When Harvey Speaks

Harvey is an old man and got beat up a few months ago. Harvey is an old man and he probably deserved it.

Harvey speaks from the gut, or some place in his self that doesn’t hang with his brain. Harvey doesn’t think about what he says before he says it. To most people in the Market, he is the angriest man in all of Seattle proper. And it is true that Harvey is not overjoyed about any goings-on in the nation, among the people he works with, the car industry. When Harvey speaks, he is mostly complaining.

“Those things are made out of plastic, I’m telling you,” he says before he says good morning, hiya buddy, or I’m going to tell you about cars now so listen up. Anyone who has shared more than two conversations with Harvey know that he will bring everything in context once he catches his breath and pulls up his blue jeans and tucks in his white shirt. “I’m talking about those damn bumpers on those cars these days. That’s how they make em and they ain’t worth a damn thing, if you ask me. I had this old Chevy and that car was made out of metal and it lasted. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, you see, these cars are made out of goddamn plastic.” Harvey could best be understood if one imagined him, his baseball cap crooked on his head, blue jeans tied with a brown belt, hair white and unkept, looking over a new car. Harvey, you see, would not take anything for granted; he wouldn’t trust one word coming from the salesman. He would go over every solitary inch of the machine and rub his hairy nose with his grease-black fingers and grunt in approval and disgust. He’d look for plastic parts and snear at anything made outside our borders. All have seen a Harvey-type, but Harvey out-Harveys them all.

Harvey worked for a long time at a shipyard in Seattle before his so-called retirement. Harvey is not the kind of man that could stand to sleep in and watch The Price is Right, watching that soccer-loving Drew Carey calling out the retail price of vitamins and rash cream. Harvey has a limp in his right leg that causes it to drag as he walks throughout the Pike Place Market, pushing heavy carts for the artists that are too small or preoccupied to do it themselves. He seems to like the work, but he also seems to hate the people he works for. Harvey is not an artist of the commercial kind or the creative kind, he is a smithy of swear words.

“That’s fucking wrong. You don’t talk to me like that. These people are full of shit, wanting to move stuff and not telling me how and where, but just fucking giving me shit for doing it my way and then getting pissy with me. You are fucking incorrect.” Harvey works himself to the point that he begins to spit through the few teeth that remain in his mouth. Harvey does not make direct eye-contact when he yells which makes it easier to know he is not made at the person who he happens to be yelling near. The skin around his eyes is thick and wrinkled. His voice is always hoarse and the hair under his faded brown hat is a dark gray. Harvey is either very old or very weathered. The timeline of his life is uncertain.

The fact that has been heard many times is that Harvey works on the shipyards for 30 years and just recently retired. He says he also was in the Army as a young man. He may have fought during the tail-end the Korean conflict. Also, he worked in many restaurants around Portland and worked a short time on the railroads, but couldn’t stick it for long because of his lack or seniority. I don’t know how old this makes him. Older than most people who work and shop in the Pike Place Market–this is certain. Most of the those people might consider him wise if he wasn’t so hell-bent on making himself heard by anyone who will listen. Harvey might be considered a wise and good man, if they only worked an inside joke.

Harvey has respect, or so it seems, for one person. That person is named Dennis, but Harvey calls him The Old Man. The Old Man has a son who owns an olive oil and vinegar store near the corner of Pike and Pine called Sotto Voce; he is called The Kid. Old Man Dennis (or Dirty Dennis, as I like to call him, for no particular reason) helps his son with the business: bringing up boxes, selling in the Market shop when the college-aged employees get sick or schedule work during a final exam, sweeping, delivering orders near and around the small Sotto Voce factory in Spanaway, Washington. Any friendly interactions Harvey and I have shared have come at the expense of The Kid and The Old Man.

“Hey, yeah, so what you do think about the Old Man and that Kid. I saw them today, huh,” says Harvey as I order coffee from Rebbecca at Cinnamon Works bakery next door to the olive oil shop.

“Yeah, Harv, I saw em too–”

“They finally got their asses out of that bed. I don’t think they do a lick of work. They just get in that bed, turn up that heater and watch their old television till dinnertime.”

Now, I know none of this is true. Dennis is a retired kindergarten teacher and couldn’t sit still if he wanted to. Randy works more hours than most men his age and will only take a day off in order to work in his lawn, or maybe stay inside sick if he throws up enough before breakfast. I respect few people more than these two, but I go along with Harvey, because he isn’t angry. He looks to be enjoying himself, ribbing father and son with the same streak of jokes he has been for years.

“I bet they got someone bringing them lemonade too, huh Harv,” I say.

“Yeah. Yeah. You know, I see that old man driving up his truck. He’s got that truck you know. Nice big old goddamn truck. He was driving through here like a madman. That Old Man and The Kid. I seen them this morning. They finally got themselves out of bed, got in that fucking pick-up and starting taking people out.” Harvey laughs loud through his few yellow teeth, and pulls up his pants. “That Old Man, you doesn’t bullshit ya, you know. The Old Man is one of few good, honest men here in this place. Now, if we could just get his ass out of that goddamn bed, huh.”

Harvey laughs some more and moves on down the sidewalk. His wrinkled face, stiff from salty winds over years Seattle’s five-month-long winters, returns to a solemn, dutiful glare. He wears this glare most of the day and most people only see this face and most resent him for it. The Market is cold enough as it is, they think. Its dark enough, those clouds inching over the Cascades stare down at us enough, thank you.

Harvey talks honestly–with blunt, grizzled force. And some folks don’t appreciate being told the truth.

Seattle is a city with few strict morals. Most people operate under a system of Whatever-Works-For-You values and mores. This allows for open thought, but it also gives most people the privilege to never be wrong, even more than the opposite system allows some people to always be right. Harvey has precise and simple morals which he accumulated over years working for people, surviving by lifting boxes, reading just as much he’s needed to and limping steady past the work whistle. He has come upon the right way to act and a proper way to do things. No one has ever heard Harvey say that it could that….

“Do you know what I mean,” Harvey begins, spit already forming on the corners of his mouth. “These people blowing their smoke while I’m trying to walk through. I don’t want to walk through that shit. But no one thinks these days. No one uses their brains, you know.” Harvey is not angry just because he was forced to inhale tobacco smoke, but because everyone–from the loudest kid, the most obnoxious tourist, the poor man selling stolen baseball caps, the software executive–deserved to be considered in the midst of a forgivable vice. Harvey may forget the unnamed smokers and the nicotine in his lungs, but he will never forgive them. Politics are also simple to Harvey: “All those guys do in the government is wear suits and make decisions about my money. Give me a damn suit and I’ll start making some goddamn decisions.” Finances could not be simpler to understand for anyone who listens to Harvey. “Some guy wanted to buy my car. long time ago. He wanted to buy in credit. I said no way mister. You pay me some money and I give you a car. If you can’t afford the damn thing, why the hell do you want it, I say, you know!”

“I know what you mean, Harv. You ain’t wrong.”

“Yeah,” he says, and moves on down the sidewalk and swallows his spit.

On a Wednesday, the summer sun high and yellow, Harvey came limping down the Main Arcade of the Pike Place Market, through the flowers and the crafts and the honey, with a bag of fruit and a purple black eye. I asked some tenants why someone wanted to beat up Harvey. No one knew. They all figured Harvey just ran his mouth to the wrong people and they got him to the ground with an easy push. Then, just started kicking. Harvey didn’t seem especially angry when I saw him. Maybe, that evening when he was whooped by those kids, Harvey called one of them a punk, an asshole, an inconsiderate prick for blowing smoke around a kid or someone his age, an old man who has seen war like Harvey has, someone who has worked years around fire and grease and seasalt. Maybe Harvey took a stand for his narrow code of conduct and got kicked like a dog for it.

The only time Harvey smiles, besides when he’s shoveling shit at the Old Man and The Kid, is when he comes across a big dog or a little kid walking hand in hand with his anxious mother. To the dog, Harvey will stop for moment and say quietly, “Well hey there pup,” and pat it once on the head before walking away. When a child’s mother has stopped to look at flowers, Harvey will say hello to the kid, the same way he might say hello to an old banker or a proper mechanic. He stops short of shaking the kid’s hand before the mother sees Harvey’s gray hair under his sweat-stained hat and hurries them both along. Harvey’s face returns its straight and diligent shape and he walks in the opposite direction. These moments are short. Harvey’s smile is like a sunbreak in mid-December. They can be easy to miss.