A Pitiless Stare

A Pitiless Stare
by Ashley Garriga


Harold Wilson, a wisp of a man, stood in the dish-pit, clenching the handle of a paint scraper. He leaned over the sink. Strands of black hair fell over pale skin, sharp features, dropping to the point in his chin, while he scraped the sides of a half-pan and the burnt cheese peeled off smooth as he raked it into a trashcan. The kitchen was deserted, dark and lonely. The only light, a single fluorescent, threw a dirty glare over dull chrome and dingy metal shelves in the dish alley. As usual the others had left Harold, the dedicated dishwasher. One who would soon quit. At least, he hoped to. It wasn’t the work. He actually enjoyed the solitude the pit provided. It was Chef. Since the moment he met Chef Benjamin Gerald, Harold bore an overwhelming urge to jab out the man’s eye. A glass eye, blue with a milky glaze, glaring over a shoulder.Such a pitiless stare. Frozen and dead, taunting him, Causing him to itch and claw at his skin whenever facing chef. Unable to confront his boss, Harold did the only thing he knew to do. He stopped taking his meds and waited for the voice to return.

The dishwasher shook as it spun off. Harold flipped the pan over and loaded it onto a tray. He lifted the door, turning away from rising steam.

Before starting his career as a dishwasher, Harold was a prisoner at Middleton Correctional, one of Mississippi’s finest institutions suited only for the most insane criminals. He began his stint at fourteen. After twenty years of no air conditioning, shakedowns and strip searches, the state paroled him to a halfway house just a few blocks from Restaurant Benjamin, one of Taylorville’s most elite establishments with a popular award-winning chef.

When the steam cleared, plates clinked together as Harold pushed the tray through the conveyor, moving another one to the other side. He lowered the door. The dishwasher roared, and an industrial scream cut through the still kitchen.
Chef’s popularity boggled Harold. How did swine like Benjamin become so successful? Harold hated the man, not just his eye, but all 250 pounds of him disgusted him: The way he would stampede through the kitchen like a bull high on testosterone, his inability to turn a corner without bumping into a shelf, the wiry red hairs that covered his face, the sweat stains on his shirt. Even his voice was repulsive.

He had to escape from this kitchen, and soon. By now, He should have heard the raspy voice in head. It had been a month since he began slipping the Geodon under his tongue at the medication window. Harold began to worry. Had years of psychotherapy and medication destroy Evan? He needed his friend. More now than when he was a kid. Middleton had stolen his pride and changed him into a gutless worm who couldn’t stand up to his boss. He had become the boy the kids used to bully. Son of a whore, they would say. Yet, Evan had stopped that. He gave Harold strength and courage to fight back.

“Where are you?” he whispered, but there was only silence in his head.

He stepped to the other side of the pit, grabbed a towel, and started drying the dishes. He sighed, remembering how he met the voice in his head, his friend, Evan.

***
Harold was never supposed to see the voice, something to be heard not seen.

A precocious eight-year-old, Harold was aware of things. Like the men who visited Naomi. His mother had many men, not boyfriends, coming in and out of their trailer. They paid the bills, but none of them would play catch with Harold, or teach him to throw a punch. These guys weren’t potential dads or heroes. Which Harold realized he might need when one offered him candy. An innocent gesture perhaps. Still, never take candy from johns, something told him when a delicate hand held out silver wrapped chocolate. He sensed something lurking around his ego. Whatever it was might play catch with him or even take him to baseball games. He never considered the danger associated with pulling this thing out of the darkness or giving it a face and a name. He just knew something was there, swimming in the dark, searching for a light to guide it consciousness. Harold decided to shine the light of imagination. For weeks, he daydreamed, imagining what this person would look like. After a month, he started to lose hope in this hero. Then he showed up at Wrigley Field.

It was the same dream every night. Nightlights threw crisp light onto an empty stadium.