it’s a celebration.

Harold F. Endherst, 62 years old, was found Monday morning in his home, lying in front of his open refrigerator door with a broken jar of maraschino cherries underneath him. You see, the unusual thing is not the fact that he was lying face first in shards of broken glass. The unusual thing is that Harold was found at all. Every day, Harold wakes up at 6.30 on the dot. No alarm clock, just a biological clock. The thing is, he used to wake up at this very time for about 20 years of his life while he was manager of the convenience store. And I say “the” convenience store because in towns this small, there is only one. And you would think that in towns this small, everybody would know everybody, the cliché little-america-pleasantville-type-town. Well, that stands true, for the most part. Except for Harold. Nobody really knows anything about him. His neighbors know that he opens his door at about 6.45 every morning with a bathrobe on, gingerly crouching to pick up the daily newspaper off the bottom step. He refers to it as the bottom step to make it sound like there are actually more than two steps, as if fetching the morning paper counts as exercise. It just so happens that Maxine, the woman who lives across the street, leaves for work at this time. And she just so happens to know that Harold isn’t particularly well-endowed, based on one morning last spring that he forgot to tie his bathrobe and gingerly crouched just a little bit too long. Not that she wants to know this. Not that it’s easy to forget, either. But aside from this, Harold keeps out of the public eye. So by about 7.00, he usually has the newspaper spread out across the table and the coffee is almost finished brewing. Coincidentally, this is about the time that his wife usually wakes up. Battling the sunrise through the curtains, Tammy surrenders to the day and shuffles to the bathroom. Except, Tammy lives about 3 miles down the street with another man. And everybody knows this. “A lovely woman,” people will say if you ask about her. “Her ex-husband is a bit on the strange side though.” But if you ask Harold, he still refers to Tammy as his wife. It’s just easier. Fewer questions, fewer answers. Not that he’s bitter about anything. He got seven years of home cooked meals, half of his wife’s money, and a new tie every Christmas. That’s seven ties. And seven ties are more than enough, considering that the last time Harold even dressed up was 20 years ago to sign divorce papers at the courthouse. So, coffee on the table. He still brews enough for two people just because it’s easier to measure out. “Coffee for two!” That’s what he tells himself anyway. That way he doesn’t feel so bad when he puts double sugar in. And eats 2 donuts. “Breakfast for two!” Who is he kidding? He’s out of shape, out of money, and completely out of touch. He still thinks a satellite dish is a piece of kitchenware. “I already have a dinner set that I’m perfectly happy with, thank you,” he tells the salesman that calls several times a week. Luckily, his wife wasn’t quite so out of touch. And luckily, she WASN’T the manager at the convenience store, meaning she actually made money. She made quite a bit of money, actually. She had one of those generic job titles, something along the lines of ‘investment-firm-holdings-allocator-blah-blah’. Whatever it was, she could’ve retired a long time ago. So Harold took the divorce in stride, knowing that he’d be able to live for the next 30 years off her assets alone. Well, twenty years has come and gone. And now he’s stooped over his kitchen table, scribbling in the classified section looking for a job. But when you haven’t worked in 20 years, no job is a good job. Harold has come to realize this, too. After all, he’s been kitchen-job-hunting for the past year and a half. The only thing he likes about it is that it gives him an excuse to stay close to the box of donuts. Maybe all those double breakfasts crept up on him a bit too fast. He should have been able to stretch out that money for at least 5 more years. Even so, Harold has been productive, or so he thinks. He replies to about one or two job postings a month. To cut down on the amount of time he has to leave the house, he prefers to be interviewed over the phone. “I’m getting over something contagious,” is always his excuse. By nine in the morning, he usually saunters over to the coffee table, relocating his thrice-refilled coffee mug to the condensation-ring-stained coffee table, all the more inviting. Harold has a way of covering things up like this, almost as if to say ‘nope, no problems over here!’. Until he lifts up his mug. Ugh. ‘Let’s refinish this coffee table tomorrow.’ Tomorrow. Tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to get out of the house. Tomorrow I’m going to find a job. Tomorrow I’m going to start exercising. But right now, Maury is on. Harold doesn’t usually watch Maury, of course. Nobody does, right? It just happens to be on every morning at the same time. And he just always happens to be in front of the TV at this time. And every day, Harold gets to see the world’s shortest people. And the world’s craziest love triangles. And all these baby daddies. And all these prostitutes getting makeovers. It makes his life seem… okay. It makes his life seem… normal. ‘Why do I need to workout when there’s a guy in Arkansas that weighs 754 pounds?! I’m just thankful that i don’t have a child with alligator skin like that woman in Louisiana. No problems here.’ The phone rings. Would Harold be interested in switching phone service providers, they ask? Well, the only time Harold really uses the phone is to answer it. It’s all he can afford to do. “I’ll discuss it with my wife,” he says, and hangs up. He says this partly because he can, because how are they to know he’s divorced? And partly because he wants to hear himself say it, to see the words falling out of his mouth. In those two seconds, it makes him feel like he has his life together, like he’s not watching Maury on a Thursday morning, late morning, at that, in his bathrobe. Maury takes a commercial break and the phone rings again. “I said I’d talk to my wife about it,” he says into the mouthpiece, as if the previous conversation hadn’t ended, as if hanging up the phone had merely meant ‘I’ll put you on hold.” “Mr. Endherst? We’re calling on behalf of a telephone interview you completed with us several weeks ago.” This has never happened. A returned call. This surely can’t be good news. Can It? “We’d like it, if at all possible, if you started with us on Monday. If you are no longer contagious, that is.” “Of course, of course! Sorry, you caught me a little off guard. I was just going through some old work reports, trying to keep the information fresh, ya know?” “Excellent, Mr. Endherst. If you have any questions, feel free to call, otherwise we look forward to seeing you at 8.00 sharp on Monday morning.” “That I can do, I still wake up early from my last job!” Well, it’s the truth, he thought, though rather shamefully. “Okay, okay. Take care. Bye.” He hung up the phone in disbelief. “This calls for a celebration,” he said to himself. “I should make a big breakfast. No, I should go to a restaurant. Money doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll be rolling in it next week!” He checked his watch. Almost ten o’clock. Is it too early for a mixed drink? Normally, yes. Maybe. But today? “I deserve it!” Brushing the donut crumbs off his bathrobe, he heads to the kitchen with a bit more enthusiasm than usual. “No problems here!” He pours a vodka and soda, puts the vodka back on the shelf. Then he unscrews the cap again and dumps in a couple more splashes of vodka. “It’s a celebration!” Realizing his excitement, as if for the first time, he puts his right hand to his chest. His heart feels like it’s going to kick through his sternum. ‘Unlikely,’ he though. He turns around and opens the fridge door. The cool air rushes out at him, catching him off guard for a second. He can barely steady his breathing. “No problems here…” he keeps telling himself. He reaches for the jar of maraschino cherries on the top shelf. A bit sugary, yeah, but he deserves a couple today, right? Reaching, though, his right arm gives a violent throb of pain. He grabs the jar but his fingers don’t follow through. They let go before he can set it on the shelf, almost as if they are no longer a part of his body. The jar falls, exploding into a million little pieces.
Dozens of cherries scatter, like fireworks in slow motion.