She asked what we had done, so I told her. I told her about Trace's DUIs and Resisting Arrests and how he missed a court date because we were up all night drinking with two girls from the community college who, it turned out, were both hot for him. And about how I popped the bail bondsman's guy with a two-by-four when he broke into our apartment a few days later. I didn't know they were allowed to break in. No one teaches you things like that until it's too late.
Trace came back to the table, balancing the baby and a full pitcher. A trail of beer wet the floor behind him.
“Whose beautiful baby is this?” the woman asked. She touched its nose, said something like
wugga-wugga-woo
, and the baby made a noise that might have been a cough or a laugh.
“It's mine,” Trace said. He sounded almost like he believed it.
“Four months?” she guessed.
“Three,” he said, not missing a beat. “Little Mo's developing faster than most.”
“Where's the mother?” she asked.
“New York.”
“That's far away,” she said.
“The mother,” he said, “is a coldhearted, lying, cheating, mitt-chasing bitch.” Trace looked pretty drunk. I figured if he was, I must be, too.
“Some men think we all are,” she said. I could tell she didn't like him at all. She looked at the baby like she felt sorry for it.
“I don't think he means that about you,” I said. “Or about her.”
“Of course I don't mean that about
you
,” Trace said. “I don't know you. Or how you feel about mitts.”
She turned to me. “How about you? Is there a woman in your life?” I watched her nose winking at me.
“There was,” I said. “It didn't work out.” I had been with Katie a whole year, and then one night, no warning, she told me it was over.
You want me to be just like Mo
, she said.
Well, I'm not Mo. It's not fair and I'm sick of it.
She may have been right. It's just that Mo was a lot more likable. I told her so, and she threw her shoes at me, and I threw them out the window. One got stuck in a tree. It was still there when Trace and I left town.
The woman leaned back in her chair and undid her ponytail. Her hair fell in loose rings past her shoulders. “How old are you?” she asked. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”
“Twenty-three,” I said. It occurred to me that my life was bleeding out of me even faster than I'd thought.
“I have a kid,” the woman said. “He's eighteen.” She sipped her drink. “He went to jail this week.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Joyride. Took a car from the lot at the gas station.”
“That's all?” I said.
“That bastard Duffy pressed charges.”
“That bastard Duffy has our van,” Trace said.
“We broke down,” I explained. “We're waiting for him to fix it.”
“He's a bastard,” she said.
It would turn out that she was right. Duffy was a bastard. The next morning he would tell me and Trace our transmission was shot and he wanted sixteen hundred to replace it. We'd say we couldn't pay that much, so he'd offer us a trade: the van straight up for a '79 Bonneville with no muffler and bad brakes and power windows that wouldn't go down. We'd take it so we could get out of town in a hurry.
Behind me I heard a pool ball smack on the floor and roll away. The baby started to cry, but Trace jiggled it and it stopped. Spit bubbled from its mouth. The woman finished her drink. I watched her neck as she swallowed. The skin around it looked a little loose, baggy. I'd never noticed that on anyone before.
“He didn't even steal anything good,” she said. “Just an old Beetle, all rusted to shit. You'd think the boy would have some taste, at least.”
“He's lucky to be alive,” Trace said. “The transmission could have exploded.”
She looked down at the floor. “The judge said I was a bad mother,” she said.
“That's terrible,” I said. “What'd he have to say that for?” He could have been right, for all I knew, but still.
She set her glass down on the table, hard. “I'm a good mother,” she said. “A damn good mother.” Her eyes got wet. It was like she'd been waiting a long time to say this, waiting to find someone who might believe her.
“I'm sure you are,” I said.
“I have to take a leak,” Trace said. “Can you hold my baby?” He held it out to her.
She sat the baby in her lap and bounced it up and down. “Hello, baby,” she said. “What a big baby you are. What a bouncy baby.” She kissed it on the top of its head, then smoothed its thin brown hair. Maybe she was a good mother. The baby looked like it was in heaven, eyes half-closed and dreamy. It drooled a little more, and she wiped its mouth with a cocktail napkin. Her eyes were still wet, but she'd started to smile. She was pretty when she smiled. I told her so.
“You should stop hanging around with that guy,” she said. “He's holding you back.”
I told her I knew that. It was what she wanted to hear.
The baby grabbed her nose, and she wiggled her head from side to side. “That's a nose you've got there,” she said. “That's my nose.” The baby let go, but kept moving its hand through the air like it still had a nose in it.
“When are you leaving town?” she asked me.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I hope.”
“Where've you been staying?”
“In the van,” I said.
Her knee touched mine. “Want to stay with me tonight?” she asked. She saw me look at her ring. “I have money for a room,” she said.
I didn't even consider saying no. I swept the baby out of her arms, without thinking, without worrying, like I'd held a baby every day of my life, like I juggled babies in my spare time. That's when the smell hit me. The kid was ripe. She smelled it, too.
“Jackpot,” she said.
I found Trace standing with Roy at the pool table, a fresh drink in his hand. I handed him the baby.
“Phil, this baby stinks,” Trace said.
“You're going to have to change it,” I said. “Maybe feed it, too. You got us into this.”
He nodded, slowly. “I'll take care of everything,” he said.
“For fuck's sake, Trace,” I said, “why'd you take this thing? You could've said no.”
He steadied himself against the pool table. “I was called,” he said with a stupid smile. “I was called by forces we can't understand.”
“Tell the bartender to call the cops,” I said. “The mother's not coming. The mother is long fucking gone.”
“I'm going to give her some more time,” he said.
“I'm leaving,” I said. “I have somewhere to go.”
“Where? Where is there to go?”
“The motel.”
He looked surprised. Then he smiled that same smile again. “Have fun,” he said. “I'll be fine here.”
“I can't give you any more money,” I said. “We're all out.”
Roy lit a cigarette and draped his arm around Trace's shoulder. “Don't worry,” he said. “Drinks for the daddy are on me.”
“Yeah, don't worry,” Trace said, smooth and cool. “Roy's buying.”
I went back to the booth. She sucked the last ice cubes out of her glass, then whispered to me, lips cold and wet, that she would leave first and I should wait a minute before following. “It's a small town,” she explained. I doubt we fooled anyone. People turned to watch me as I walked out. She was waiting in the motel parking lot, money in her hand. She told me to get the room while she waited outside.
The lobby of the Desert Blossom Motel stank of curry. The desk clerk kept looking out the window, like he expected something to come crashing through it. “What's wrong?” I asked him.
“A big party,” he said. “The bikers. They like to make trouble. Always they make trouble.” He offered me a room on the other side of the motel. I took the key and told him good luck.
She had her tongue in my ear before we got to the top of the cement stairs. We kissed outside the room, leaning on the metal railing. “Look at that view,” she said, extending her arm like she was showing me a whole new world.
The fog had blown away, but all I could see was the motel parking lot, some scattered lights, dark desert. “There's nothing to see,” I said.
“That's what I mean,” she said, and she kissed me again.
I had to push her away to unlock the door. The room was decorated in sad shades of brown. Brown carpet and curtains, brown-and-orange plaid bedspread, two brown-cushioned chairs, a still life of a coconut painted on tan fabric.
It was choking hot inside, and I said so. “It's the middle of summer, sweetie,” she said. I kissed her long and hard because I couldn't remember the last time anyone called me sweetie. She took off my shirt. Then she stepped back. “When was the last time you had a shower?” she said.
I counted back to the day we'd left Durango. “Five days,” I said.
“Why don't you clean yourself up,” she said gently. “I'll go get us a bottle.”
In the shower it seemed like I could smell everything that was coming off me, layer by layer, grimy souvenirs of our time on the road. Smoke from fireworks, cigarettes, and ditchweed. Sweat from the heat and the alcohol and pushing the van and losing a dozen straight hands in Vegas. Road dust. And, Jesus, my feet. I smelled like I was dying.
I got out of the shower without drying myself. I switched off the lights in the room. I turned the air conditioner on full and stood in front of it, naked, my eyes closed. At first it wheezed out warm air, but it gradually turned colder, just like I imagined the outside air would as we drove farther and farther north. I imagined me and Trace in Alaska, hauling in huge catches of salmon, soaked to the bone but free and happy in the never-ending daylight and the cold ocean spray. And I imagined myself there in winter, when I'd have a wallet full of money and a head full of stories, ready to endure the long dark and the cold, a cold so deep that it would freeze out everything but your purest self, and finally you'd understand where things had gone so wrong. I stood there in the cold air, thinking, listening to the water drops hitting the thin carpet underneath the air conditioner's sputter and grind, feeling the goose bumps rise on my arms, then my legs, then along my scalp, until she came up behind me and skated her tongue down my spine, trailed it softly with a fingernail. We made love as much as anyone could in that town.
Â
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I was scared awake by someone pounding on the door. I sat up and looked around, my heart machine-gunning inside me. It was still dark, and I was alone. At first I thought she might be the one knocking, gone for ice or fresh air and trying to get back in. Then I heard Trace. “Let me in,” he said, and in his voice was something that told me he knew she would be gone, and that I should have known, too. I found my shorts in the bathroom and put them on.
I opened the door. Trace stood there, wobbling, holding the wall for support. Roy stood back against the railing, holding a case of beer and a pizza box. “Come on in,” I said, “but I'm going to sleep.”
The door closed and it was dark.
“I can't see,” Trace said.
“Turn on the light,” I said.
“I can't
see
,” he said, his voice getting high and scared. “Oh, fuck, I'm blind.”
I turned on the light next to the bed. Roy stood near the door, still holding the beer and pizza. Trace was lying on the floor on his side, his hands over his eyes, moving his legs like he was running. “I can't see,” he said.
“Jesus, what's he on?” I said to Roy. “What did you give him?”
“The bikers said it was plain old crank,” Roy said. “But you never really know.”
I got out of the bed and knelt next to Trace. “Hey, buddy,” I said, “it's me. It's Phil. It's all right.” I pulled his hands away from his eyes. “You're going to be all right.” I wondered if he was going to die, if maybe I should call someone.
He stopped kicking his legs. For a few minutes he didn't say anything, didn't move, but I could see him breathing. Then he blinked and looked at me. “I got us some pizza,” he said. He said it like he wanted me to say,
Yes, yes, you sure did. You're a hero
.
Roy sat on the edge of the bed and opened a bottle of beer. Trace pointed at him. “That guy wants to fuck me,” he said. “He wants to fuck me in the butt.”
I looked at Roy. He sipped his beer and shrugged. “Well, I do,” he said. “It's no secret. I told him hours ago.”
“Get out of here,” I said.
“Cool it, Sundance,” he said. “I paid for this stuff. I'm staying until it's gone.”
Trace crawled over to the pizza box and took out a slice. His hands were shaking like crazy. “Just eat, Phil,” he said. “You gotta eat.” And I was pretty hungry, I realized. So I went and put on the rest of my clothes, took a slice, and opened beers for the two of us.
Trace and I sat at the table next to the window, and Roy sat on the bed. We ate and drank. Roy tried a few times to make conversation, but I didn't feel much like talking, and Trace looked busy trying to maintain. Roy gave up, leaned back, and watched us, smoking a clove cigarette. No one spoke, but the room was full of sound: the air conditioner grinding away, the alarm clock humming and flipping numbers on the minute, Trace and I chewing and swallowing, Roy exhaling long streams of smoke. We heard bursts of life from the biker party outsideârunning footsteps, laughing, a bottle smashed, a country song belted out in three-part discord, a man and a woman cursing each other. A Harley thundered alive and revved senselessly.