best. Never mind. Run, by all means. Run like the dickens, because Dickens awaits us.”
* * *
I ran the quarter of a mile to Mr. Harrigan’s house, but walked back, and on the way I had an idea. A way to thank him, even though he said no thanks were necessary. Over our fancy dinner at Marcel’s that night, I told Dad about Mr. Harrigan’s offer to invest my windfall, and I also told him my idea for a thank-you gift. I thought Dad would have his doubts, and I was right.
“By all means let him invest the money. As for your idea . . . you know how he feels about stuff like that. He’s not only the richest man in Harlow—in the whole state of Maine, for that matter—he’s also the only one who doesn’t have a television.”
“He’s got an elevator,” I said. “And he uses it.”
“Because he has to.” Then Dad gave me a grin. “But it’s your money, and if this is what you want to do with twenty per cent of it, I’m not going to tell you no. When he turns it down, you can give it to me.”
“You really think he will?”
“I do.”
“Dad, why did he come here in the first place? I mean, we’re just a little town. We’re nowhere.”
“Good question. Ask him sometime. Now what about some dessert, big spender?”
* * *
Just about a month later, I gave Mr. Harrigan a brand-new iPhone. I didn’t wrap it up or anything, partly because it wasn’t a holiday and partly because I knew how he liked things done: with no foofaraw.
He turned the box over a time or two in his arthritis-gnarled hands, looking bemused. Then he held it out to me. “Thank you, Craig, I appreciate the sentiment, but no. I suggest you give it to your father.”
I took the box. “He told me you’d say that.” I was disappointed but not surprised. And not ready to give up.
“Your father is a wise man.” He leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands between his spread knees. “Craig, I rarely give advice, it’s almost always a waste of breath, but today I’ll give some to you. Henry Thoreau said that we don’t own things; things own us. Every new object—whether it’s a home, a car, a television, or a fancy phone like that one—is something more we must carry on our backs. It makes me think of Jacob Marley telling Scrooge, ‘These are the chains I forged in life.’ I don’t have a television, because if I did, I would watch it, even though almost all of what it broadcasts is utter nonsense. I don’t have a radio in the house because I would listen to it, and a little country music to break the monotony of a long drive is really all I require. If I had that—”
He pointed to the box with the phone inside.
“—I would undoubtedly use it. I get twelve different periodicals in the mail, and they contain all the information I need to keep up with the business world and the wider world’s sad doings.” He sat back and sighed. “There. I’ve not only given advice, I’ve made a speech. Old age is insidious.”
“Can I show you just one thing? No, two.”
He gave me one of the looks I’d seen him give his gardener and his housekeeper, but had never turned my way until that afternoon: piercing, skeptical, and rather ugly. These years later, I realize it’s the look a perceptive and cynical man gives when he believes he can see inside most people and expects to find nothing good.
“This only proves the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. I’m starting to wish that scratch ticket hadn’t been a winner.” He sighed again. “Well, go ahead, give me your demonstration. But you won’t change my mind.”
Having received that look, so distant and so cold, I thought he was right. I’d end up giving the phone to my father after all. But since I’d come this far, I went ahead. The phone was charged to the max, I’d made sure of that, and was in—ha-ha—apple-pie working order. I turned it on and showed him an icon in the second row. It had jagged lines, sort of like an EKG print-out. “See that one?”
“Yes, and I see what it says. But I really don’t need a stock market report, Craig. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, as you know.”