This is utter crap, but it’s being put into my personnel file at the MDAG offices in New York. Gus Dane was a blowhard who kept trying to get me to write poetry, but I hate poetry. Some of it is true, though. I just wish they’d asked someone else to write it. I didn’t hate Gus, but I wouldn’t call him my mentor or confidant. If you’d like to know the real story of my arrival in Innerarity, look here. -Harry
Corporate Memo 2006.88.7B
From: Agion Stern, President, CEO, MDAG Enterprises
To: Grammatical E. Edgerin, Clerk
Concerning: Personnel Profile of Harry D. Wardell, Roving Researcher, MDAG Rutter
The late Augustus Dane IV, Harry Wardell’s mentor and confidant, provided the following document concerning Harry and his choice of habitat. Harry continues to perform admirably and has agreed to assume duties as ‘Researching Journalist’ for the SE United States and Cuba. This will involve likely tours of duty into the Caribbean and probable jail time. Harry will continue to submit articles regularly from his ‘home’ in Innerarity. This document should be entered as the personnel profile of Mr. H. D. Wardell:
Innerarity, Florida is a little lower on the evolutionary scale of conurbation than a sleepy, one-horse town. But it is considered by most of the residents to be the epitome of the perfect, peaceful getaway—the premier vacation destination in the entire Sunshine State, even though no one else in the world has figured that out yet. It is nestled snugly on the Perdido Sound, with views across the bay of the skyline of Orange Beach, the mega-vacation wonderland of Alabama’s gulf coast. It is festooned with centuries-old live oak trees which are draped with Spanish moss, white-sand beaches and palm trees, and only a little alligator and malaria-infested swamp. It is quaint, beautiful, serene, and almost completely without any form of good fortune.
There’s only one road which leads into town, a small, non-descript blacktop, concealed by foliage, edging off of a four-lane parkway that is normally packed with traffic. Anyone who thought the road looked interesting enough to explore would invariably miss the turn and have to find a place to turn around, of which there is none until after they’ve driven over the Perdido Pass Bridge, at which point they arrive at Orange Beach with a tremendous view of the Gulf of Mexico. More times than not, the little blacktop is forgotten. But if they did remember to turn around, they would double back and find that there is no median crossing at the little blacktop. So they would have to continue past the road a few miles to turn around again, and then promptly forget the little blacktop again once they saw the big bridge into Orange Beach. But the bad fortune doesn’t stop there.
The men’s softball team has never won a championship. The Mayor is a life-long drunkard who is the only resident that has any interest in running the town (and he is the Mayor in title alone as the town has forever legally been a forgotten tax write-off for Pensacola). No one famous has ever been born there or lived there for a spell. No one can remember if anyone famous has ever even passed through. They have no claim to fame, no “World’s Largest Ball of Twine,” or “Home of the Three-Headed Goat.” Average income in Innerarity goes down every year, and the only whore in town has the clap. It is beyond my comprehension that anyone would want to live in this mosquito-infested outpost, except that in so many ways, for Harry, it is perfect. Harry would have arrived and within a few days known that he had found a place where he could seamlessly integrate himself into the culture without causing any disruptive ripples. He would have figured that in Innerarity, he might not get himself killed and, in fact, he might even excel as a member of such a society.
A little background on Harry
Harry D. Wardell hails from Chicago, and lived there into adulthood, but a series of events led him, ultimately, to opt for the life of a hobo. For one, his parents passed away under ambiguous circumstances, but most impressively, he tripped down a spiral path of nearly disastrous accidents, sustaining injury after injury in the big city. This series of mishaps prompted him to re-evaluate his life, which led him, ultimately, to relocate to Florida. Here is an account of one such mishap, as related to me by a witness:
Harry had been strolling through the city when he came across a man who was attempting to heave some rather large rocks by way of pulley and rope up to a fourth-story window. Why the man was heaving the rocks up to the fourth-story window we can presume that Harry never wondered, because, upon seeing the fellow, who was obviously physically exhausted (in his own words he was: “beet red and sweating like a pig in a pig sticking contest.”), Harry asked if the man needed any help. The man, of course, was very obliged, and explained that the rope that held the pulley was coming untied and that he needed someone to hold the weight of the rocks so he could go up and re-tie the rope. Harry gleefully grasped the rope, failing to realize one fateful fact until is was too late: that the gentleman he’d offered his assistance to outweighed Harry’s frail frame by a good hundred and fifty pounds. So when the man let go of the rope, Harry was “launched into the sky like a bottle rocket.” Evidently, Harry had a good grip, too, because when the rocks hit him on their rapid descent back to the sidewalk, he never let go. In fact, it wasn’t until his fingers were reeled into the pulley up to his wrist that he finally found the ability to release his grasp on the rope. Of course, the four story drop didn’t do very much for his already malady-stricken body, especially landing on a rather large heap of hefty stones. Harry still maintained consciousness, however, and even managed to sit up and shake his head. Right before the pulley finally came completely untied and fell, hitting him squarely on the head and immediately dispatched his already-faltering consciousness.
All in all, Harry had quite a few contusions, several hairline fractures (especially in the fingers of his right hand), a concussion, many bruises, a busted collarbone, and one monstrous headache. This seems to be the point at which Harry decided to become a hobo, because upon being discharged from the hospital, he piled some necessities into a bag and poked out his thumb. Two days later, he got a ride going north. It didn’t take him long, that early December day, to decide that south was a better direction, so he poked his thumb out again and nearly froze to death for the three days as he stood waiting for a vehicle to pass him, which didn’t stop. The next one did, though, and he was off with the snowbirds to Florida.
Harry liked to think of himself during this period of his life as a woebegone traveler, like an albatross, roving the countryside in search of work. In all honesty, Harry did have two things that separated him from most other down-and-out peddlers and unlucky buffoons; he had an uncanny knack for finding himself in incredible circumstances, and he had talent. Harry was a skillful writer. When he wrote, the words flowed through him and bade him like no other. They beckoned him to show his misery. People who read him felt his pain. They knew it as if they had stepped inside him all at once and then back out again, at which point we can assume they would look upon his smiling face and wonder what the hell he had to smile about anyway. And why the hell would they want to be brought into his world for any length of time.
Harry might have been Beethoven with a pen or Picasso on parchment, he might have had as much power as Hemingway and as much passion as Whitman. But, unfortunately, he lived like Larry, Mo and Curly. His true craft was poetry and play, but his journalism did benefit from his talent, although it would never near the level he could attain in more formal forms of prose.
So Harry applied for and was hired as a freelance roving researcher for the upstart Modern-Day Adventurer’s Guide (MDAG), a compilation of fact, fiction and intrigue. He received no salary, but received payment for any articles he wrote. It didn’t take long for this way of life to catch up with him. After only a few years it became clear that Harry had a problem with being a roving researcher, that he was weary of roving. Since he had made his way to Florida, Harry found himself roving with a specific purpose–other than that of researching for the MDAG and chasing stories–to find a roost, a place to hang his hat, to call home. Some place between Key West and New Orleans, he’d decided. The only identifiable problem with finding such a place was that his title would immediately change from “roving researcher” to “stable, anchored or otherwise not-roving researcher.” It was a trivial issue, granted, but it was one that caused Harry no small amount of anxiety.
Thus it came to Harry, standing on Main Street Innerarity and just off the turnip truck that as his search had come to an end, so had his title of roving researcher. He had his duffel bag over his shoulder. He was smiling and looking upon Main Street with a firm determination that he would call that place his home. It was the one place in the USA where the average Joe on the street was actually worth less and had done less right than Harry. It was the home of Harry’s dreams. His jubilation was masked only by his hesitancy to acknowledge that he could be jubilant in so stressful a situation as to have his very title stripped from him for the mere comfort of, well, comfort. Nevertheless, Harry had the distinct impression that he had indeed come to the end of his journey.
He stood there for a good ten minutes, watching the few people in the street watch him. He smiled and waved once or twice. Then a seagull crapped on his head.
Within a week the MDAG offices in New York had offered Harry the position of “Researching Journalist,” still without pay, of course, but the new position did have an expense account, which was, in some ways, even better than pay (for Harry). So, until he was discovered, he would continue to write freelance articles for pay, traveling about the South, always returning to his diamond in the rough, his Shangri La: Innerarity, Florida.
Disclaimer: It is worthy of note that Researching Journalist Harry D. Wardell was inflamed by this article and counts it as ‘asinine’ and ‘insipid’ and, finally, ‘hogwash.’ It should also be pointed out that, as Harry’s appointed mentor, he absolutely detests me and refuses to acknowledge the greater good that I have faithfully been guiding him toward, as directed by my employer.
