the story of Hillard

[the_siobhan]

I told three people yesterday that I had figured out what my next story was going to be, just in case I forgot what it was.

Today I'm going to tell you about Hillard.

Hillard happened when I was 16. My family went to Montreal for a few days and of course I went with them. It was my first time in the city and I did lot of travelling around on the pubic transit system while I was there. So it so happened that I was waiting for a bus when some guy, a few years older than me, and obviously an "Anglo", asked me for directions.

I explained that I was just visiting so I couldn't help him out. When we boarded the bus he came and sat beside me. He didn't come across as terribly bright, but he seemed nice enough so we continued having a friendly conversation.

When I finally said, "This is my stop," and got up, he got up as well. I vaguely figured he must be getting off at the same place without giving it too much thought, and as soon as I exited the bus I started walking towards the motel where my family was staying.

I walked up to my parents where they were sitting on the tiny patio outside of our room. They looked at me. "Who's your friend?"

I turned around and discovered that this guy - Hillard, it turned out - had followed me. Right up to the motel.

OK, I have to stop and explain something. Now I would stomp up and demand to know what the fuck he thought he was playing at. But at 16 I was still only starting to learn the weird and mysterious codes through which humans managed to communicate things without actually saying anything directly. So at that time my response to this entirely foreign situation was to flee into our motel room and let my parents deal with it.

There was quite a bit of confusion at that point, probably because nobody else could quite figure out what to do about him either. I think it was my mother who finally informed him - very firmly - that we were leaving for dinner soon, and so he was going to have to make his way elsewhere. He knocked at the door that point to say goodbye to me - and then walked over to my father and told him that I had requested that my father give Hillard my address so that we could write to each other.

Now my father used to drink a considerable amount more back in those days, and so maybe had a few fewer functioning synapsis thaen than he does now. Maybe it was just the oddness of the whole situation that threw him. Maybe Hillard caught him off guard, or while he was busy with something else.

What ever the reason, my father gave it to him.

Fast forward a few months.

I moved out of my parents house shortly after that. I had completely forgotten about the entire incident in Montreal until my mother brought it up on the phone one day.

"Remember Hillard? That guy who followed you back to our motel in Montreal?"

"Yeah, kinda. What about him?"

"He's here."

"Here in Toronto?"

"Here in our house!"

Turns out he had showed up at their front door with a knapsack, announcing that he was newly in Toronto and needed a place to stay. My father, who probably was drunk at the time, grandly offered their place as temporary crashspace.

I thought that was pretty funny, but again thought no more about it. Until I showed up at their place several weeks later. And Hillard was still there.

In fact, Hillard was everywhere. He followed me around the house. He followed my sisters around the house. My younger sister walked into the bathroom at one point and slammed the door - hard - in his face. He stood there, waiting until she exited, then continued following her around. He was in the background through every conversation and interaction, hovering around us like a weird spook. The few times he tried to interject, my family would either cut him short with some viscious insult or just ignore him completely.

He also ate like a horse. Three horses in fact. At dinner he plonked himself down at the table, grabbed the entire platter of pork chops and started shovelling meat onto his plate before everybody else had even finished sitting down. My mother had obviously grown well used to this kind of behaviour - she leaned forward, gave him a resounding rap across the hands with a spatula, scooped the chops back onto the platter and thumped it back down onto the opposite end of table. This performance was repeated several times over the course of the meal with different platters of food, and I practically choked in my attempts to stop from laughing.

The whole visit was one long weird, and I regaled my girlfriend with the tale when I got home, immitating Hillard trailing everybody back and forth until we had both laughed ourselves sick.

I can't remember how long Hillard stayed with my folks. It was definitely several weeks, might even have been as long as months. One day I finally got a desperate phone call from my mother, begging me for help.

"You have got to get this guy out of here," she begged me. "I swear to God, I'm about to murder him."

That weekend I showed up at the house with a stack of newspapers.

"I'm here to help you find a place," I announced. We sat at the dining room table looking through listings, and I carefully circled every one I could find that fell within his price range. He looked over the page of circles and promised me he would call them all the following day.

I marched over to the phone, grabbed the receiver, and handed it to him.

"Call them now," I commanded.

I stood over him while he dialed and made appointments to see rooms. At one point, he lowered the phone and covered the mouthpiece of the receiver with his hand. He looked over at my mother. "What's the phone number here?" he asked her.

"It's printed on the phone," she hissed back.

He leaned over and read the number out loud. There was a brief pause, then he realized that he was still holding the phone down against his chest with the mouthpiece covered and quickly lifted it back to ear to repeat the number. My mother turned and glared at me.

"I thank the good Lord I never had any stupid children," she spat out. I fled into the bathroom to stuff a towel into my mouth while the tears ran down my face.

I spent the rest of the week showing up at the house to escort Hillard to every appointment. I informed a very pleasant landlady that her room was lovely and that he would be taking it, then stood over him while he wrote the cheque. I helped him gather up his things, retrieved his key and help him carry his few belongings to his new residence.

I never saw him again. One of my sisters did say that she once saw him on the subway, and that he kept looking at her, but she ignored him and he never approached.

I can't say that he was missed.

Comments

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I decided my best bet was just to start over.