The kids are mostly asleep and the bus is quiet when they finally pull into Henderson. The parents are assembled in the school parking lot, hugging each other, sharing something out of a steaming thermos. They’re watching a portable television inside someone’s minivan, and Marcus can see the images clearly. Footage of the blasted-out house from Operation Doorstep runs in a loop with images of the Coalition Pink women and a black-and-white picture of the old man leaning over some papers with Albert Einstein. Marcus can even make out Stanley’s yearbook photo crossing the screen.
As the students file off the bus and into their parents’ arms, Marcus soothes them. He reassures. He jokes good-naturedly with the parents to break the tension. And finally, when the last of them—Sandra and her four little sisters—pile into their father’s Hummer and drive out of the parking lot, Marcus makes his way across the lot to his old Ford Escort.
On the drive home, he cranks up the air conditioner to a frigid blast. He often feels transported out of Nevada when he sits in his air-conditioned car. The ice-cold buffer is a time machine that separates him from any of this place’s hot frontier past, from the slaughtered Indian land, from the fact that it’s a fucking desert, that his time machine’s coolant system sucks water out of the air,
water
in the desert. But today it takes him to his childhood: traveling on a hot bus with his mother, the unfamiliar old man meeting them at the Desert Hotel’s pool. He hands Marcus a Roy Rogers—though Marcus prefers Shirley Temples—and kisses his mother. Marcus has never seen anyone kiss her. His mother says to call him Uncle Barry. The old man takes them up to the hotel’s panoramic viewing patio on the top floor, and Marcus stands in the hot night holding his mother’s hand. He puts his finger through the gentle smoke rings that she blows, and it’s a kind of hypnosis: the smell of his mother’s hairspray, the laughter and singing, the waiters with trays of Atomic Cocktails. He falls asleep in her arms and wakes up at dawn to a bright flash of light and the sound of kazoos and whistles and clinking highballs. He watches the puff of smoke in the distance. A soft poof, like a tiny sneeze, and then a cloud in the shape of a hot-air balloon. The men shake hands, pound Uncle Barry on the back. The women squeal or put their hands to their mouths and suck in their breath.
He wonders if it happened then. He imagines the invisible particles floating gently downwind, like steam released from a shower, waiting above his house for his mother to return, where it will drizzle onto her like desert rain.
In the rearview, the Vegas lights hover on the flat horizon. Marcus could stop right here on the highway. It’s late at night and dead. But he pulls onto the shoulder. He leaves his headlights on, goes around to the front of the car, and leans on its hood, the engine hot under him. He’s never been one to pop open a can of beer or light a cigarette, so he does the next best thing—he pours inky coffee from his thermos and drinks it down like whiskey. He feels clean when it scalds his throat. Then he takes out his wallet and turns through the credit cards, the plastic flip-book of pictures: his sister’s kids, his ’57 Willie Mays baseball card, his mother—dead now for fifteen months—until he comes to what he’s after, slipped inside the billfold with his third-grade booklet from Townsite Elementary School. Marking the chapter titled “Fallout Can Be Inconvenient” is an old ID badge. It amazes Marcus that a facility with a bunch of people working on something as complex as a nuclear bomb hadn’t yet discovered modern lamination. The thick plastic photograph is black-and-white and the shadow across the face of his father is so dark, Marcus can barely make him out. The
Barry Lancet
label was created on a machine so old it has the uneven ink markings, the blotted
e
and leaking
r
’s of the typewriter era. The scanner at the twenty-four-hour gym where he sometimes forces himself to work out has more sophisticated identification security. He should feel more about it, probably, this picture he’s been hating since he found it among his mother’s things, wrapped inside his own birth certificate, where the space for
Father
was marked
unknown
. But the hatred is gone. He doesn’t throw the badge at the distant Strip lights or burn it in the desert. He just drops it. But he does slip his hand inside his parka and finger the mottled, viscous bit of flesh for a moment before tossing it into the sagebrush. Lots of blood for a little nick with nail clippers. Back in the car, he makes sure to reach into the glove box for a scented wipe, and he slips it across each finger before resting his hand on the clutch.
T
he back room of the Leghorn Bar was stuffed with leather-and-denim boys. I hadn’t been out in weeks. Hairy trolls in leather chaps were just too much and I wanted someone else’s hand on my dick for a change, wanted to see what was up, who was who. Been keeping a low profile recently. I thought most of the guys here looked a little on edge—especially after another body was found in the toilet of some bus depot last month. Just dumped there, it seemed. Papers said the guy was gay. Papers also gave his photo. I’d never seen him, but in Vegas you never really know who you’ve seen. You can’t even remember all the things you’ve done.
The bar reeked of piss and poppers. Has gone to shit much like the rest of the joints around Pahrump. I try to get downtown when I can, where a hotter stable of young studs passes through the bars and back rooms of Vegas’ gaudy universe, but that just didn’t seem wise at the time. There was no one in back that I wanted to fuck, no one worthy enough to hum on my stuff, ugly fucks who pranced around with earrings in their eyebrows and tats on their biceps thinking they’re God’s gift to gay boys, when frankly, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
Leghorn wasn’t like it used to be when the college eye candy from UNLV used to come through. Now it’s an eyesore with its busted doors and booths out of order. No one gave a shit enough to fix the place up, make it look like something. It’s a hot bed for boulevard boys and drunkards who mistake the floor for a urinal.
I hadn’t planned on staying long, but I needed to get out, be myself for a while. The best thing about the Leghorn was its anonymity. This was the place dudes came to hide. And I think we were all hiding a little. It felt safe here, safe because we were locals and because we’d all seen each other before.
I was about to head home when
he
walked in. Name was anonymous to me like most of the back room amigos, though I knew him in a way. I’d done him once, years ago. Could still smell his cheap bargain-bin cologne on my clothes. He wore those same snakeskin boots he had made me kiss. That night we took the only booth that was vacant for our back room fornications. Sex seeped like sarsaparilla from every respected stall. Because our booth was busted, cruisers kept trying to get in on our action. Obnoxious fucks. He blew me while I held the door shut from prying eyes.
He stood in the stark dark of the back, nose in the air like he was too good for the rest of us who were scavenging for a good time. I lingered in a corner, holding my composure. He walked my way. I played my game pretending he hadn’t been seen, but for the most part, that summer, we were all beyond tricks. All of us here were looking for something foreign yet familiar, which is something you never really find.
“You want to go in a booth?” I leaned in toward him. His cheap dime-store cologne filled my lungs. “A booth,” he repeated. “You want to go in?”
I said nothing but gave my answer by leading the way. The booth wasn’t busted and able to lock. Slipped my last five bucks into the mouth of the money slot and channeled the TV to a scene of two blond Marines. We reached under shirts and fingered nipples. I didn’t bother to remind him who I was. Didn’t feel it was important at that point. Gay porn gleamed against our skin. He tried to kiss me.
“Ain’t into that,” I said. Who knows where those lips have been? I tugged at his jeans, undid the clasps, and unzipped the copper teeth, exposing hot-white underwear. Even though our booth was locked, it didn’t stop cruisers from clawing underneath at our feet.
“You wanna go back to my place?” he asked in a way that seemed almost innocent.
In general, I wasn’t the type to spend the night, but I didn’t like the idea of someone else having his ass other than me.
“Okay,” I finally said, reminding myself that I’d been with him before—simple mouth work and clean up, all very standard shit.
The Nevada night was sultry as we walked out of the bar. Judging from the naked streets, it was much later than I thought—that, or Pahrump was more empty than usual.
“You still drive that Volvo?” he asked.
He had me confused with someone else, but I didn’t care.
“I drive an Explorer.” I pointed to my car parked between a minivan and some piece-of-shit Datsun.
“We can take my car or you can just follow me,” he said.
“I’ll follow you,” I replied, as that was one of my rules.
He drove one of those new Monte Carlos, silver with a $700-a-month car note, which was the same vehicle I remembered him driving. I could barely keep up with him as he bar-reled down Rosie Avenue.
We came to some house on Burston Ranch that was gated off to keep out motherfuckers like me. My heart started to do cartwheels because this was what my life used to be like—meeting guys, going places. It felt good. His place smelled of Taiwanese takeout. It was quaint, unlike the roach motel I called home.
“Nice,” I said.
I followed him into his bedroom where there were no quarter machines, no dated, mustard-yellow drapes. Carpet felt like a cloud beneath my feet. Bed was king-size, larger than it needed to be. Still, that said something about him. There was an entertainment center with a TV and a dresser strewn with assorted brands of colognes and other miscellaneous confections.
“We’re way out here and I don’t even know your name.”
“Cray,” he said. “And yours?” He sat at the end of the bed to take off his boots.
“Henry.” I never give out my real name.
“You don’t look like a Henry.”
“It was my granddaddy’s name,” I lied.
“You look more like a Marcus or a Michael to me,” Cray said. “Where are you from?”
“Georgia,” I answered, which was the truth but also so vague it didn’t matter.
“I thought I sensed a bit of the South in your voice,” he said as he struggled with those rattlesnake shit-kickers. “Here, help me with this one.” Cray pressed the second boot into my crotch.
“So you from Vegas?” I asked.
“Thereabouts. I come from a long line of casino floor managers.”
Cray talked like he was educated, which also made me feel better about him and about being there. The boot finally gave, causing me to lose my footing. I stumbled into the dresser behind me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“It’ll take more than that to do me in,” I said.
“You want a drink?”
“Maybe,” I said. “What do you got?”
“Just some rum.” It sounded girly, but so what? Booze is booze.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Cray said.
It always starts that way.
Make yourself comfortable. Makeyourself at home.
Or at least that’s the way it used to start.
I pulled off my shirt and pushed off my sneaks, which brought on something I hadn’t felt in months: the insecurity of being naked in some dude’s place. I don’t have the most cut body due to the Southern delicacies of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. In a strange way, it was nice feeling like this again. I looked in Cray’s mirror at my love handles and stretch marks that ran across man tits. I sat on the edge of his bed and took a whiff of the crisp air-conditioned room. Pleasant, I thought. Then I walked around studying his possessions.
We talked as he made the girly drinks in the kitchen.
“So how did you end up in Vegas?” he asked.
I almost gave him one of my stories, then stopped myself and told him the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as I told anyone. “I was offered a job up here working at a magazine. Packed my shit and came up with only two hundred bucks in my pocket,” I explained, studying dated issues of
Men’s Fitness
on his desk. “I hoped that it would turn into an editor’s position, but as it turns out, I’m still stringing. I took a job writing press releases for the city to make ends meet.”
“Is that where you’re working now?” Cray asked, handing me a glass of rum. “Sorry, don’t mean to be nosey.”
“No, it’s cool. I’ve been there for about six months now.”
Cray leaned on the dresser as we got acquainted. “So, what? You want to be a novelist or something?”
“Something like that,” I said in such a way that he decided not to pursue the topic.
“I’m about to take a shower. You can pull back those covers and get into bed if you want. The rum’s on the kitchen counter.”
I heard the pelting of shower water. With the booze I devoured back at the Leghorn, and the rum, I was starting to catch a buzz. I liked this feeling—getting a little sloppy and looking forward to the sex. Sometimes I liked the anticipation more than the sex. The sad part, you never felt any anticipation in a place like the Leghorn. But I felt it here, in this room.
I opened one of Cray’s dresser drawers to find underwear and socks of the argyle type folded and placed neatly in retentive rows. I perused another drawer that was filled with boxers, all white, neatly folded and squared. But beside them was a shiny dildo. I picked it up and it was heavier than I had expected. I held it briefly before I saw what else lay in the drawer: a pair of cuffs and a leather belt.
Strange, really, as I didn’t take him for a dude with toys. I looked at them, those metal cuffs, and they didn’t strike me as the type you could buy in a sex shop. They were more substantial, thicker and heavier. I felt their weight in my right hand, before I noticed something on the chain—something rusty and scablike. Like dirty blood. Or what I thought was dirty blood. I picked at it and it flaked off, revealing a patch of metal shinier than the surrounding area.