Harold’s Room
Chapter Eight
Well, it’s Saturday, again. Not quite business as usual today, though. I had really been looking forward to this weekend. There are a lot of things I wanted and needed to do outside today and tomorrow, so of course Thursday my friend Karen at work heard somebody coughing and hacking out in what we call “the men’s room” in the shop. Too filthy for a lady to even look in there, never-the-less enter. You might wonder how she could hear that from in here from out in the shop, but you see there is an adjoining door to that restroom in the very short hallway just outside my office (always locked inside and out), and she, Alanna and I can hear everything, yes, EVERYTHING, that goes on in there. We will disregard what we mostly hear, but I will mention that occasionally we also hear one side of some very interesting cell phone conversations from in there. We have told them and told them… At any rate, yes, Karen heard the coughing and hacking. So I guess “somebody” who possibly had not washed their hands very well (or at all) handed me some paperwork I had to deal with that day. I would say it was most likely the coughing hacker, and I must have touched my nose or my eye shortly thereafter, because guess whose nose started to run yesterday morning, and whose throat started tickling yesterday afternoon? I hacked all night, and now my sinuses are getting sore, like when somebody sticks a red hot poker in them, you know? I am not having a good Saturday.
I can’t fault Harold or our friends outside. They have been very supportive in trying to keep my mind off of how bad I am starting to feel. One female turtle we knew came through earlier before Lisa left for work, but we did not talk to her. Shortly after Lisa pulled out of the garage I went out to fill the feeders and plates. As I approached the pink window feeder I saw a small lump under the edge of the sunroom ledge. Lo-and-behold it was a young turtle snuggled up under there. I went back out to the plates and snatched a piece of cantaloupe which I placed by the corner of the foundation near it, but when I looked a bit later the cantaloupe was untouched and it was gone. With Harold’s usual help, and impetus from some slightly more supportive and energizing music than Harold’s typical supervisory input provides, I struggled through the laundry, plant watering and a few replanting and repotting chores I had set myself to achieve outside. On one trip back in I found the little turtle, once again tucked under the sunroom ledge, but now on the patio under Harold’s corner window. I retrieved the piece of cantaloupe and placed it under the patio plant table about a foot from the turtle and came back inside. When I went back out a few minutes later she was gone again. I say she, though I am not sure. It was very young, and there was a very slight concavity to the plastron, not much, and female turtles’ plastrons are not always flat or convex. Hard to tell on a turtle that young. Let’s just say it was pretty darned flat, so I’ll call her a she.
It was a beautiful day (which figures since I was beginning to feel like a very large, very wet cow patty), so Harold and I had the screen door in use, for the both the air flow, and the bird and animal ambience, which we could hear if and when the neighbor across the gulley wasn’t using any of his power equipment. He has several types, and they are all differently annoying. I too have a leaf blower, and a chain saw, and a small tiller, but I seldom use them. He uses his frequently. I downloaded a new The Dead Weather album, which I figured would be able to contend with a leaf blower or string trimmer, and sat down to watch Harold for a bit. I was getting a tad fatigued, and Harold was getting somewhat antsy, as if he sensed, or thought he sensed, a turtle somewhere nearby. He had been parading all around the outer perimeter of the room for quite a while, and then began pacing back and forth in front of the screen door, eventually settling on the door mat with his forelegs and neck stretched to the max, pivoting his head like a periscope. He remained in this vigilant pose for quite some time, while I coughed, sneezed and hacked as I sipped Robitussin and coffee and tapped my feet to the new music. The always irritating dryer buzzer went off for about the third time, telling me to come fetch my shirts before they wrinkled. As I pivoted my chair and planted my feet to rise I saw Harold’s head snap around in my direction, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at my feet. I wiggled my right foot, and he moved his head back and forth in unison with it. I wiggled my left foot, and he likewise followed it. I then rose and stepped around my table tray (TV tray if you prefer. You could also call it my computer desk if you like. Mine is oak.) shuffling my feet as I went. Harold came up into a sprinter’s stance, head down, posterior raised, left his blocks like he had jet assist, and came hurtling across the room. He came to an abrupt halt about eight inches from my feet and stared at them, obviously puzzled. Harold had not yet seen my new Minnetonka moose hide moccasins that Lisa had given me for our anniversary the week before, and the poor, deluded boy had evidently mistaken them for a pair of comely identical twin lady turtles. I cautiously moved my left toe forward. Harold dropped his head and looked at it from the left, and the right, then lowered his head to the floor, extended his neck and sniffed it. He lifted his head and looked up at me. “Sorry, dude,” I said. “They’re just moccasins.” He looked back down at them, then back up at me. His disappointment and disgust were blatantly obvious as he turned and marched back to his sentry post on the door mat. There was one thing about which he was not mistaken. There was a turtle nearby. Right under his nose, so-to-speak. The little turtle I could not find had stayed under the sunroom floor ledge, but had tucked in behind the planter to the left of the door (when looking out). I spotted her back there early in the afternoon when I picked up the cantaloupe from under the table on my last trip back in before I crashed and burned. She had been there the whole time. I then sat down to write this, but in fact am now finishing it two Saturdays later. I got part of it done, then hit the couch and watched football between naps the rest of that weekend, with sporadic contributions to this text in between that afternoon and now. It goes that way sometimes. A minor “I feel bad and I don’t want to sit out there hunkered over a keyboard” glitch in the writing process. And now I have a few new things about some new friends I have to try to remember to tell you about. But first I need to get to the real purpose I had intended when I sat down to write this part, which has to do with the conversations Lisa and I have with Harold, and his fascination with her toes.
I believe I may have mentioned to you that we sit with Harold in the morning before we go to work, and on Sunday mornings from about nine to eleven, and that we discuss things with him. Sometimes he pays rapt attention to us, sometimes passing attention, and sometimes he totally ignores our presence. That’s our boy: it all depends on his mood, and Harold’s mood is all that matters. If he doesn’t care to be bothered he usually stays back in the potted jungle, or in a hidden corner of the enclave, but he sometimes parks himself in plain view under the round table or one of the chairs, with his backside pointed conspicuously towards us. On these occasions he refuses to look at us or acknowledge us in any way no matter what we say or do, so long as we do not get too close. You know how he gets all huffy over the invasion of his personal space. If he has passing interest in the conversation he will peek through or around the pots of the jungle, or around a table leg, the hot tub, through his hut, or he will sit under the table or one of the chairs and look back over his shoulder at us. Early on Lisa and I noticed that Harold would move his head back and forth in the direction of whom-so-ever happened to be speaking at the moment. At first we thought this was just a defensive reaction to the sound of our voices: keeping an eye on the most likely threat. We no longer believe this to be so. As Harold became comfortable with his surroundings and acclimated to us we began to notice he would frequently sit behind Herman and peer out between the pots, looking back and forth between us as we conversed with each other, or both talked to him. Then he began sitting in the entryway to his enclave doing the same thing, and eventually walking out to stand directly in front of one of us, craning his neck and continuing to look back and forth between us, following the conversation. Obviously standing in the middle of the floor three feet in front of either Lisa or myself indicates he certainly wasn’t switching back and forth to the more imminent threat. He was paying attention to the speaker, almost as if he were trying to understand what we were saying. At the very least it was an indication of curiosity on his part. He saw, he heard, and he wanted to know. From the first day we met him I had thought he seemed, I don’t know, different, more observant and interactive than any of the other box turtles with whom I have been acquainted in my sixty-four years, and as I believe I have mentioned, I have known many.
As Harold’s position in the family became firmly entrenched, and his acceptance of his now restricted (but sumptuous you must admit, with all the amenities of at least a four star all-inclusive resort) territory was complete, his shyness with the two of us virtually vanished. No more sucking back into the shell. No more running for the nearest corner or cover. He would stand his ground, neck extended in his imperial pose, and observe, so long as you didn’t step too close: that “personal space” thing again. And as he became comfortable with his position and surroundings, his obvious participation in conversations became more frequent, especially on Sunday mornings when we typically spend two hours in his room drinking coffee, reading the paper, watching the furred and feathered diner guests, and conversing with each other and Harold. Though his recognition of or participation in conversations varies with his mood on most days, on Sunday he invariably participates in at least some fashion, whether it be staring out from between the jungle pots over Herman’s back at Lisa’s toes, sitting in the entryway to the inner sanctum, or on occasion walking out to the middle of the room to stand between us on the pile of ads from the Sunday paper Lisa “lays gently” on the floor, on Sunday mornings there he is, looking back and forth, changing the inclination and elevation of his head as we speak to him directly: Discuss something with him he finds embarrassing or objectionable and he is likely to hang his head in shame, or cant it up and away in derision (the over-the-shoulder-look). Guess which he does when he and I discuss minor fecal accidents on his enclave floor, which I must clean up, and which he does when Lisa and he discuss his female visitors…
Let’s back up to Lisa’s toes for a second. I don’t know what it is about them, but he seems fascinated by them. At least he seems to be watching them. I don’t know if it’s the bright nail polish that attracts him, or if he thinks they look like big, tasty grub worms. I did have a turtle once named Lady, who, upon coming out from under the couch between the legs of my friend Tracy one afternoon, discovered Tracy’s bare toes dangling from the foot of the leg she had thrown over her knee, and after having watched said toes wiggle for a while angled her head, opened her jaws wide, and as I cried “Tracy! Move your foot!!!” took a swipe at Tracy’s succulent toes. She missed, due to Tracy’s excellent response time I am absolutely certain. So, there is that possibility, or possibly Harold’s tastes run with those of Rex Ryan, and a well turned ankle or cute little toes make him happy. I do not know. I do know that Lisa bought a pair of items called Yoga Toes, which are a gel type, translucent blue toe spreader apparatus of some sort, said to relieve toe cramps, hammer toe etc etc etc… Harold finds those irresistible as well. The first morning she put them on he was intrigued and stared intently at those things encasing his beloved toes, totally disregarding the morning conversation. Within two or three days he began to accept them, and his participation in the morning conversations returned to his normal head pivoting to voice response, but then one day a week or so later Lisa forgot to put them on, and Harold seemed upset. He squeezed between the pots and climbed up onto Herman’s back to get a better view. He seemed confused. He is not a big fan of change you’ll recall. The Yoga Toes had become the norm, and he thrives on normality, especially if he likes it. He had become accustomed to looking at Lisa’s toes in the beautiful, blue jelly restraints. Hmmm. They are rather restrictive. Hmmmmm. Given his preference to watch Lisa’s toes rather than taste them, and his fascination with the Yoga Toe restraints, I lean away from the grub worm theory and towards the Rex Ryan diagnosis. One other fact with bearing on the grub worm hypothesis versus the Ryan diagnosis: I seldom go barefoot, but when I do, he (Harold, not Rex) has no interest in my toes what-so-ever. It must be a gender related thing, possibly having to do with the nail polish.
Getting back to Harold’s curiosity and cognitive abilities, which I may have mentioned astound me, he and I were discussing reincarnation today, and its relevance as it might pertain to him. I sort of believe in it, you see, in that this world is actually hell, and we keep getting sent back around into it to live again until we manage to get it right. Once we do, our life force is free to streak through the heavens faster than the speed of light with the souls of our friends who have likewise finally made it through the cosmic life form training course. If, during life, our transgressions or failures are minor, we drop back to our last form to brush up, but if we really screw up we regress further down the line to relearn basic lessons. Given that this is a plausible concept, I propose it might be possible that Harold is not quite such an ordinary turtle. Perhaps this is not his first trip around the block. Perhaps he really, really messed up badly last time around, got sent back to a more basic form with simpler wants and a similar life-span, and perhaps lodged deeply in his brain is some recognition of previous experiences with human communication and art forms (don’t forget about his infatuation with the schoolhouse brick) that puzzle and intrigue him. And there is your totally bizarre hypothesis of the day for an explanation of Harold’s quick adaptation to a foreign habitat, human companionship, appreciation, or not, of different genres of music, curiosity regarding changes to his environment, and seeming interest in human communication and art. Or he could just be an exceptionally smart turtle. I do still puzzle over the image of Harold stuck in my mind, and hanging on the wall behind me, of my first sight of him standing on that cliff edge looking out over the lake far below. Do turtles admire the view? Do they contemplate suicide? Please, if you can, explain to me what he was doing out there. I prefer to think he was admiring the view and possibly reminiscing…
More time has passed, and I have once again been remiss. It is now the end of October, and Harold has worn his Halloween cape most of this past month, except on bath day, or when the Steelers played. One Saturday afternoon he for some reason wanted to show off for me I guess. He kept climbing up on his hut and sitting there looking at me until he knew I was watching, and then he either eased himself off of the hut, clinging with his hind toenails and easing into the tub, or slid gung-ho into it with a floor-wetting splash. He was in and out of the tub so often that day his Halloween cape, which I may or may not have mentioned was a re-purposed terry-cloth dish towel, became totally saturated via wicking action. The adhesive tape let go of the cape, which I found lying in a sodden heap on the door mat, and Harold was scampering around the room looking ridiculous with four milky-white pieces of tape stuck on the front and back corners of his carapace. When I picked up the Halloween cape I noticed the jack-o-lantern appliqué was beginning to delaminate. I peeled the tape off of Harold’s back so he didn’t look so ridiculous, got out my carpenter’s glue and repaired the pumpkin, then laid the cape out to dry. Fortunately the Steelers were playing the next day, so I just put cape that on him a day early.
Since Harold is starting to slow down on his food intake and adventurous forays this month, that leads to the only other real incident worth relating, and it involves the Steelers cape. After swapping it out for the soggy Halloween cape Harold of course paraded around in that the rest of the day, and Sunday, all day long, until, until, the Steelers, playing with a lead, went to a soft defense late in the fourth quarter. And you know how Harold and I feel about that: It never works! Go get the damned ball! As the lead dwindled away, Harold once again retired to the potted jungle, to hide his now odious apparel, and lay his head on the floor in abject disappointment. Again.
Aside from that crushing blow our boy made it through Halloween in fine fettle, once again wearing his laundered, dried and repaired festive cape. He was much relieved when the Steelers logos came off, and the jack-o-lantern, ghost and black cat were back on. The fall weather, aside from a couple of cold snaps, has proven to be quite moderate, and on the warmer days Harold has been pretty active again, for short bursts between naps. The Saturday after Halloween I stuck him in the tub, got out The Fortress of Solitude, sprayed down the shredded newspaper bedding inside I had prepped a couple of weeks earlier, and set it under the big plant table adjacent to the turtle hut, just so he would get used to seeing it again. When I pulled him out of the tub and brought him back in, Harold, being Harold, noticed it at once, but investigated it surreptitiously: the old eye-it-over-the-left-shoulder maneuver as he slid by it. He then went to ground in the potted jungle, but between his bird and squirrel observations continued to cast the occasional odd glance back at it when he thought I wasn’t watching. Finally, after a few hours of the covert glances, he could stand it no more. He made a wide circuit to the right, came out from under the cat planter, back to the left around the front of the potted jungle, and into his courtyard, at which point he stopped and stared directly at the fortress. He stood there for quite some time, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but stood perfectly still and showed no interest in investigating closer, which is highly un-Harold-like. Then, finally, his curiosity satisfied, he ambled through the courtyard and on through his log hut to his position in the corner between his two main viewing windows. There he remained throughout the rest of the afternoon, again observing his friends outside, but only the furred and feathered ones. We had not seen anyone with scales for several weeks, and even visits by Phil and the other groundhogs were beginning to be rare occurrences. They tend to appear and disappear around the same time as the turtles.
As you have probably noticed, this dialogue has faltered, and we’ve gone from late August to the end of October in one fell swoop. I mentioned that not much phenomenal had happened, and that’s true except for Harold’s usual antics with the turtle hut slides and belly flops, Rex Ryan relapses and such. We had visits from some of our turtle and groundhog friends to whom you have already been introduced, and there are the new friends I mentioned and said I’d get to. Harold, Lisa and I are very fond of them. First there is Little Coon, who started coming in the evening shortly before dark in early September. Little coon is a mess. He so very much wants to approach us, but just isn’t sure he should. At first he would sit on the top of the right hand squirrel feeder and watch us hand snacks to Mama Coon and some of our other trusted friends from the doorway. He had watched us do this with the others on several occasions, and we believe this is what prompted his curiosity and his desire to approach us: To see why they did it, and why they trusted us and we trusted them. At first he would come down from the squirrel feeder when he saw us come to the door and walk slowly over to stand at the edge of the patio. He would put one front paw on, then the other, lift one off, then the other, and kind of squiggle around sideways in the oddest positions moving his forepaws on and off the patio’s concrete surface, never letting his hind paws touch it. He just couldn’t do it, but he wanted to. He wanted to so badly. He would watch the others come and go, but still he could not follow. After a couple of days we started pulling the bread and dog biscuits back out after the others were shooed off with “No mas! No mas!” and offering him treats by hand to see if that would ease his mind and let him know we had no ill intent. After about three days he finally kind of sidled up to us, with his right front paw snatched, though carefully snatched, the piece of bread from my hand, backed off several paces and ran behind the right side squirrel feeder tree to see what sort of delicacy he had. His first full piece of whole wheat bread! Since then he either comes first before the others arrive, or he waits until they are all through, and then there is no hesitation: Straight to the door he comes when we call him. He is still not nearly as gentle as Mama Coon and most of the others, whether they take it with their paws or cautiously with their mouths, but though he still sidles up and scampers away, he is getting better and better with his table manners.
The other raccoon is named Flower. He showed up shortly after Little Coon. He is just a wee bit larger than the aforementioned, and he is extremely noticeable. Flower was named such because he looks like he has a lotus blossom tucked behind his right ear.
It is split from the center of the tip down the middle of the back side about three quarters of the way, which makes the ear spread wide and forward with two white tips. I suspect it was caused by a needle-like tooth, possibly that of a den mate, in a tussle or minor disagreement that got a little too rough. Flower took to us right away, and his modus operandi has been the same from the beginning: Plan A; Bob and weave slightly, sit up, reach out with two paws, take bread, transfer bread to mouth, scamper under picnic table, taste, consume. Plan B; If other coons present, rapidly procure from hand, transfer to mouth, scamper under picnic table, taste, run behind right side squirrel feeder tree, consume. We like Little Coon and Flower. They are polite, and funny.
Lisa has a Personal Favorite. His name is Eddie Munster. He is frequently accompanied by Grandpa Munster, and Lilly. Eddie’s appearance and demeanor are what caught Lisa’s fancy the first time she saw him: “Oh look! He looks just like Eddie Munster! He has a dark, dark widow’s peak, and dark, dark circles around his eyes! And look how he holds his tail straight out behind him like a pencil! His naked pink tail! I love him!” Care to take a guess? If you guessed opossums, you are correct. Lilly is a medium sized opossum with silver markings like most, and in her own way is as beautiful as Yvonne De Carlo. Grandpa Munster on the other hand is a large opossum with much darker markings than any I have ever seen, a nice widow’s peak, and dark eye patches. He is quite aristocratic, in a creepy sort of way.
Eddie is the smallest of the three, though not a baby by any means. A teenager I would venture to say. His markings are almost black, his widow’s peak extends farther down his forehead, and his eye patches are much more pronounced than even Grandpa Munster’s. He really is quite striking, and this is punctuated by the way he carries that tail. None of the others we frequently see do that. Not a one. Just Eddie. Lisa loves the way he eats, too. It is rather cute and unique. The other opossums chomp, their lower jaws moving in measured up and down rhythms as they eat. Eddie chompfs, his jaws moving in simultaneous up and down, left and right rhythms. It looks as if Eddie possibly savors his food more than the other opossums, moves it around the palate more with his unusual left and right chewing action, rather than just biting off a hunk, chomping a few times and swallowing. Perhaps Eddie, as a regular, is in no hurry because he knows there will be more, or maybe the others do it too, and we just don’t notice because we pay more attention to Eddie. Or, just possibly, Eddie is wise for his age, and he heeds the advice given by one Warren Zevon, a wise, wise man, whose music he has heard emanating from Harold’s room on many occasions, and who, when questioned by David Letterman about what he had learned about life since he found out he was dying of terminal lung cancer, said:
“Just how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.”