Suckers (9 page)

With the mail processed, he headed into the bathroom, which was so vacant that his footfalls echoed off the porcelain tub. When he was finished there, he wandered across the kitchen and into his bedroom, looking it over—everything neat and dust free. In the living room, he dropped onto his couch.

Three stories below, cars crept up the street. Someone in the building had their daytime TV turned up. A guy down on the sidewalk called to someone else out there and laughed, and up the street, probably at the auto body shop, metal clanked to no particular rhythm.

What he didn’t hear was buzzing in his head.

He lifted his hand in front of him.

Still a little trembly. Thirty-some hours without sleep, two cups of Ma’s coffee. No surprise there.

And no fucking buzzing. In the car with Ray, that had just been a fluke. His imagination.

He dropped his hand and sat there with no idea what to do with himself, outside of the obvious: unpack, take a shower, crawl into bed. He was too beat to unpack, too wired to sleep.

This was how it was, coming off the road, like you’ve been on a roller coaster, up, down, around and upside-down, and it’s crazy for three, four, six months at a stretch—then it comes to a stop.

Dust motes hung in the air. Even they’d come to a stop.

The apartment felt empty.

It felt
huge
.

Ray’d been the first to get his own place, a decade ago now, itching to get out on his own, live the glamorous flophouse life while he worked at a machine shop to fund his lifestyle of take-out food and beer, which he paid the old guys in the building to buy for him. The place, over on Pine Street, had had one bathroom per floor, no hot-plates allowed in the rooms, and each room came with a bed, a dresser, and a clothes bar mounted between two walls.

Ray was happy as shit, going home to his own place at the end of every night. That was back when his dad was still alive and Buddy, who was going to college in town and working full time to pay for it, was living at home to save on expenses.

Dan had thought Buddy had the right idea—his parents’ place was a little out of the way, out in Deerfield, but it was cheap, the food was free, and his mom made plenty of it. He had a car, he could get around. Why give up a good thing?

Jamie’d wanted out of his parents’ house, but he turned his nose up at the flophouse. It took a while, but eventually he talked Dan into getting a “real apartment” with him. That lasted four months before Jamie moved back to his parents’—it was that or get a job to cover his share of the rent.

The real apartment was where Dan still lived—since he was there so little, it was hard to justify moving.

Whenever they got off the road and he found himself sitting on the couch in the empty living room listening to the neighborhood below, he kind of wished Jamie was still there. Just a little. Just so there’d be someone there he could say, “Well shit. What do we do now?” to, and maybe get an answer. Jamie, for all his lack of responsibility, had actually been fun to hang out with, way back when.

He dragged himself off the couch, intending to start unpacking. Instead he said, “Shit,” and put a hand to his head, closing his eyes against the dull pain there.

People get headaches.

He’d been awake way too long. The tour was finally fucking over. A little tension headache wasn’t unusual.

He dreamed of the buzzing two nights in a row, and woke the morning of his third day home with the skin at the back of his neck prickly and hot. A scalding shower—followed by a blast from the cold tap—took care of that, but not the cleaver-like headache he was getting from sleeping so much. His gut wasn’t buying that explanation for it, but he didn’t want to listen to his gut.

He was out of coffee, and just about out of socks, thanks to the tour. He pulled on yesterday’s pair, trying to think what else he needed. Keeping busy was key, he decided. Give himself stuff to do, have a good meal, play for a while, sit out on the back porch and watch the neighborhood—maybe even write something. Then a good night’s sleep—no sweaty fucking dreams.

He added sleep aids to the mental shopping list.

A couple blocks from the apartment, he pulled into the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot to take care of his immediate and future needs for caffeine. It was an off-hour of the morning. The place was empty. He grabbed a bag of ground coffee off a rack, plopped it on the counter, and asked a woman in a brown visor for a large regular—up this way that was how you ordered cream and sugar, and it was one of the things he looked forward to getting back to when he was on the road. The little bits of familiarity.

“That’ll be eleven twenty-seven,” she said.

He slid his card through the machine with her staring like she was trying to get a look at his face. He wondered if it showed something—the headache, maybe squirmy things in his eyes. A bitter taste washed his mouth. He had a sudden feeling like he needed to sit down.

What you need to do is relax.

“Do you want your receipt?” she asked.

“Nah.”

While she went to get his coffee, he tapped the counter, reading the advertisement in front of the cash register. As she made her way back, he lifted his head.

“You look so familiar,” she said, handing the Styrofoam cup to him. Her fingers bumped his.

The bees lurched from their half-sleep.

The cup slipped right through his hand.

“Shit,” she said. “I mean shoot! Shoot. I’m so sorry. I let go before you had it.”

“It’s okay.” He lifted his bag of coffee from the counter, its bottom dripping.

“Let me get that.” She had a towel out, reaching for the bag.

Afraid she was going to touch him again, he let it fall into the mess. “Shit. Sorry.” He scrubbed the side of his face.

“Are
you
okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, it was just…a static shock. Sorry. I’m really sorry about this.”

“That must have been a bad one,” she said as her towel sopped up the mess. “And I didn’t feel a thing.” A wave of cream-colored coffee splashed over the front edge of the counter, pattering at his feet, making him step back. He was glad to step back. As his breath rushed out, he realized he’d had a tight hold on it.

“Sorry,” she said. “Did I get you?”

“No. I’m just…I’m gonna go,” Dan said.

“Let me get you another coffee. A doughnut too, if you want it. On the house, because I am
so
sorry about this.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just gonna…” He took another step back, his thumb pointing behind him, to the doors.

“Grab a fresh pack of ground off the shelf at least. You paid for it. Grab two. Please. I feel wicked bad about this.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh!” Her eyebrows popped up. “I got it! You went to Central, didn’t you?”

Road noise got loud behind him as someone opened the front door. More people, just what he needed. His heart slammed in his chest. He turned and lurched through the vestibule, swinging a wide berth around the truck driver coming in.

He dug in his pocket for his keys. When he got in the car, he dropped his forehead against the steering wheel.

He wanted those sleeping pills a whole lot more than he had twenty minutes ago. If it weren’t for those, he’d drive right back up the two blocks to his apartment building and lock himself in. But he didn’t want to do that and sit there, wide-awake.

Just give me the chance to knock myself out again for a while.

A rap on his window brought his head up, fast.

The girl from the shop had two bags of coffee. As he rolled his window down, she fed them through, her apron soaked with the coffee he’d spilled.

“Thanks.” He held them by the bottoms, careful not to make contact with her.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…I’m okay. And yeah, I went to Central.”

“Class of 2003?”

“’02.”

“Ah. I was a year behind you. I knew you looked familiar. You hung out with Ray Ford, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I had a wicked crush on him. Not that I ever got up the courage to say more than two words to his face. Do you ever hear from him?”

“Yeah,” he said, detached from himself. Trapped by the need to be polite to someone who’d cleaned up after him. “We still hang out.”

“Gosh. I’d ask you to say hi, but there’s no way he’d remember who I was.”

“Hey, you never know.”

She started to open her mouth. “No, no, never mind. I’ve gotta get back in before George has a shit fit. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You too.”

As she hurried to the front doors, he put the car in drive. Wal-Mart was the closest everything-store he could think of. He hoped he didn’t run into any more old classmates.

The place was more crowded than Dunkin’ Donuts. Older folks mostly, pushing carts up the aisles. He skipped the socks, which were in the middle of the store, and headed straight to the pharmacy section, right past the registers. Cold and flu, allergy, motion sickness. NoDoz. Where were the fucking—
a-ha
. He grabbed three packs off the shelf and headed for the checkout. The nicest thing about Wal-Mart was its self-checkout. No human contact. He scanned his ZzzQuil, dropped it in the plastic bag, pressed the pay button.

A cart with a sticking wheel bumped toward him.

He slid his card through the reader.

The old man with the cart started unloading stuff onto the shelf at the side of the checkout.

Dan tapped his foot, waiting for the card to process. Waiting for the go-ahead to grab his shopping bag and get the fuck out of there.

The man dipped into the cart, struggled to heave up a case of canned dog food.

The receipt finally printed. Dan yanked the bag off the carousel.

And as the man turned with the case of dog food, he bumped Dan in the arm.

Dan barely heard the “Excuse me” over the roar of bees. Like a jet taking off in his head.

He jerked aside, his arm up, saying, “God fucking damn it.”

The old man stepped back, blinking. “I
said
excuse me.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. Just…it’s a bad day.” He sidestepped past the cashier stand and fast-walked it out of the store with his head down, the bees staying with him, crawling all over each other at the top of his spine. He swerved around a pair of older women heading for the front doors and crossed the parking lot, squeezing his keys so hard the jagged edges dug impressions into his palm.

Goddamnit.

It was back. Whatever it was, it was definitely, absolutely, no question about it
back
. He had the sleeping pills, though. He could knock himself out, wake up hours from now just like he had in the hospital. Wake up feeling fine. Right?

And if he weren’t fine, he’d see the doctor.

He hoped he’d be fucking fine.

God
damn
it.

He wanted to hit things. Pick shit up and hurl it at the asphalt. Instead he yanked open his door and threw the bag inside.

“Fuck!” He slammed the roof of the car with his hand. Propping his elbow against it, he covered his eyes.
Fuck
. The bees buzzed restlessly. Hotly. He gritted his teeth, his lips pulling back.

Fuck!

He drew back and hit the car again, hard, and just off enough to slice the edge of his palm open on the wind deflector. “Fuck.” He shoved the cut in his mouth, sucking on it to stem the bleeding.
Fuck
. He closed his eyes.

And opened them.

It was quiet.

Completely quiet. Oh, there were motors running, the crash of one of the Wal-Mart guys shoving two lines of carts together. A pair of high heels clicked efficiently across the pavement. But inside him, total peace and quiet.

He dropped his hand from his mouth. Let his breath out.

Peace and quiet.

His phone rang.

He looked at the side of his hand, slick with spit, blood beading from the cut. He licked it.

His phone continued to ring.

But the bees were gone. The
headache
was gone, just like that.

Just like that, everything felt all right again.

He reached across himself to pull the phone from his pocket with his good hand.

“Hello,” he said to Ray.

“Hey. What are you up to?”

“Fucking shopping. Remind me to do it online next time.”

Ray gave a wheezy laugh.

“What’s up with you?” Dan slid into the driver’s seat.

“Jamie just called.”

“Uh-oh.”

“He wants a ride to this detox place in Rhode Island. I told him I’d do it.”