Triptych Interviews
Harold
Saturday, October 15 (After Chapter 43 of Triptych)
aroslav: Harold Anderson?
HAROLD: Yes. Please come in. I appreciate that you came to see me. I don’t think I could have made it to Seattle. The trip to Minneapolis pretty much exhausted me.
aroslav: I hope your health is improving.
HAROLD: Not likely, but I still have some hope. So what is it you’d like to know?
aroslav: Well I usually start out with basics like name, age, and birthdate.
HAROLD: Okay. Well, my full name is Harold Joseph Anderson. Joseph was my father’s name, but they chose not to make me be a junior. I was born on the Ides of March and I’m fifty-four years old.
aroslav: Why don’t we start with a little of your history then. When I’m interviewing teens we go right to what they are doing today. They really don’t have much history. But tell me first about your schooling and a little about how you got where you are today.
HAROLD: Sure. I always fancied myself an artist. I loved to draw and paint when I was a kid. So, of course, I investigated all the best art schools in the country. Pacific College of the Arts and Design was my first pick and Carnegie Mellon School of Arts was second. I was a dreamer. My grades in high school weren’t the greatest and my portfolio wasn’t extensive enough to be a good excuse. I had good technical drawing qualities, but was told that my art needed to show more development before I could be admitted to one of their programs. I think colleges in general were more selective then than they are today. At least I like to think so.
aroslav: Where did you end up?
HAROLD: That’s a good way to phrase it. I ended right back where I started—here in Boston. My parents gave me a jolt back to reality when they told me there was no money to contribute to my education. Dad was disabled and they lived on a poor income from Social Security and piece work that Mother took in. So, if I wanted to go to college, I’d have to pay for it myself. I enrolled in Quincy College in a two year associate in arts degree program. I was able to live at home and commute, but in order to pay for the increasing costs of living independently, I took a job at a local advertising agency.
aroslav: How did that work out?
HAROLD: It turned out that I was better at selling agency services to advertisers than I was at art. I was only a teenager when I started there, but I was selling services successfully by the time I got my AA. Having an income was pretty amazing. I never transferred to a four-year college. I just kept working. I let the draw of having money and security overpower my dream of becoming an artist.
aroslav: Sad. Let’s move to something that I hope was happier. Tell me about how you met Lexi.
HAROLD: Mmm. This story should probably be written down so Melody has it one day. She should know I wasn’t always a stick in the mud.
aroslav: I’ll do the writing. Tell me the story.
HAROLD: Alexandra was the boss’s daughter. I first met her during the second summer I was working at the agency. She came in over the noon-hour each day to give the receptionist a break. It was her first summer job and she only worked about two hours each day. It was perfect for her. I always came back to the office over my lunch break as the advertising execs that I met were usually unavailable at that time unless you had the budget to treat them to a three martini lunch. I wasn’t yet twenty-one, so I couldn’t join them in their drinking. So I came into the office one day and there she was.
aroslav: Love at first sight?
HAROLD: Oh heavens no. More like a catfight about to start. I just walked through the front door and headed back toward my cubicle when I heard this voice ring out behind. “Excuse me, sir. May I help you?” I turned around and looked at her in disbelief. I’d never been challenged going to my own office, but then I noticed that Rose wasn’t at the desk. “Who are you and where is Rose?” I demanded. “I’m Miss Locke and I’m filling in for Rose while she’s at lunch. Who are you?” Well, I was a little taken aback. I just said, “I’m Harold Anderson. I work here.” “Couriers are supposed to use the mailroom door,” she snapped.
You can see where this is going, right? I had to explain that I was a sales associate and she doubted me because I looked too young. Not that she could talk. I think she was only sixteen at the time. I was four years older than she was. Apparently she checked me out with Rose and the next day I received a quite civil greeting of “Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson.” I just nodded to her—after all she was just a teenaged receptionist substitute, but after I passed her desk I heard her mutter, “Still look like a courier.”
aroslav: So I take it you didn’t start dating right away.
HAROLD: Oh no. Her father would have killed me. We didn’t have a truly civil conversation until two years later. I was invited to a celebration of her high school graduation—along with about two hundred other close friends and employees. There was a good deal of dancing at the party and I executed my obligation to have a dance with the graduate. I asked her what her plans were now that she was out of school and if she was going to college. “Oh no,” she said. “I’ll be taking over for Rose full-time now. She’s decided to leave and have babies.” She actually giggled at that. “Well, then, I suppose I shall have to see you more frequently,” I said. “Yes. You might even need to take me to lunch occasionally. Just so I understand more about our customers,” she mocked.
Well, as you can guess, we did go to lunch. In a few months, I plucked up the nerve to ask her out in the evening. Her father didn’t object to me too much because I was raking in quite a pile of business for him. Three years later—after she turned twenty-one—we were married. Her father gave her the house in Lexington as a wedding gift. It had been his mother’s home and he bought it from her when she moved to a retirement home. Note that I said he gave the house to her. In spite of being his son-in-law, we did not fully trust each other, even back then. I had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement regarding Alexandra’s assets. Mass is not a community property state, so essentially what’s mine is hers and what’s hers is her own. It certainly doesn’t make any difference now. She’ll inherit everything by my will anyway.
aroslav: Did you eventually take over the business?
HAROLD: No. My father-in-law was right not to trust me. A few years later I got wind of two of my top clients considering a different agency. We’d always had a good relationship, but they were unhappy with some of the product they’d been getting lately. I talked to them quite frankly and they agreed not only to follow me if I jumped ship, but to put up part of the funding for a new business. I talked to Alexandra about it and she agreed, but refused to move with me. She said that if she stayed at her father’s agency, it might mitigate some of the hard feelings that were bound to arise, but that after a suitable time, she would quit and come to work with me.
aroslav: When did that happen?
HAROLD: Well, it didn’t, exactly. Before we got to that point, Alexandra quit to have babies. Or I should say, “baby.” She had a difficult delivery that resulted in the inability to have more children after Melody was born. I was thirty-four years old and had a thriving business. My father-in-law’s company didn’t really suffer. It represented a minor blip in his agency revenues, but it was enough that he never forgave me. He made sure that I knew Alexandra was his sole heir and that his will specified that I would never have an interest in or any profit from his company.
aroslav: And you are still not speaking to each other?
HAROLD: I speak to him frequently—in spirit. He and Lexi’s mother were on a flight from Boston to LA early one morning that only made it as far as New York.
aroslav: How terrible.
HAROLD: We all lost something that day. But, true to his word, Alexandra inherited her share of his business. Something that she has paid absolutely no attention to, but which the other partners continue to run quite successfully. Ironically, it is that very agency that recently purchased my company for a handsome sum. I doubt that Alexandra even knows she now owns the business that I created to compete with her father.
aroslav: Life is full of strange twists. Tell me about your relationship with Melody.
[Tears. Quiet, thoughtful tears.]
HAROLD: Sorry. I thought I was doing right. I really thought I was doing right. I gave her paints when she was only two years old. I taught her art and drawing and had her pictures on the refrigerator and in my office. The damned office kept me awfully busy, though, and I guess she suffered. I love my little girl. I just wanted the best for her. And of course, I know what’s best, right? I’m her father. I pushed her to have the things I didn’t have and couldn’t afford. She wanted a nice fabric design business and I insisted she have a solid traditional arts education. I made sure she got into the school that I couldn’t go to, even though it was on the other side of the country. Alexandra really didn’t forgive me for that. I can’t blame her. I haven’t forgiven myself.
I admit that I responded poorly to her relationship with Tony and Lissa. I thought they might be taking advantage of her—distracting her from her studies. I was so afraid that she would end up like me. That in ten years she would wake up with a couple of kids, a couple of spouses, and a business that wouldn’t let her be with any of them. I thought that, like me, she would wake up one morning and regret her life choices.
aroslav: What changed.
HAROLD: Well, I got sick, obviously. I was already sick when I found out about Tony and Lissa, but I was in that stage where I was determined to have my way. I would fight my illness my way. I would live my life my way. I would have my daughter behave my way.
Terminal illness—and I don’t kid myself about the fact that I’m going to die—comes with a lot of counseling. Do you know that a dying person has to go through the same stages of grief that a survivor does? Anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It’s going to happen. And I guess that part of acceptance is reconciliation. I couldn’t bear to die without making up with my daughter and her spouses. I just want so much for her to be happy.
[Tears. Silence.]
Alexandra and I had been growing apart for a while. I still love her, but we are different than we were. When Melody left the house, there was little to hold us together. When I found out I was sick, I decided to move out and fight it by myself. It would have been an unfair play on her sympathies to force her to care for a sick person. And...I was afraid. I was afraid that when she found out I was sick, she’d leave me. I never intended to get a divorce. I thought a legal separation would be fine. We’d have our own lives and still be partners in caring for our daughter and I’d beat my cancer and we’d all be better people.
Prostate cancer. It’s an old man’s disease. So stupid to have it at my age that I wasn’t even being tested for signs. They tried this treatment where they implanted radioactive seeds directly into the gland to shrink the cancer. What none of us realized at the time was that it had already metastasized. The prostate shrank, but I had the cancer in my bladder and bowel and testicles.
I found out in June that things weren’t progressing the way we’d hoped. When I found out that Melody was moving back West with Tony and Lissa, I had to start saving what I had left. In August I sold the business. I went to Minneapolis in October to meet them there. I was so impressed with what I saw! Her fabric is beautiful. I wanted to do whatever I could to help them. They truly are a beautiful...trio. No, it’s not the life I would have chosen for my daughter, but it’s the life she’s chosen.
aroslav: But you still won’t go back to Lexi.
HAROLD: Too late. She comes over three or four times a week, or we meet for dinner somewhere if I feel strong enough. I just tell her that I’m doing fine and turn the discussion to how our daughter is doing. She stopped the divorce proceedings. I’ve made sure her name is on my bank and stock accounts so there won’t be any probate necessary.
aroslav: Anything I can do?
HAROLD: Write them a happy ending. I’m at peace, no matter where I end up.
aroslav: ???
HAROLD: I’ll know I’m in heaven if I can walk down the street and not have to stop and piss.
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