The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (20 page)

dot

S
unday morning, Trev and I brave the nameless motel restaurant, which we soon decide should be called Crazy Willard's.
Th
e dining room, awash in a suffocating array of miscellany, from muskets to animal pelts, is as dark and filmy as any antiques mall.
Th
e decor adheres to no theme whatsoever. Pirate hats. Mustache combs. Victorian lace. Here a framed photo of Lana Turner.
Th
ere, a three-masted schooner in an ancient bottle.
Th
e place smells of corned beef and cat litter. Mr. Willard himself, a scarecrow of a man in a moth-eaten flannel shirt, who also happens to be the motel clerk, leads us to a booth by the window and presents us with a pair of greasy menus. I immediately feel ill at ease in the booth, as though I'm being watched. Turning, I discover the source of my discomfiture, perched like a raven on the bench back above my right shoulder: a stuffed marmot who looks as though he's been caught in the act of rear-entry coitus—either the shoddy work of an amateur or a taxidermist with an adolescent sense of humor.

“
Th
at's Jessie,” explains Old Willard. “Pert' near the fattest damn whistle pig I ever did see in these parts. Stuffed him myself.”

“Oh.”

“Wow,” says Trev.

“Shot me a twelve-pound yellow belly over in Post Falls back in 1967. Biggest rockchuck I ever bagged in Kootenai County. Squealed like a teakettle from hell. 'Course they got even bigger over in Shoshone.”

It is now apparent that Old Willard has no intention of leaving us to our menus.

“You boys fish?”

“Once,” I say.

“No limit on bass up at Bonner Lake—they got largemouth and small. Used to have a cabin up that way, 'fore them Nazi kids burned it down. You kids aren't Nazis are you? I don't serve Nazis. Did two tours in WW2. Hell if I'm gonna feed 'em.”

“We're not Nazis,” I say.

“Good. I've had it up to here with Nazis. Used to be we was known for our spuds and our fishin'. Now it's neo-Nazis. Ask me, it ought to be open season on Nazis. I'll tell you what: the next snot-encrusted little Nazi punk who crosses my path has got another thing comin'. I'll slit his belly, pry him open, scrape out his guts, and stuff him like a twelve-point buck. Biscuits and gravy's good.”

“I'll have the waffles,” says Trev.

Old Willard furrows his brow at this selection.

I'm not prepared to take any chances with the old spark plug, so I order the biscuits and gravy, a choice which seems to please Old Willard, who dons a yellow porcelain smile as he scratches out my order.

“
Th
em's good.”

“Should I be scared?” I say, as he disappears into the kitchen.

“Holy crap,” says Trev, looking wide-eyed out the window. “Check it out.”

Leaning against the burned-out
COZY
8 sign in the motor court, with a dirty gray backpack at her feet, is the girl with the fingerless gloves. She's smoking as usual. Today she's wearing a denim miniskirt (too short) and a skimpy sleeveless T-shirt (not warm enough), which says something on it that I can't see, though I assume it's offensive.

“Damn, she's hot,” says Trev. “Don't you think?”

“Way too young for me. But she's cute, yeah. Even though she's doing her best not to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know, she's just a kid dressed up like a . . . strumpet.”

“
Strumpet
? Dude, how old
are
you? What the heck is a strumpet?”

“A prostitute.”

“I don't think she looks like a prostitute. I think she looks rad.”

Old Willard is back, proffering a yellow smile which looks half apologetic and half triumphant. “We outta waffles,” he says. “How 'bout biscuits and gravy?”

“Perfect,” says Trev.

We both turn our attention back to the window.
Th
e sky is growing darker by the minute. A stiff wind out of the west pelts the window with desert grit. A sudden gust sends a brown paper bag billowing across the court. Smoking Girl sits down on the pavement and pulls her knees in close. She ought have a coat on and some jeans. When she catches Trev and me staring at her, she gives us the finger.

“I wonder what the deal is with her,” Trev wonders aloud.

“Looks like one of them little Nazi tarts,” says Willard, arriving with two steaming platters. “Don't be shy now,” he says.

“What are those lumps?” Trev inquires.

“
Th
em's mushrooms.”

“I'm gonna let mine cool,” I say, an answer that apparently displeases Old Willard, whose yellow smile withers.

“Suit yourself,” he says, and walks away.

I sneak a glance at Smoking Girl, who has turned her back on us. It flusters and embarrasses me that she should think I'm a dirty old man. Maybe her old man's a pervert. Maybe he can't keep his hands off her. Maybe that's why she's out in the middle of nowhere with a dirty backpack. Maybe that's why she dresses the way she does, because she feels cheap.

Sand pelts the window furiously, and in an instant the sky ominously darkens. Smoking Girl looks up and tosses her cigarette aside. She crosses her arms and regains her feet, turning around just in time to see a rippling curtain of black wash out the horizon. It advances with terrifying speed out of the west, like a tidal wave, swallowing everything in its path. Within twenty seconds it's on the very edge of the motor court. Smoking Girl snatches her backpack off the ground, and I lose sight of her.

“What the hell?” says Trev.

“What is it?” I say. “Is it rain?”

“I think it's sand.”

Whatever it is, it's fully upon us now, blotting out the sky, howling like the mother of all banshees as it washes over us. Old Willard pokes his head out of the kitchen and whistles like he might whistle at a thirty-pound bass. Even Jessie the Marmot looks incredulous as the overhead lights begin to flicker and the entire restaurant shudders, setting knickknacks and silverware to rattling. I can't see two feet out the window.
Th
e motor court is awash in a churning miasma of dust. Smoking Girl is at large somewhere in the thick of it—I've got to find her. Instinctively, I jump to my feet and stride down the aisle, arriving at the entrance just as she bursts through the glass door with a gasp. She drops her bag on the floor, coughs twice, and leans forward with her hand on her knees to catch her breath. When she straightens up, she's looking me right in the chest. I can see now that her shirt says
THE CRAMPS
, in warbly lettering.
BAD MUSIC FOR BAD PEOPLE
.

“What are
you
looking at?” she says.

“I was just going out to make sure you were okay.”

“How sweet,” she says, with mock sincerity. “I need a cup of coffee.”

All at once light floods back into the restaurant, and just as suddenly as it began the storm is over. For us, anyway.

Smoking Girl walks right past me, muttering about the sand in her shoes, and sits down in the booth on the far side of Trev.

“Hey,” she says flatly.

“What's up?” he says.

“Right, you're the guy with the shoes,” she says.

Smoking Girl runs her hand through her cropped bleached hair, then sifts some sand out of her black bangs. “What's that?” she says, grimacing at his biscuits and gravy, which has ceased its steaming and oozing and developed a skin.

“
Th
e house specialty,” he says.

“It looks disgusting.”

I resume my seat. “You hungry?” I say.

She ignores me. “So, what's your name, anyway?” she says to Trev.

“Trevor. What about you?”

“Dot.”

“Dot?”

“Do I look like a Dorothy to you?”

“I guess not,” he says.

“And this ain't Kansas, either,” I say, to which she rolls her eyes and glances vaguely out the window.

“Yeah? Well, it may as well be.”

Old Willard returns to check on our progress. “
Th
ere a problem here?”

“No, everything's great,” I say.

“You ain't touched it.”

“We got sidetracked.”

“Hey, Gramps,” says Dot. “Who do I gotta blow to get a cup of coffee around here?”

I don't know who's more shocked, me or Old Willard, whose brow furrows as blood suffuses his face.

“Cream and sugar,” she says. “And can I see a menu?
Th
is old perv wants to buy me breakfast.”

Old Willard is visibly at a loss. He's seen a few things in his day: kamikaze fighters, mutant rockchucks, some awfully big bass—but never this. He retreats in search of a menu, shaking his hoary old head and grumbling.

“So, where are you guys headed?”

“Salt Lake City,” says Trev.

“Why? You Mormons?”

“Nah. My dad lives there.”

“Poor him.”

She turns her attention to her backpack, rifling through the front pocket and producing a compact, which she holds in front of her face as she wipes her mascara off with the tail of her Cramps
shirt.

“What about you?” I say. “Where are you going?”

“Denver.”

“What's in Denver?”

“Not much,” she says, snapping her compact shut. “My stepdad.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“Tacoma,” she says.

Old Willard won't even look at her as he flips her cup over and fills it with coffee. He drops the menu on the table and turns, then thinks twice, and turns back.

“You ain't one of them little Nazi tarts are you?”

“Do I look like a Nazi to you?”

“Okay, then,” he mutters, walking off.

“I'll have waffles,” she calls after him.

“We're out,” he says gruffly, without turning around.

“Out of batter?”

Now he swings around, holding the coffeepot. “
Th
at's right. Out of batter.”

“So, there's no more made? Is that it?”

“
Th
at's it.”

“But you've got more in a box somewhere, right? Probably the same box you use to make those biscuits, I'll bet. Bisquick or whatever, right?”

“Could be.”

“Could be, huh?”

Th
ey lock eyes. In the brittle silence, neither one of them flinches, though Old Willard's chin begins to quiver slightly under the strain. Dot's pale little face is screwed up in a portrait of defiance. Old Willard glowers back at her like she's Heinrich Himmler as Trev and I exchange expectant glances.