The Guy in the Chair
Julia Pimblett
Howard came to live in my chair. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to put him either. My brother Sonny lived on the floor in the living room. He ate on the floor. He slept on the floor. He read on the floor. Now I’m wondering what kind of chair lept into your mind just now? Did you think of an old overstuffed chintz-covered chair that enveloped the body like a ball in a catcher’s mitt? That’s the one.
I had a couch too. Tom was staying there. Tom was a stranger passing through town when his Jeep broke down. He was going to spend a night with us. Tom was traveling around the country and didn't have money to get a Jeep fixed, much less money for a place to stay. And, it was winter and it was cold. So he was going to spend the night. Six weeks later, Tom was still living on the couch.
Tom and Sonny were both musicians. Tom played flute or guitar and Sonny played the guitar and everybody else who played music would drop by and add a mandolin or a fiddle or a harmonica and the house smiled with their vibrations.
Now with Sonny on the living room floor and Tom on the couch the apartment was pretty full. It was a small place anyway not much more than 250 square feet I would guess. You walked directly into the living room from outside, turned right and you were in a small kitchen. If you walked directly forward you were through the living room into the small bedroom with bathroom attached. It was a cinderblock duplex so we aren’t talking luxury here.
Howard was actually okay in the chair. He was a small man, maybe five-foot-four-inches. He was bald on top with wispy brown hair that frizzed out from beneath his army cap and an even wispier beard that never seemed to make it to full-beard status. The cap itself was a travelogue of badges from places never visited and likely never desired. Howard was not a man tortured by the lust for the never attainable.
At this moment, he was engrossed in writing on his clipboard. He was settled. This was a man who knew his place, and this was it. All of his belongings were carefully stashed behind the chair and he was enthroned.
I had seen Howard around town but had never met him. He walked exceptionally slowly seeming to take in all the sites even though it was a small town and he had seen it all. I’m sure. He always carried a clipboard with him and was usually followed by a cadre of teeny-boppers. Usually girls. They seemed to hang on his every word, of which there were not many.
"Hi," I said expectantly.
Not shifting his attention from his clipboard he lifted a hand for a split second. I guess this was the traditional greeting among Laundromat-dwellers."I'm Howard. I live in this chair," he responded.
"Great. I'm Missy, I live in this house."
"Good," he answered.
He then launched into one of his Howard discussions which I actually got used to after a while and could translate for others. "The arboretum is nice. Wax isn't so easy to get, you know. Oil. There are some of my friends there."
That was it. I just stood and waited for his words to make sense. He didn't offer any more explanation or further discussion. In fact, he just returned to the clipboard. I figured this signaled the end of what had been a truly meaningful discussion.
"Hi," Tom said, coming in the door. "Who's this guy?" He gestured toward Howard who had not stopped his writing to greet Tom.
"He's Howard."
"Oh, friend of yours?"
"No. I never met him but apparently he’s living in the chair now."
"How'd he get here?"
"I don't know Tom. He was here when I came home."
"Oh sounds like Sonny."
Howard, who had been sitting not three feet away when we discussed him looked up now and said.
"Sonny."
"There's your answer Tom." I pointed out.
Sonny came home and the family was complete. "Hi guys. I see you've met Howard."
"Sort of. He doesn't say a lot." Howard continued to write.
"And how come he's here anyway. Who is he?" Tom asked.
"I met him in the laundromat."
"Well at least he's clean." I said.
"Well no. Well that is, yes, but he wasn't doing laundry. He lives there. Not all the time. Only when it's cold. The rest of the time he lives in the arboretum. "
"How come he doesn't live in a house?" I asked.
"With the gas shortage there is no wax. Howard makes candles. No oil, no gas, no gas, no wax, no wax, no candles.”
"Uh huh, is this going to be one of those ‘which lives in the house that Jack built’ kind of stories?"
"Could be." Sonny said cheerfully.
As the only rent paying occupant, I got alpha status in the mornings. It hardly mattered really because once awake I was greeted by the house-shaking symphony of three males snoring in a tightly enclosed space. None of them would be competing with me for first shower since none of them worked or went to school. I occupied the bedroom and that's how Howard came to live in the chair.
One day I came home and Howard was standing in front of the television with Sonny and a guitar.
"Sssh." Sonny said.
"What do you mean ‘ssh’?” I asked, annoyed.
"We're workin' here."
"Doin' what?" I said.
"Tunin'" Howard answered.
“Tunin’,the guitar?"
"Umm." He said.
I watched Howard pluck the strings of the guitar and damn if he wasn't right. The sound of the guitar made the pixels on the TV--move!!
"How'd you do that Howard?" I asked.
"Just did." He answered.
I’m sure he felt in the way for he spent most of the day outside of the house and only came back in the early evenings. In those times Sonny and Tom were usually jamming and Howard would join in. Sonny and Tom were really good and Howard was terrible but they loved his quiet sweet ways and let him play with the big boys. Occasionally Howard would initiate a conversation.
“Missy, Sonny told me you were a philosophy major.”
“That’s true, Howard, in undergraduate school,” I said while putting on mascara.
“Do you think you can give me a list of the philosophers I should read? Don’t you think people should read philosophers?”
“I do, but not many other people think so,” I said.
“Don’t care about them,” he responded.
“Okay, I’ll make a list.”
“Soon, please” he said, “I have time.”
I did make him the list, starting with the Greek philosophers all the way up to modern philosophers. I even included the tough ones like Hegel and Nietzsche. There were about thirty on the list.
“Here you go Howard,” I said, handing him the list.
He looked at the floor in embarrassment, and responded shyly. “Thanks so much. I will go to work on this.”
“Okay, have fun.” I responded.
Tom and Sonny were pretty busy with their music and getting Tom’s car fixed. Howard came and went but he was usually there when we all woke up in the morning, even stepping over Sonny on the floor without waking him. He was such a quiet gentle presence that he did not disturb anything in the house. However, he disappeared for four days.
I was really worried but the boys were cavalier about it telling me that men often disappeared like that and that he was likely shacked up with some chick. I found this hard to believe and still worried.
“Sonny, do you think we should call the police?” I said.
Not even looking up from his guitar Sonny said, “No.”
“You didn’t even think about your answer,” I said. “What if he’s hurt?”
“What are you going to tell the police that a guy you don’t really know who carries around a clipboard and used to live in the laundromat and now lives in your chair is missing?”
I continued to worry.
I drove around town looking for Howard in his usual haunts—the laundromat (He couldn’t keep away), the arboretum, the park, the center of campus. I couldn’t find him. I decided that if he were still missing after the weekend I would tell the police no matter what Sonny thought.
Midday on Saturday Howard sauntered into the living room.
“Where have you been,” I asked, “I have been worried sick about you.”
“I’ve been at the library,” he responded sheepishly.
“For five days?!” I demanded, surprised that I sounded so much like a mother scolding a child.
“I had a lot to read,” he said.
“Oh my god, how many philosophers did you read?” I asked.
“All of them,” he replied, “the library has an extensive philosophy section.”
This stopped me. He had read all thirty philosophers in five days.
“But where did you sleep?” I asked.
“No one checks the shelves at night,” he said, “and it’s amazingly comforting to sleep in the midst of all of that knowledge. It’s much more comfortable than the arboretum and the laundromat. I might go back there to stay some time if I need to.”
“But how could you read all of them in such a short amount of time? I asked.
“Easy, they were interesting.” was all he said. “I think I need a nap,” he continued, settling into his chair.
“It’s nice to have you home.” I smiled.
“Howard do you have a university degree?” I asked one day, combing my hair for a night out.
“No I never had time.”
“You do now.”
“No money.”
“GI Bill.”
“Yeah I guess I could get that. Would it be worth it?"
“It might offer you more security than making candles. I could help you fill out the paperwork.”
“I dunno, I would be in school with so many people younger than me.”
“I’m sure you would like the studying and talking with the teachers.”
“Yeah, that would be nice,” Howard said. He retreated to his chair to think about it. I didn’t press him. No need to rush him. The GI bill wasn’t going anywhere. After a few days he came into the kitchen to help me fix spaghetti and continue our discussion
“What do I have to do to get into college?” he asked.
“Not too much Howard. You need to get some money so that means you have to go to the Veteran’s Administration and talk with them about their paperwork. You need to do some work that the university requires. Take a test to get some scores, the SAT test. They give it at the university. Then you have to get your high school transcripts. Fill out some forms and you’re in.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Just a little bureaucracy among friends,” I said.
Time went by while Howard was getting himself ready to go to college. He never made a mess and each day the chair was straightened and his few belongings folded and stashed behind it.
Sonny was fiddling with the TV one day when Howard came in. “Damn thing won’t work,” he said exasperatedly.
“Let me fix it, “Howard said. He went to work immediately taking off panels and checking circuitry and within a half an hour it was working better than before.
“So many talents,” Sonny said.
Howard blushed.
“So Howard tell me,” Sonny said over the din of the TV, “what do you write on that clipboard?”
“Just some physics stuff.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Do you really want to know?” he asked.
“Absolutely bro, let’s hear it.”
“Well I can’t really explain the details but essentially it is an alternative theory of the origin of the universe as defined by the existing laws of physics” he answered.
“Well yeah,” Sonny said, “keep up the good work.” He turned back to the baseball game on TV.
“I can do that,”Howard said.
It turns out Howard had a nearly perfect high school record. He was too shy to belong to clubs or run for school office but academically he was the tops. With his terrific grades the University offered him some student aid and the GI bill kicked in to support him as well.
With a heavy heart we bid good-bye because Howard would be moving to the dorms. Tom’s jeep had been fixed a week before and he had moved on. With the departure of Howard the little apartment would seem terribly empty. Months passed and we had no word from Howard. No news is good news, I thought.
One day a note came under the door. It was an invitation.
You are cordially invited
to a special lecture given at the Physics auditorium
December 14, 3:00 p.m., by Howard Bronkowski
“An Alternative Theory of the Origins of the Universe.”
Sonny had no interest in going but to me it was an opportunity not to be missed. I arrived a few minutes early to see Howard at the bottom of a huge auditorium preparing for his lecture.
“Wow a lot of interest,” I said to the kid next to me.
“Oh he’s awesome,” he answered. “No nerd would miss this. He’s been setting the class on fire all semester with terrific questions and challenges for the professor. They decided to give him his chance to explain his ideas.”
“Testing, one two, testing one two,” Howard said as the microphone squealed in feedback.
“Sorry,” he blushed. “Thank you for coming today ladies and gentlemen. I am Howard Bronkowski, a freshman here in the Physics department.”
At that the room burst into applause. His face turned beet red and he looked down at the lectern.
“Thanks. Thanks. Thank you,” he said, never looking up. “We better get started.”
He launched into his ideas about the origins of the universe. For an hour and a half he explained his ideas. For an hour and a half I listened intently. For an hour and a half I didn’t understand one word. I was as proud as any mother could be.
At the end of the lecture the room thundered with applause and Howard, beaming and red, looked at the floor and took some awkward bows. People crowded around him.
“That was wonderful Howard,” I said.
“Did you really like it?” he asked.
“Of course, I didn’t understand a word of it but everyone else seemed to be following your logic and you had everyone’s attention.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” he said shyly. He put his arms around my neck and sticking his butt out, stood with his body about two feet away patting me on the back.
“We miss you at the house, Howard come by and see us sometime.” I suggested.
“I will,” he said. But he never did.
Julia Pimblett is an academic, an international consultant, and a writer. She published extensively in her first lifetime as an academic and has just begun her foray into the world of creative writing. With her husband, Stan, she has lived in the USA, England, Spain and Mexico. They are anticipating their next adventure.