Jeanna Michel 3
There is a somewhat popular television show called Look Alike, where they take ordinary people and insist that they look like famous celebrities. They proceed by dressing the person up in something the celebrity wore during the Oscars and have a mock photo shoot with them. It is an interesting show to watch. Never once, however, does the show have ordinary people look like characters in a book or how the actor's character was depicted in the movie. The whole concept is typically unheard of. I can truthfully say that I haven't seen one Edward Culleni out there, nor have I seen a Mr. Darcy.ii I can, nonetheless, say that I have found my own Mr. Harvey.iii
Mr. Harvey is a villain in one of the books I have read this year. Mr. Harvey lives in a small green house that looks bluer when it is depicted in the film. He has lived a long and undeserving life. It is 1973. He enjoys building dollhouses, planting roses, and murdering girls. His latest victim is Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl from his neighborhood. He kills her after showing her a structure he had built in a cornfield underground. He takes her charm bracelet, finding that it puts him in a sense of calm. After a considerable length of time, he throws the bracelet away. Mr. Harvey kept his favorite charm, the Pennsylvania keystone, which was engraved with Susie's initials.
From the experience I had put myself in, I had discovered that Mr. Harvey or, frankly, all book characters overpower more than just the pages on a book. They take over our entire life. You'll find them in your neighbors. You'll find them in the school bullies. You'll even find them in yourself. At times, they might act like the innocent Juliet Capulet.iv Then a few minutes late, they turn into Heathcliff,v still seeking revenge. It's not uncommon for people to find these characters in each other. I, however, have found Mr. Harvey in a total stranger.
I came across him in K-mart. I was aimlessly following my brother around the store; watching to pick up any broken merchandise, he had played with. Jeffrey, my brother had rounded an unexpected corner and I quickly skipped to catch up with him. There I saw him. He was in the middle of the aisle, fingering a silver charm bracelet. I almost collided into him, not initially seeing him. "Oh," he muttered, dropping the bracelet on the floor. I gingerly picked it up for him, noticing the roughness of his voice. I looked up and suddenly got the sense that I had seen him before. I'm not one to question, usually, where I had seen a man in his mid-fifties before? It was not a man I would normally hang out with. I squinted my eyes at him and he smiled.
Jeffrey was impatient, pulling my along. He looked almost frightened, recognizing the man too. Truly, my eyes were not deceiving my; that was Mr. Harvey. The film described him most accurately, whereas there was no actual description of what he looked like in the novel by Alice Sebold.vi
For the life of me, however, I couldn't imagine seeing him anywhere outside a book. It was not until I got home and read a passage that led me to believe it was truly him:
"Mr. Harvey," I said.
"You're the older Salmon girl, right?"
"Yes."
"How are your folks?"
Although the eldest in my family and good at acing a science quiz, I had never felt comfortable with adults.
"Fine," I said, I was cold, but the natural authority of his age, and the added fact that he was a neighbor and talked to my father about fertilizer, rooted me to the spot.
"I've built something back here," he said. "Would you like to see?"
"I'm sort of cold, Mr. Harvey," I said, "and my mom likes me home before dark."
"It's after dark, Susie," he said.
I wish now that I had known this was weird."vii
I should have noticed immediately when, during the end of our stay at K-mart, we were checking out. Jeffrey had found a small Iron Man action figure he liked and I wanted a pack a gum for those boring days at school. Mr. Harvey silently came up behind us and tapped me on the shoulder. "Hey, aren't you the charm bracelet girl?" I shrugged, knowing that I was the one who had caused him to drop his charm bracelet before.
"Yeah," I said, almost unsure.
"Can I show you something? I made something really neat and would like you to see it." He smiled at me. I told myself he was just an old guy, who was very lonely. There was no hidden message in his words like I was thinking there was. I was desperately trying to figure out if this book character was really true, but I didn't believe it. If he was Mr. Harvey, I knew villains didn't give up their business lightly. Even though if he was from a book, Mr. Harvey would be on the lookout for his next victim.
"I really shouldn't. I'm really late," looking at the watch on my wrist. My mom told us to be waiting outside the store by noon; it was already half past one.
He seemed to have read my mind, "I bet you're already late." There was something pathetic about it, seeing this old man beg to have a friend to follow him.
"I guess," I decided. I gave my brother some money in case the line moved faster than I thought. I went off with Mr. Harvey.
There was a table, beside it was a huge dollhouse sitting on the floor. On it, there was sign for a contest to win the house. I smiled, "Isn't this neat? I made it myself."
"It's pretty cool." Just trying to be nice, thinking I was way too old to be playing with like a dollhouse. It was a pretty cool hobby, I supposed, to make dollhouse, remembering far too well that that was Mr. Harvey's hobby, as well. He motioned at the raffle and asked me to sign so I would be entered to win the dollhouse. I smiled, folding the small piece of paper after I was done signing my name and address. He took the piece of paper, but didn't put it in the box. He put it in his pocket. He took the charm bracelet out of his pocket.
"I want you to have this." It was a beautiful charm bracelet. I really didn't know how to say no when he insisted after I first refused. I took it from his grasp and smiled. I walked away; looking at the silver charms, noticing that there was one charm missing that wasn't missing before.
After returning to Jeffrey, we left the store together. I looked back one more time. There was Mr. Harvey; silently he was watching us, looking at the piece of paper that I had given him. The name I used was not really common, but he seemed to know it by the snarling look on his face. The name I used was:
"Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie."viii
i Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
ii Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
iii The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
iv Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
v Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
vi The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
vii p.6-7. Ibid.
viiiThe Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, p.5.