Saint Death (15 page)

“She definitely looked like she was enjoying it, man,” the opportunist bellowed, holding up his camera and capturing video of the stars reaction. “Only that ain't you in the clip, brother. That's her ex-boyfriend, Joshua Ramirez, with his hands around her neck while she's cumming her brains out. She ever ask you to get rough like that with her, Stud?”

The rapper had been ignoring them while walking toward a shiny, white Rolls-Royce Phantom the color of uncut cocaine. His hand was on the handle of the suicide door that opened toward the back seat when he froze – he was a ghetto kid from the streets of Bed-Stuy, and had been in and out of prison his whole life because of his bad temper. The rest of the paparazzi pulled away from their loudmouthed colleague as he turned around to fix a glare at him. In seconds he was on the man, who squealed and begged for mercy while the temperamental musician delivered a series of blows to his face and neck.

The last thing Edgar saw as he boarded his hotel shuttle was the photographer on the ground with his arms raised in fear as the rap star raised the expensive camera over his head. Despite the pap’s heart wrenching pleas his attacker hurled the camera onto the asphalt, using both hands to maximize the damage, while the semi-circle of paparazzi surrounding him drowned them in an explosion of flash bulbs. He smiled as the doors closed and the driver began pulling into the constant stream of airport traffic.

He'd gotten used to staying just off campus at the Airport Radisson. It was cheap and they treated him well enough. He wasn't looking for any kind of luxury, but for what he paid he thought he got a pretty good deal. They usually gave him a room with a view of Century Boulevard, but since it was late when he got in, the only room they had available was one that faced the parking lot in back.

“I'll take it,” he said to the slightly overweight blonde girl with the perky attitude at the front counter. “I just need to lie down now.”

“One key or two?” He wasn't sure what she meant. Was her eyebrow arching an invitation to something more intimate? The idea made him want to laugh. He'd already passed up the chance to have sex with a beautiful woman earlier and was starting to regret it. He held up his ring finger to show off his wedding band as if that was some universal sign of fidelity. He'd started cheating on his wife three years into the marriage when they'd discovered she was unable to have kids, and if he wanted them they would have to adopt or hire a surrogate. He'd gone as far as suggesting they ask her sister before giving up. A week later he slept with his first flight attendant in a cheap hotel in Tokyo. He'd felt guilty about it for months, but it didn't stop him from doing it again and again. Now he didn't feel anything at all except fatigue and the urge to lie down and never get up again.

“Just the one key,” he said with a smirk.

The girl flushed as she finished his paperwork and sent him on his way. The first thing he did when he got in the room was strip naked. He hated the restrictive feeling of clothes, especially after a long flight. Next he ran a hot shower, and used the bathroom once more. He shaved before he showered. He plugged in his iPod. He laid out his uniform for the next day. He set up everything so he could rise and get moving quickly. Keys went on the end of the counter along with his watch, with the alarm set. He no longer trusted the digital clocks in the hotels. He couldn't afford to be late or to oversleep. He was expected to report to operations an hour and a half before departure so he could meet the other pilots and review the flight plans, even though he didn't make a dime until the wheels came off the tarmac. They'd also check the maintenance history and go over the weather forecasts for the day.

He arranged the complimentary coffee packet and his liquid vitamin shot next to the one-cup brewer at the hotel. The last thing he did was set his pilot's license, airline identification, and security badge on top of his uniform where he couldn't miss it.

You don't want to be the guy who ends up sleeping in the terminal or in the crew room
, he thought,
because you forgot your passport.

He held up the tiny pill Sandra had given him to help him sleep. He thought about her out there just off the end of runway 25L, sleeping with the rest of the pilots in their recreational vehicles in their employee parking lot. After putting in grueling shifts – often working more than several days in a row – these poor souls would recover and decompress before the long flight back to their homes and families in places like New Jersey, Texas, and Florida.

LAX Ghetto
, Edgar thought to himself,
that's what the papers called it
.

Since 2005 the quiet community had grown to include mechanics and flight attendants like Sandra. Her husband back in Waco had insisted that she get the used RV to sleep off long hauls overseas before hitching a ride on a competitor’s airline back home to him and her three kids. What he hadn't anticipated at the time was that Sandra would use it as a crash pad to hook up with the lonely pilots she harbored crushes on, guys like Edgar who had long since given up on working out their dysfunctional marriages and were resolved to simply let the state of their emotional lives atrophy until they were beyond repair. Edgar had shared more than one sleepless night in that tiny, cramped RV listening to Kenny Rogers on cassette and trying on different condoms until he found one that didn't completely kill all the feeling. They'd go until they both passed out, generally for two or three hours depending on how drunk Sandra was or when his caffeine buzz would burn out.

The whole place stinks like fake roses
, he thought to himself.
It's like the upholstery was soaked in the cheap shit spray they sell at the dollar store for your bathroom.

Still he'd been there more times than he could count on both hands. His mind drifted back to those intimate moments, the way her tiny hands softly traced invisible lines between the freckles of his chest, the heat of her breath, the impossible wetness that always invited him in. She'd wanted him to stay the night despite his quick turn around, but he knew he couldn't. His spirit was willing but his flesh…well…it just wasn't performing with the same youthful vigor for which he was once proud. The truth was that he just didn't have it in him anymore to drink and screw all night, no matter how exciting it was to fall asleep with a beautiful woman who wasn't his wife.

“I used to be able to go all night, then pop up and work four days straight like it was nothing,”
he reminisced
. “What happened to that guy? I miss those days.”

He was no longer a young man, and every passing day served to remind him of that fact. Everything from the graying hairs at his temples to his utter exhaustion to his flagging libido only reminded him that he was no longer in his prime, no longer thriving and growing, but slowly being diminished by the ravages of time. He'd seen countless commercials for low testosterone on television by this point and they had started to make him wonder about his own failing chemistry. To make matters worse he'd had more than a little trouble performing the last time he'd stayed in the RV with Sandra. He'd even considered scheduling an appointment with his doctor to ask about it. He wasn't very good at following through with things like that though. That was his wife's job and since they were most definitely heading in two different directions now, little things like check-up's were falling by the wayside more and more. In fact it had been over a year since he'd been to the dentist as well.

“Just one more night,” Sandra pleaded when they got off the London flight. “I need you. I'm heading back home in a couple of days. I'm not sure when I'm coming back. It's complicated.”

Edgar sighed. It was always complicated with Sandra. She'd threatened to break it off before as well. He stared at the shiny metal buttons that gleamed in the sea of bright blue on her uniform, searching for the right way to say what he had to say. The last thing he wanted was to push her away. He just needed the sleep.

“It's not you,” he said at last. “I'm just tired is all. I'm flying first and I've got almost no turn around. I'm just praying I can sleep.”

“That's too bad,” she said, a hardness creeping into her voice as the wall came back up and the soft, delicate creature he'd grown so fond of retreated somewhere back behind it.

She thinks you're losing interest in her sexually
, a voice in the back of his head screamed. He didn't want their sessions to end but something told him that, like everything else, it was inevitable.

Everything falls apart
, he thought.
It's just a matter of time
.

“Please don't,” he said, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and turning her back toward him. “I want you so much right now I can barely see straight. I'm just tired that's all. Blame it on the FAA. Blame it on the airline. Hell, blame it on the Grouch if you want or one of the other prick ATC's. Just don't blame it on that smoking hot body of yours. Okay?”

She looked up with wet eyes that held back tears. He thought about the confession she'd made the last time they'd woken up together, that she couldn't sleep right unless someone else was there with her, that she was deathly afraid of being alone.

“Do you believe me?”

“I believe you,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said, letting her go. He felt embarrassed by his sudden show of emotion. He was usually in complete control of himself at work. He nervously glanced around to be sure no one was watching them. People streamed past them with almost no regard. The only person interested was a curious child of no more than two who was wound between his mother’s legs. He had his fingers in his mouth and openly gawked at them.

“Take this,” she said, holding up the sleeping pill. “You'll be asleep before your head hits the pillow.”

“How does it work? I don't want to be hung over tomorrow.”

“It burns off before you wake up,” she said. “I promise. Tomorrow morning you'll wake refreshed and feeling like a new man in a new world. I promise.”

He took the pill from her and she kissed him on the mouth, pulling back and staring into his eyes.

“Take good care of yourself until I see you again,” she whispered.

“You try to stay out of trouble,” he said. “Be safe.”

She turned and left without another word.

I wonder who she'll end up with tonight
, Edgar thought darkly, knowing with a kind of painful certainty that she would not go to bed alone. He thought of the other pilots out there, the quiet community that had sprung up of cheaters and other lonely souls. He was surprised to realize he didn't know most of them, other than casually, and didn't care to know them. He'd been embarrassed when he'd passed them on the way to her RV while they'd waved and said hello with big smiles. It wasn't what he was doing that left him feeling less than friendly with her neighbors. Far from it. It was because he knew they probably took turns with Sandra when he wasn't around. Behind every one of those big smiles was a secret. As they waved to him they were laughing that they'd had her last, that she was an easy lay, low hanging fruit. Edgar never was one to willingly share his toys. Surely there was a long line to get to that RV and hear 'The Gambler' while she worked her magic.

Back in the day, women like her were hanged for being witches
, he thought with a smirk,
by the very men they shared their beds with.

He popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with a handful of cupped water from the faucet. It tasted heavy and metallic, as if it was flavored by the dirty pipes that carried it. He winced as he choked it down, then relaxed on the bed until dark waves of sleep took him under. He didn't know if it was the long flight or the frustration of knowing that some other man would be enjoying the sexual ministrations of his favorite flight attendant, but he was out in less than fifteen minutes. In the back of his head he could still hear the country music he hated but had grown to associate with her and that pungent love shack on wheels. One lyric kept repeating as he passed out, his mind finally letting go of everything and surrendering to the chaos of the unknown.

Know when to walk away…and know when to run.

He awoke to the sound of his alarm going off. It had been loudly beeping for over ten minutes. The power in the room was out. The alarm clock provided by the hotel was digital. It sat blank and useless, giving him no indication of when the juice went out. He tried the television, but it was dead too. He threw the remote in frustration. It was already getting hot. The AC unit was turned off. He fiddled with the knob, but nothing happened.

“This is exactly why I depend on my own alarm,” he said to the empty room. Outside in the hallway he heard a loud groan, which he mistook for another tired traveler violently protesting the coming day.

“Right there with ya, buddy!” He shouted at the door but didn't get a response. He walked into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. It was cold from both faucets.

“What the fuck is going on? Whole damn world is gone to shit.”

He walked back into the room and began to dress. Back in London, he could splash on some cologne and take a hot shower. He had a spot he preferred not far from Heathrow's sprawling grounds, a five-minute ride by cab. They always knew just how to treat him there. He enjoyed everything about the United Kingdom better these days. Hell, even the cabs were nicer!

Maybe I should just give up and move there. After all, it's not like my wife would notice.