kept on bobbing while the bus rose and fell over bumps in the road.

He was exactly five minutes late which really only ate into his prep time for the first case. It meant that he'd have to get straight answers from whoever he happened to be defending very quickly.

Trial was as trial always is. The day goes by. Some lose, some win, but for Harold it was a question of how much of himself he was willing to pour into these cases. How thin could he spread himself before enough was enough?

He passed through the metal detectors and nodded at the sheriffs officers. Quittin' time. He walked out into the plaza in front of the courthouse watching all the other men, they were in all actuality mostly men, in suits. It was one thick cologne cloud of promises to wives that they would be home soon over cellphones. Oh, hold on honey got another call coming through. Sideways meetings with sly secretaries. The kind of shit the movies publicize, the ugly truth of it, and what bothered Harold the most was this overwhelming sense of powerlessness against the face of immunity to it all. Harold took a deep breath.

That's when Harold was almost killed. Turns out, one of the guys he had defended wasn't exonerated in the eyes of his fellow man. His fellow man showed up and fired seven rounds into the crowd of cologne, hitting a pigeon, a hot dog vendor (but only in the arm), and the glass windows of the front of the courthouse. Apparently guns are much harder to handle in real life.

The sheriffs from inside stepped out into the courtyard, drew their weapons, fired, and then said, “get down!” It actually made Harold laugh while he watched his attackers fall lifelessly to the ground. Then the police questioned him and he was released.


He'd settled in nicely with the crowd there, a haggard old man, rotund, and pink; drinking his own shortcomings from spigots. After a day like this, what else could you really do?

It was near closing time, and Harold would be forced into moving. The bar was a sad spot, a sorry hole in the wall from back when free enterprise was a novel idea. In the fluorescence of the Corona Extra bar light, “Last Call!” bellowed from the bartenders belly. Harold took his whiskey in one gulp, and tossed the glass on the counter. He was thinking about trial. Always trial. Another day of sitting in the court room cafeteria, five minutes to review his next case. They are always innocent, they've never done anything to anybody.

The parking lot was empty, as were all the streets, and the shops. The sidewalk was caked in black gum stains, and the crimped footprints of people on their day to day routine. Where would Harold go now? No where but the streets, and some semblance of a home. No one would be there to greet him, nothing warm for dinner. Harold shoved his hands in the side pockets of his bright purple jacket and walked, foot in front of foot in to the San Fernando valley darkness.

A sense of solemnity, of peace, if not for the dull throb of boredom, followed Harold into the night. He knew what he shouldn't do, he simply lacked the inhibition to stop himself. Nothing like six whiskeys to talk yourself in to anything really. The weight of the .38 special at his hip, hung like a nagging reminder of his own guilt, like he'd never pack enough punch to really bring life to its knees.

The lights of the corner store spotted him, a tall wide sign professing alcohol and cancer at the lowest possible selling rates. “Cheapest in town.” Harold muttered while he fumbled for the gun, or his wallet. For a long time, Harold just loitered outside of the store glaring at the sign that told him not to, leaning against the wall as though it were a full time job. No one passed by, but that sign just stood there.

When he felt he had gained his composure, he stumbled into the liquor store to meet the tile on the floor. “You mother fucker,” he said to the counter attendant while he struggled to get up, “Gimme some beer.”

The attendant blinked, once for amazement, twice in mild frustration, “You son of a bitch. You lackluster nobody. I aint servin you shit! It's after two anyhow.” The attendant came from behind the counter, a healthy stride, sober as the day he was born, to help Harold to his feet.

Harold locked his knees, and swayed a bit. He focused the three attendants he saw into the one that was actually there, some poor punk nobody. A guy just like him. “I know the law you sorry sack of shit. Don't you tell me about rules. I deal with little bastards like you all day. You ought to be glad people like me are out here, fighting for your rights!”

“For Chrissakes! Go get a job old man. You washed up dog. What's this jacket? Who are you man?” There was a battle. Inside of Harold's mind, the clouds of alcoholism and rage fought for control. They clashed and ripped through him, he reached for his gun, and his eyes struck the attendant's.

“The fuck you know about jobs, boy? Who am I?” It was what he had always needed, a reason. The .38 special felt like it belonged in his palms, no sweatiness, not even a tinge of guilt when he took it from his belt and flung it into the attendants gut. Not even when the boy's eyes widened while he felt the bullet tear through him. Harold, the public defender, watched that boy fall, felt him clutch loosely at his belt and start to drag the right side of his pants down his leg. He shot the boy again, through the jaw.

A warping silence, long and confused.

Harold dropped the gun, and staggered over to the cooler to grab a 24 pack. The sign said, “$5.99 per 24 pack!” He looked down at the attendant. “Can't get any goddamn service around here.”

Harold had spent the early part of his legal career ambulance chasing. He'd seen some shit. For instance: Harold had pulled onto the side of the road near the 405, after he spotted an accident near a gas station. He got out of his car to slip his business card onto the body of a biker who had been wedged under two cars that had crashed together when some asshole made a left turn into oncoming traffic. He was a full fledged disability attorney from then on.

So it did not surprise Harold when the attendant (Gary, as it turns out) brought himself back to standing. “I'd get behind the counter if you'd quit your bitching.” Blood leaked from the hole in his jaw. And like that, Gary and his hole turned in to any other legal dispute. “Just the beer then?” Harold reached into his pockets and fished out some money.

Taking pity on Gary's predicament, Harold asked: “You want one?” It came as an afterthought, Harold figured it only customary. After all, Gary must have one hell of a headache.

The two walked out of the store, standing in the glow of the sign, drinking the lowest priced alcohol in town. Harold tried to see if he could spot stars through the hole in Gary's head. He and Gary split that case, twelve and twelve, and never once did Gary bring up the whole shooting. “Hell,” he'd said, “I'm just glad to be rid of the whole fucking affair.”

“I'll cheers to that.” He raised his beer.

The two drank. Gary lit a cigarette, “Out of habit more than anything else. You want one?”

“That's a tired thing. How old am I? Say 60, still drinking. Sure, I'll drag on this here butt. I've about fucking had it, truth be told. Sure as shit ain't nowhere for me to go.”

Harold couldn't resist poking his finger through Gary's jaw. “I'm studying, going to be an economics genius. I want to help the budget, correct the problems in this country so assholes like you can retire rich, instead of bitter, and useless.” Gary said.

Harold nodded.

“Every day is a god damned mid term, or a project, some new deadline. Something else you've got to reach just a little bit higher for.”

“I bet you think you're a real somebody, going to school there.” Harold thought about law school. About the BAR, about standing in the courthouse downtown where they posted the results four times before he passed, and earned his license to practice. He thought about the pride of his first office, some dump downtown where he'd tried to assemble a living at helping poor souls get through their insurance claims.

Gary, hunched over with smoke drifting from the hole in his jaw, nodded. “Sure as shit will be if I aint already. What are you getting at?”

“If you were somebody, you'd have been him by now. Instead you're just a useless shit stain on your own tile. Hell, I'd vomit on you if I had anything in my stomach to begin with. Been pretty much drinking for about two days now.” After the short stint with disability, Harold had looked for something more stable. A nine to five.

They both took a drag of their cigarettes. The city street was empty, a crossroads inhabited by these two, and the blinking green-yellow-red stop lights. Harold thought about metal detectors, and sheriff's officers at the county courthouse.

Harold began to think about that bullet hole. “Say that I wanted to make up for that.”

Gary took Harold by the collar, and firmly brought him straight. He pulled back and let a hook mash Harold's face. Harold didn't feel much, just the warm blood pouring from his upper lip, and the hard impact of the floor. “Are we even?” Harold laid there, dusting himself off, finally standing up once more, his knees cracking as he did so.

“I suppose that's about what it felt like.” Gary grinned, his jaw dangling out of its socket on the left side, blood dripping down his ear and neck. Harold watched that blood thinking about his first case, the boy who had tried to rob a liquor store, but had gotten shot in the process. The kid showed up to court with gauze over his face, he'd been shot in the eye. The boy's mother had asked Harold whether or not he knew someone that could assemble an emotional distress case to bring in some money to help cover the surgeries.

“Would you have sold me beer?” Three years prior to that and he'd have taken that case too.

“It's after two. I'd have charged you three times the amount. You just didn't ask” Gary flicked the butt of the cigarette and let ash drift away from it.

“I had every right to shoot you. Furthermore I'm glad I hit you in the face, you were too fucking pretty anyhow.” Truth be told he'd been cursed with a conscience, and believed in saving people.

Harold leaned the length of his spine against the wall looking the world, for once, at eye level. Gary asked Harold for the .38 special, and stood there spinning it around his index finger like some cowboy, while he flicked his tongue at his jaw. Harold looked at number six, the foam creeping up the rim, imagined that same foam sliding down his prickly unshaven chin and neck. Down his shirt, where he'd tie the tie he wore in court.

Gary stood up tall and studied Harold.

“It's freezing out here god dammit. We ought to go do something, get the blood moving, you know?” Harold wrapped his arms around his chest while he spoke, puffs of smoke accompanying each word.

Gary flicked his cigarette, “The fuck you know about blood moving. Old man.”


They'd been outside for some time, and Harold was wrapping up his last beer, looking for the other cans on the ground, but there were none. Gary was busy picking them up, one by one, and tossing them into the trash. “You don't recycle?” Harold pointed at the sign on Gary's window, a big emblem for reuse.

“Recycling only profits the recycling industry. Sure it creates jobs, but under a bullshit ideal.” Gary spun the special again making childish gunshot noises with his mouth. Laughing with that flapping jaw, he looked like a self madman.

Harold bummed another smoke off of Gary. “Let me see that gun.” Gary handed the piece back to Harold, who palmed it. He grit his teeth while he opened the chamber, cigarette smoke obscuring the black cylinder. Harold inspected the discharged shells, took a look at Gary's face. Measured the weight of his own work. “Gary, I think shooting you is the most amazing thing I've ever done.”

Gary looked at Harold, and popped his hanging jaw back into place. “Is that so?”

Harold paused, and took a step from the wall, distancing himself from Gary and standing all on his own now. “If I didn't do it, some other asshole would have, and I'd be defending him tomorrow.” It was a vicious cycle.

“These kids. They go to jail, the guards harass them, the other kids fight them, they take classes that teach them remedial skills. They're like dogs. And they just stay there. They keep going back, like it's a drug, like it's the ultimate drug.” He lined his stare up to Gary, “I hear those fuckers telling me every time they see me, 'I'm going to college, I swear. Gonna make something of myself, I promise.' They're just looking for another way out. Another loophole. Probation, relocation, foster homes. The ones the courts don't get, the military picks up. None of that shit is set up to help anyone, just shuffle these kids around, maybe get them away from negative stimulus. The outcome is usually the same though.” He knelt down, and coughed a deep throaty one. “Yea, go to fucking college. Better yourself. Nothing's getting better boy.” Gary never broke Harold's stare. “You fix the budget. I'll keep making sure there's enough kids on the street to buy shit.”


It was approaching sunrise. The streets were starting to emanate a soft purple, the horizon already beginning to seep red and orange through the smoggy horizon. In this light, Harold could see how pale Gary really was. He could also see the spot of light at the back of Gary's throat that came from the sun shining through the hole in his jaw.

Gary laid there. He laid in his own blood, and Harold sat there smoking Gary's cigarettes. Gary's eyes had already gone gray, frozen forever. The store lit up with the first rays of sunshine, the fluorescent lights just making things artificially brighter. Would people start coming in? Harold had thought about that, which is why he left.

He took the money from the register because he figured he had come that far. He left the .38 special with Gary, because honestly, what are you going to do?

Harold walked out into the parking lot and puked foam and bile onto the black bubblegum caked sidewalk. He retched a few times, struggling to breathe while his stomach contracted.

People drove past.

The morning commute was beginning already, starting with exec types barely making it to the airport on time, and Harold was due in to work in a few hours, seven AM.


He got to the courthouse late: his shirt untucked, his tie in a half winsor, his shoes scuffed, his hair furled, and his eyes bloodshot. The bailiffs had already had their orders. They arrested him on sight, citing that security footage showed undeniably that he had shot one Gary Matheson repeatedly.

They showed him the tape.

Gary came out from behind the counter and helped Harold to his feet. Harold shot Gary in the stomach, and then when Gary hit the floor, Harold shot him again in the jaw. Harold then picked Gary up, propped him on the counter against the register, reached into his breast pocket to grab his pack of cigarettes, lit two and set one on Gary's lips. Fast forward through Harold standing in the store drinking and smoking until Harold set Gary's body back on to the ground almost exactly the way he had originally landed, and left the store.


At his arraignment, Harold briefly lamented that he did not have enough money to hire a decent attorney, and that his case had been remanded to a public defender.