This is Harold two minutes after I first saw him, and this is what happened:
Harold’s Room
Chapter One
For quite some time I have been promising my friend Harold (and others) that I would tell you how I met him, about how “Terry’s Smoking Room” became “Harold’s Room,” and about some of the things we have seen, heard and done. The time to keep that promise is long overdue. At this moment he is with me as usual on a Saturday morning while Lisa, who he adores, has to work. She “works retail” as she likes to say. I launder the sheets, do my laundry, and Harold and I vacuum his room and water his plants (always vacuum first, because vacuum cleaners don’t like water) while we listen to music turned up very loudly. Some might say, extremely loudly. We tell Lisa it’s so we can hear it over the vacuum, but we don’t turn it down when we’re done. And she doesn’t believe us anyway. We like it loud so we can feel it, physically and emotionally. We do love our music. It keeps us both sane, or as sane as two introverted souls like us can be. We usually start it either before Lisa leaves if she wants to listen, which she usually does, or says so anyway to please us, or right after she leaves at around 7:15. If we start it before she leaves, which we often do, we turn it way up after she leaves. Waaaayyyyy up. Today it is Jethro Tull. We’ve already listened to Minstrel in the Gallery, Stormwatch, Benefit, and are listening to Broadsword and the Beast now. Harold loves Ian’s flute, and thinks Martin Barr’s guitar just soars. Last week it was The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble album we just bought. Oh my. Thirty-three cuts. We listened to it over and over and over. We sorely miss SRV. The week before we were probably listening to Joe Bonamassa, who has helped us fill part of the void Stevie left when he died. We love Joe. But today is a Tull Day. I’ve washed the sheets, which are in the dryer, and it is screaming at me to come swap them out for my carpenter’s jeans. Harold can’t help me with that. He can’t get up the step from his room to the main section of the house, though he has tried. But I have digressed, as they say, and have not told you how I met him. He is standing here in the middle of the floor watching me, and he wants to know why I didn’t do that first. I’ll go swap the sheets and jeans out now, make the bed, and we’ll get to that. There goes the damned buzzer again. Back in a flash.
Okay then. The bed is made, the jeans are in the dryer, my shirts and “delicate items” are in the washer, and a few other things are done that caught my attention. Look! A squirrel! I am easily distracted. I find if I notice something that needs to be done it won’t get done unless I do it right then. I’ll just see another squirrel, or Phil the groundhog, or a hummingbird, or Jill, one of our pileated woodpeckers. Which actually just happened when I sat back down. She flew in loudly announcing her arrival. She likes to warn us she’s coming. We call her “Jungle Bird” when she screams like that. Had to talk to her for a minute to set her at ease and assure her I wasn’t coming out before she’d go to the suet feeder. One of the suet feeders anyway. We have three up right now. She likes the one closest to the sunroom door (read that as Harold’s door). And now there is a deer at the mineral block, again. There were two fawns and a doe here earlier. Oh. Excuse me. They are back, too, with another, so there are five deer now. I have to talk to them, too, to let them know I’m not coming out to chase them away from the squirrel feeders, though they ran off the squirrels to steal the sunflower seed. I always wave at the squirrels and the deer when they look nervous and tell them, “It’s cool! I’m not coming out,” and they’re good with that, but I also warn them when I am. We won’t talk about the other woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees, finches, nuthatches, doves and sparrows. They come and go as they please, the downy woodpeckers in particular, who we call Woody and Woodrow, and who hardly pay attention to us at all. You get the idea. We have lots of friends, Harold and I. We never know who might show up at any given time. Better than TV. And, amazingly, we believe they like the music, too. At least they surely don’t seem to mind no matter how loudly we play it. Sometimes we think the type of visitors we get depends on the music we play. The deer are quite fond of Jethro Tull. Uh oh. I am getting the “stank eye” again from my short friend. He’s pacing. “Get ON with it!” he says. And so we shall.
Lisa and I like to go on vacation the first week of June. Long, heartbreaking story, that, and we’ll get to it in good time. But right now all you need to know is that we usually like to fly to The Riviera Maya down south of Cancun, and that the resort we used to stay at (which we absolutely loved) was sold to a different chain a few years ago, so we made other plans since we were not sure about the new owners and money was a little tight. Lisa remembered this lovely little cabin in Kentucky she stayed at years before I met her, and she thought, given my disposition, it might be a good fit for us. The one she stayed in down on the lake shore had been sold as a vacation home, but the owners have several others. The one we stayed in that week was halfway down a long, deep gully, sitting at the edge of the hardwood forest on a cliff that overlooks the lake. Very private, and aside from the noise of coal trucks passing over the bridge a half mile or so up the lake, pretty quiet. Noise carries across the water or it would be very quiet. We took along all the food and such we thought we would need, the little Logitech iPod speaker/docking station (which puts out remarkable bass for its size), both of our iPhones and all three of our iPods for music, a few DVDs we thought we might like to watch, our Kindles so we could read like we do on the beach in Mexico, and a ten pound bag of sunflower seed for any new friends we might make there. Everybody pretty much, furred or feathered, likes sunflower seed, except for the carnivores. We made lots of new friends including chipmunks, which we don’t have up here, the birds, the squirrels, the raccoons, a vole, and some little mouse creature we never got a good enough look at to identify. It was a most pleasant week, quiet and relaxing, aside from the five foot blacksnake living in the front yard, who I did not mind and conversed with up close and personal. She was actually quite friendly for a blacksnake and not stand-offish at all. Lisa did mind, and did not converse with her. In fact, for a while she refused to come off the front porch. By a while I mean several days. She is not a snake fan in any way, shape or form. Rock python or green snake, it does not matter. If it has scales but no legs it is not something she wants to call friend. At any rate, aside from the blacksnake, it was all good. One evening late in the week, it got even better for me. I met Harold.
I had walked out onto the huge raised deck behind the cabin to sit for a while, listen to some music and maybe take some pictures of some of our new friends while Lisa read. I looked out across the yard to the cliff edge, and there stood Harold, his head raised in an imperial sort of way, looking through the tree tops growing up past the cliff face from the lake shore out across the water. He was quite striking. He is, after all, quite a handsome fellow. I was intrigued as to what he might be doing there. You don’t often see a gentleman of his ilk standing at the edge of a cliff looking imperial and pensive. I grabbed my camera and started down the stairs. Harold dropped his head a bit and looked back across his right shoulder at me (a look with which I have become very familiar), I imagine to keep an eye on me and ascertain my intent toward him. I stopped, aimed and snapped a picture. It is on the wall behind me. The edge of the cliff isn’t very evident in the photo, but it is there. The first drop-off is about six inches past his nose and only a foot or two down. Three feet past that it drops straight down to the rocky shore, I would say at least forty to fifty feet. I walked past him, stepped off the first ledge, turned and squatted in front of him so I was at his eye level, and said something like, “Well who are you, and what are you doing standing on the edge of the cliff?” He looked me dead in the eye as if to say “What’s it to you? I’ll stand here if I like.” He otherwise did not seem at all concerned about my presence. Harold doesn’t talk, you see, and his expression doesn’t change much, so you have to sort of read his eyes and his attitude. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. And he can be very, very expressive when he wants to be.
Harold and I conversed a bit more over the advisability of a low-slung, slightly ungainly gentleman such as himself standing on the edge of a drop-off of several feet onto a rocky ledge, and then, should one perhaps stumble, fall, and roll upon landing on the second ledge, a forty or fifty foot drop to the rocky lakeshore below. I talked. Harold looked at me. I talked. I swear Harold shrugged. I talked. Harold continued to look at me, but now I thought I could discern a bit of a contemptuous attitude: “Your point? The lecture is over. Get out of my way, you’re blocking my view.” I apologized, rose, stepped back up onto the edge of the first level, then squatted back down to be nearer his face and at a better angle by which to see his eyes. This time he took offense, drew back his head and exhaled in a most disgusted manner. He was obviously not pleased with me for infringing on his personal space. I again apologized and asked him if he’d like to come in and meet Lisa, because I was sure she would find him fascinating, and I told him I was certain we could find him something to eat. I had seen him eyeing a tomato lying on a paper plate up the hill that I had laid out for anyone who wanted it. Since he was and is in fact somewhat ungainly, and quite small, I picked him up and carried him to the cabin. He rode quietly in my hands without a fuss, peering from between his hunched shoulders. We reached the cabin door, entered and I said, “Sweetheart, look who I found standing out on the edge of the cliff. I thought he might jump, so I thought I’d ask him in for bite and to see if we could calm him down.” She looked at him and laughed.
I closed the door behind us, walked to the middle of the huge area rug in the common room, and gently sat Harold down. He remained in his hunch-shouldered position, his head and eyes moving with deliberate purpose around the room, surveying the lay of the land so-to-speak, pausing now and then on Lisa and myself. I went to the kitchen, rummaged in the cabinets until I found a small, shallow saucer and a paper plate, then turned to the refrigerator where I grabbed several blueberries and a wedge of tomato, which I put on the plate. I then filled the saucer with water and carried both over to set on the floor by Harold. His eyes followed me suspiciously as I retreated to the couch and sat by Lisa. Harold remained in his hunch-shouldered position for quite some time. He is extremely patient. I have seen him sit in one spot for three or four hours, his head and eyes the only things moving, until he stretches out a couple of legs here and there in the most awkward positions, I assume to avoid or relieve a cramp. The word contortionist comes to mind. At any rate, suffice it to say he sat there observing us and surveying the room for quite some time. Lisa and I had stopped paying a great deal of obvious attention to him as we did not want him to feel uneasy. We just wanted him to relax, feel at home, have a bite and a sip, and maybe get to know us a bit.
We decided to kill some time before dinner by finding something on TV, which to we cable subscribers meant trying to figure out the satellite network menus. Might as well have been Greek, as they say. We just punched buttons up and down, left and right, back and forth, hither and yon until we saw something that looked interesting. I don’t remember what it was, so it must not have been memorable, but we were distracted. It was sometime during said unmemorable distraction that Harold decided to come out of his shell. We heard some odd scraping noises (not unusual at the cabin), then a sort of squishy sound (which was unusual), and looked down to find him sitting on the paper plate having a bite of tomato. “Oh my! He is a handsome devil!” Lisa exclaimed. I had mentioned that fact to her at some point since he was in that hunch-shouldered position and she could not really tell. Now that she could actually see his bright orange-yellow, asymmetrical, full coverage head markings, and not just his nose and intense fiery red-orange eyes, she had to agree. She says his relatives in our neck of the woods have “little turd heads.” At this point I should mention that because I know him now, I have referred to him as Harold. While all of this was going on we of course had no idea what his name was, but that was about to change.
A quick aside. You might recall I mentioned that Harold adores Lisa. You’ll hear more about his infatuation later, but I have to tell you that he is not used to me sitting out here with him on a Saturday afternoon punching keys on a computer. Usually I am up and down and all around, because, of course, I am easily distracted, and I try to stay busy when it’s just Harold and me and no Lisa. Poor Harold, who is not so easily distracted, has come over several times to stand and stare at Lisa’s chair, look over that right shoulder toward the kitchen, then back at her chair. Things are not right. If I am sitting out here this long, she is supposed to be here too, like on Sunday mornings when we sit with him to have coffee, and I chatter at Lisa while she tries to read the paper and work her puzzles. This is just not right.
Now, back to the nameless stranger. Once he had had a few bites of tomato, a blueberry, a sip of water, and was feeling a bit more comfortable, he decided to explore. We checked around to make sure there was nothing with which he could injure himself, and we let him roam. As I have mentioned he is a bit ungainly, but that might not be as accurate a description as very meticulous and methodical in the way he moves, carefully placing each foot just so, but sometimes with a slight drag of one foot or another, and occasionally seeming to be slightly off-balance. It makes for an interesting herky-jerky sort of gait. We noticed that when he stretches his neck upward into the imperious posture he was in when I first saw him and moves it back and forth to survey his surroundings his movements are somewhat stiff, almost mechanical. “He reminds me of Herman Munster,” Lisa said.
“No, no. Herman wasn’t that stiff,” I replied, “but he reminds me of somebody. Who is it? Who is it? I know! I know! He walks and moves just like Harold on Person of Interest!”
“Ah! You’re right! He holds his head and moves just like Harold Finch!” Lisa replied. And Harold had his name. Little did we know that he was also head and shoulders above his peers in intellect, just like Harold Finch.
Harold stayed with us that night, had breakfast with us the next morning (which pleased him greatly), and agreed to stay with us until we left, as long as we agreed to keep the tomatoes and blueberries coming, and to let him check out whatever else we might be having just to see if he might be interested. He does not care for grapes, bananas, or grilled chicken (we did not have any boiled chicken), which seems a bit odd to me, because all of his relatives I have known in my lifetime, and I have known quite a few, do like those things. (He is under one of Lisa’s ladder back hickory chairs at the small, round, metal slatted table in his room, looking back at me over that right shoulder again. As I said before, I have become very familiar with that particular posture. I think he knows I am commenting on his pickiness and does not approve. Tough. The truth is the truth, and you ARE picky, Harold.) After much exploring and consideration, he had, to quote Black Elk, “found his place of power” where he was most comfortable in the room: under the lower shelf of the television table. He made that his base of operations, so I started sliding his water saucer and paper plate under there so he would feel secure while distracted by his victuals. The shelf was about ten inches off of the floor, so it was not like he was hiding. We could see him just fine, but he felt better under there, and after eating or napping or whatever else he was doing he would emerge and go on one of his exploration forays around the room. He became quite comfortable with us after a while and really did not pay much attention to us when we walked around the room, so long as we didn’t step too closely to him.
We spent the last two days at the cabin in this fashion, enjoying the peace and quiet, and Harold’s company. It was delightful having him with us, but all vacations must come to an end, and it was time to pack up and head home, and that included our guest. I fixed him one last plate to nibble off of while Lisa and I packed, and when our luggage was all in the car we went back to the cabin to say goodbye and return Harold to his native habitat. I moved his plate with the remaining tomato slices and blueberries out to the yard, then went back to the cabin and opened the back door leading out to the deck. “Harold,” I said, “it’s time to go home.” He eyed the open door for a few minutes, and then headed toward it in his meticulous yet jerky way. He reached the threshold, stepped up onto it, and stopped. Up came his head, and he scanned the deck and the forest beyond. This went on for several minutes, and then he did an abrupt about face and came back into the cabin. This caught me totally off guard. In all of my history with Harold’s brethren, never have I known one who refused to go through a door when it was open. Never. Always before I had to be very, very sure that no doors, not closet, basement or exit, were ever left open. Inevitably they would find it and go through it. It is no fun to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of something trying to get out of your closet, or bouncing down the basement steps. This reaction was totally unexpected. “Harold,” I said, “it’s time to go home. We have to leave now. You can’t stay here in the cabin.” I walked over to him and picked him up to carry him out to the yard and his plate. I had not handled him since the day I brought him in to meet Lisa, preferring to just let him go about his business as he wished. He was, after all, a guest, not a toy. As I held him I thought to myself, “Something doesn’t feel quite right here,” and I turned him over onto his back. “Oh my,” I said. “Oh my.”
“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked.
“Come look at this,” I replied. She walked over and took a look.
“Oh my!” she said. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But it’s not good.” I took a closer look. His front plastron was cracked all the way through, from an inch left of center at the hinge to the right front corner, and was slightly coated with dried blood and fluid. “This is not good at all,” I said. “He is seriously compromised. If somebody wanted to, they could peel him open and eat him like a ripe melon. Given where and how it’s cracked, I’d have to say he fell off of a ledge or something onto solid rock. I can’t believe after something like that, and so recently, he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Maybe he WAS going to jump. He probably figures he hasn’t got a chance of lasting out there in the woods, especially with that blood on him, and he’d rather jump and get it over with than get peeled open and eaten. Can’t say I blame him.”
“What can we do for him?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know of anything we can do for him,” I replied. “I’ve never had a turtle with a cracked shell.” I assume that by now you have figured out that Harold is a box turtle. “The only ones with cracked shells I’ve seen before were dead, or almost. Mostly on the highway when I stopped to move them but was too late. I don’t even know if a shell will heal. The only thing I know that will keep him alive, for now at least, is to keep him indoors where nobody can get to him.”
“You mean take him home with us?” Lisa asked.
“We can’t leave him in the cabin,” I replied, “so I guess we can take him home and keep him in the sunroom for a while and see if it heals.”
“Are we going to let him go in our woods, then?” she asked.
“If it heals,” I replied.
“And if it doesn’t?” she asked.
“Then I guess we have a new boarder.” Into the car we went, all three of us, with Harold tucked away nicely in a small box on the back floorboard, and we hit the highway home.
The trip home was mostly uneventful, except for the quick potty break we took at a rest stop where we encountered a family transporting grandpa home from a family reunion. They had pulled in next to us in the parking lot while we were inside. They all took turns running in to take care of business while grandpa sat in the car with the door propped open. I saw a box of Depends on the floor between his feet, and he was sitting on two blankets folded and laid on the seat under him. As we walked past it was evident grandpa had taken care of his business already and had no need for a rest stop. Grandpa was incontinent and a potty break for him was redundant. It was also evident he was not happy about it. Needless to say we jumped in the car and departed, quickly, with me thinking to myself, “Someday soon, God help me, that will be me sitting there on piled blankets stinking to high heaven with a box of Depends between my feet,” and I was no more pleased with that idea than poor grandpa.
Several hours later we pulled into our driveway. We unloaded Harold first and took him straight to the sunroom, figuring he needed to unwind. Lisa got him two shallow, green glass, apple shaped dessert plates from the cabinet. I set them on the floor of the sunroom under the three small tables upon which we keep some of our plants, put tomatoes and blueberries in one and filled the other with water. Harold explored his new environs while we unloaded the car, and he was calmly munching tomato when we came back to check on him. No, Harold does not have a box, or an aquarium, or a terrarium. The whole sunroom is now his, and he may wander as he pleases. Thus, just like that, within a matter of minutes, Terry’s Smoking Room ceased to exist, and Harold’s Room was born.
So now you know how I met Harold, how he got his name, why and how he got here, and I can tell you that after three years, though the tissue underneath is healed and Harold seems fit as a fiddle otherwise, I see no sign of the plastron healing. It is still cracked hinge to edge, and he is still vulnerable to predation, so he remains as our guest. Or rather, truthfully, as an integral part of our family. In the pages to follow, you’ll understand why. I have known and kept quite a few turtles and other animals during various periods of my lifetime, but I have never met anyone like Harold. He is truthfully one of a kind.