Harold’s End
JT LeRoy
Last Gasp. 48 pages, $19.95
JT LeRoy’s new novella Harold’s End has the shape and feel of a personal diary or journal. Small in size and squarish in shape, the book sports a black cover (under the dust jacket) and, inside, the text is illustrated throughout with drawings of the story’s characters by Australian artist Cherry Hood. All of this makes perfect sense, because the story the narrator shares is the type of tale diaries are meant for: unabashedly intimate and filled with discoveries most of us would keep to ourselves.
Oliver, the teenage narrator, is part of a crew that includes humans and pets, with Oliver being the only one who’s initially not paired with an animal. He and his friends are street kids in San Francisco, hustling as best they can for food and heroin. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this band of brothers and sisters is creating, in their own imperfect ways, a surrogate family to replace the bonds that have been severed from their blood families. When Oliver begins his tale, he and his friends are unsure what to make of Larry, a man who constantly cruises the neighborhood in his car. “Everyone thought he was a vice cop when he started coming around, just cruising the block slowly in that big old silver Pontiac.” After making his presence known for three weeks, Larry gets out of his car and ingratiates himself with the teens by passing out clean needles. The kids continue to be wary until Larry returns the following week with gifts for all of the pets. Although no words have been spoken, Larry has developed a thing for Oliver, and one day comes by to give him something: a pet snail that the youth names Harold. Soon after that, Oliver moves in with Larry, who turns out to be quite well-heeled. “You can always tell rich folks because they got houses big enough they feel safe painting them all kinds of whacked out colors.” Oliver is not some innocent angel like his Dickensian namesake. He knows the score, and before entering Larry’s home makes sure he’ll receive some heroin in exchange for whatever Larry has in mind. Larry at first is a solicitous sugar daddy. He gets Oliver his smack and allows the boy to sleep on the couch unmolested. For two weeks Larry is the perfect lover. “At night, Larry and Harold and I watch movies, my head in Larry’s lap while he softly strokes my cheek.” Oliver himself is surprised by this, but feels so comfortable in Larry’s presence that he tells him things not even his friends know. In LeRoy’s fiction, including two earlier novels, Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, there is always a price to be paid for love, and it is no different here. Like many johns and sugar daddies, Larry has a specific expectation in mind that must be met. Oliver cannot satisfy his particular need—it’s rather hard to think of anyone who could—and from that point on, Larry’s sugar daddy routine turns to vinegar Oliver leaves; but then, he’s accustomed to indifference from adults. Larry is no different from the boy’s mother, and this tale tinged with darkness brings out one of LeRoy’s persistent themes: what children do when the adults in their world turn out to be the very thing they need to get away from. Kids in Oliver’s circumstances need to learn to depend on themselves, but what Oliver wants more than freedom is security, protection from a world of danger and exploitation. Back on the streets, he returns to the shreds of his past life and continues the quest for something he can hold on to. Unlike the Oliver from the 19th-century world of Dickens, there is no father figure waiting for him at the end of this tale. James Withers is a writer based in New York City.
_____________________________________________________
