Harmon, we remember Harmon. The grease monkey at the warehouse. The young man with the window problem in his truck. Yes, that's him now, going into his double wide there, behind the stretch of pine trees. For one heart stopping moment he didn't know if he would make it to his driveway. Positioned just so at the top of a rise in the two lane, no shoulder, road he lives on, that it's impossible to see the oncoming traffic. Just as he started nosing his old truck left, across the double yellow stripes a big new SUV came barreling along the other direction. The 'Hidden Driveway' signs didn't seem to apply to, well, anyone. He jammed down on the brake pedal and the truck pointed towards those yellow lines for a second. He took a deep breath, held it - that's what the anger management classes had taught him - and let it out slowly. Let's try this one more time, he thought through his exhausted nerves. Two nineteen hour shifts back to back will do that to a person.
Second time's a charm, or something like that. He made it down his driveway and then into the trailer. It was uniform day, the laundering service did their drop off and pick up on Fridays, and Harmon carried his armload of uniforms to his closet and hung them up on his side, the left side, of the closet in the bedroom. Needless to say, regardless of what the radio was playing, Harmon wasn't bopping his head and mouthing the lyrics as did when it was coffee making time at the shop.
After he visited the fridge and found some Busch Light still lurking behind the leftovers - a small smile touched his face, all the way to his eyes, when his fingers felt the cold, perspired can - he made his way to his final destination: the easy chair.
He moved his dog, Bud, out of the seat. It took him a few moments to get the big dog to move, he seemed pretty reluctant to give up the seat/bed he'd been occupying for most of the day. But the dog moved and so did Harmon. Right down in the seat and in one smooth movement, activated the recline mechanism. Now Harmon was good. Right where he wanted to be.
"Hey! Amy, where's the remote," Harmon hollered across the wall behind the entertainment center - milk crates and a couple 2x12's. On the other side of the wall, Amy stirred from the place she'd been occupying for most of the day. A muffled, indecipherable replay came back at him. "Amy!"
"What the hell do you want!" he heard that. Sometimes he could swear she was skipping like a broken record.
"The remote, what'd you do with it?"
"I don't," a pause, Harmon guessed she was scrubbing the twelve or so hours of sleep from her face, "know where that damn thing is."
She sounded mad. Great. But Harmon did another anger management breathing technique. "Don't worry about it honey. I'll find it." He took another drink of his beer and started looking through cushions and under couches. There it was, the goal. He had it made now: beer, remote, off the clock. As he plumped his slender frame down in the easy chair again he also blessed himself for not having any kids. With the hours at work and Amy's sleep schedule he just didn't see that working out so well.
The bedroom door opened and there emerged Amy. "Darrel called....mmm, sometime today," she said through the thickness of too much sleep. Harmon waited for the rest, but Amy was busy scratching at an old scar on the side of her head.
"And..." he said.
Big yawn, there you go girl, yawn it out. "Um," she blinked and looked around like it was the first time she'd been here, "he's having a get together tonight. Well, it's more Darrel and Lindsey's thing."
"Baby, I just got home from a double shift and I'm tired. I'd just as soon stay at home and veg."
"Well, I need you to talk to him for me," there they were, the eyes aware now and full of intensity.
"Come on Amy, don't you think it's time you gave that shit a rest?" those were the wrong words. The worst possible words he could have said. But his hope, in vain, was that she'd set down that hard stuff and then maybe - maybe - they could talk about having kids.
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