Waylaid (15 page)

The first thing we did when the door was shut and the shades were drawn was laugh. We laughed like we had just stepped off a death-defying carnival ride and were walking off the platform.

It was dark, but I could tell the place hadn't been cleaned. I smelled the beer and cigarette smoke. A thin strap of light from the window sliced through the room and lit up the neck of an opened beer bottle on the desk.

Being in that dirty room with a girl felt strange. I had a sudden impulse to sweep the pillows to the floor, pull off the sheets from the four corners and fuck her on that bare comestained mattress.

I felt for the edge of the bed and sat down on it, pulling Lee's ass onto my lap. I kissed her over her shoulder as I fumbled with her belt.

“It's a magnet,” she tried to say as my lips squeezed hers like a vice with rubber grips. Her jeans split open. Then they were around her ankles, and my fingers were rubbing what felt like a big eyebrow.

I turned and dropped her on the unmade bed. I stepped on the inner sole of each of my shoes and pried them off. My clothes slumped to the floor as I undressed quickly, shirt and jeans slipping off like butter on a hot biscuit.

Vincent told me women liked to pretend to hate sucking cock, but they expected to have to, anyway. They had to pretend so you wouldn't think they were sluts. I had my hands delicately wrapped around Lee's ears. I pulled a little. After a moment of uncertainty, it was in her mouth. I held my breath the whole time.

Then it was my turn to suck. I thought pussy would smell and taste bad, but I couldn't smell or taste anything. Lee had taken off her blouse and bra. Her nipples were hard, and I teethed them.

I ripped the foil and rolled the condom down until I felt a cold ring of rubber and lubricant at my balls. I'd practiced jerking off with the condom and lubricant in my hands lots of times.

I crawled on top of Lee and pushed her thighs out. I felt less resistance than I thought there'd be. My body shook. By the sound she was making, I could tell her teeth were gritted, and I could feel her spit on my throat. I felt my muscles tighten, and then I came. I'd lasted about a minute.

The penis-pump ads said premature ejaculation was anything less than five minutes. What was wrong with me? It took more than 15 minutes for me to jerk off when I was trying not to come. Maybe I would always come early when fucking for real. This was terrible.

I got up and stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs. I tugged at the condom, and it slipped off into my hand. When my bare feet hit the cold tile, I hit the light switch.

I'd heard about the blood that came from a popped cherry, but I didn't know how much to expect. In the pus-yellow light, my balls were drenched in impossibly dark red. Blood streaked down my legs. The condom in my right hand looked like cellophane wrap that had been pulled off of fresh roast beef. A rhombus of light from the bathroom made a crooked frame around Lee's body from the neck on down. She was rubbing her legs but didn't make a sound. The blood against her white skin stood out in higher contrast than on mine. Her eyes shone in the dark, and she was looking up at the ceiling.

She might have been crying.

I'd never seen any pictures with blood smeared around, just come.

I pissed on the floor. I couldn't move my feet.

I was tired as hell the next day in school. I'd gone into school after cleaning rooms all night before, but I had never been this tired. My entire body ached, even my ass muscles. I must've looked like I was a druggie. But Lee looked fine. As if nothing had happened.

I'd called Seaside Taxi from the pay phone to take her home, then waited right by the highway with her, watching the sky darken to a deep blue and lights leaking from passing cars. I gave her five dollars and a small hug before she got in and left.

Something was different now for us in school. Lee wanted to hold hands all the time. It was fun for a few days. Then it got embarrassing. Then one day she was out sick.

“You get Lee pregnant, or something?” Crispy asked me.

“Naw…” I said. I'd been careful every time.

“You did fuck her.”

“Might have,” I said, feeling a sliver of pride. “So when are you gonna be balling, Queer Bait Crispy?” I asked, punching him in the shoulder as hard as I could.

Something slammed against the blackboard.

“No talking!” Mr. Hendrickson yelled before continuing our review session. “A lot of you are asking me about the final exam even though it's still a few weeks away,” he continued, kicking away broken chalk. “I haven't even made a goddamn outline yet, so get off my fucking back, already.” As the school year drew to a close, Hendrickson's dual persona had merged until he was launching into violent curses even when his glasses were on.

I cared less and less about school. One day, I realized I had nothing to write with. I stuck a hand into the back of my desk. All I found was a stubby pencil. I tried to erase with it, but the metal eraser clip was empty, and I ended up ripping a slash in my notebook.

We fucked a whole bunch of times. In Room 54, and a few times in the woods on an old blanket.

I threw all my magazines into a Hefty bag and dumped them with the bush clippings in the woods. I didn't need them anymore. I had the perfect girl.

In the second week of June, a dizzying heat wave clamped down, slowing down my thoughts and movements. They let us wear shorts in school, and I shivered when the backs of my thighs touched the cold molded plastic of our seats.

I had just gotten back to the classroom from gym. I was early because I wore the same shorts in gym that I did around school and didn't need to change. Mr. Hendrickson came over to me.

“Your daddy's been in an accident,” he said. “Mrs. Daly will give you a ride to the hospital.” Mrs. Daly was the principal's secretary, a bitter, crusty old widow. I had been terrified of her since my second-grade class had elected me to bring the absentee slips to the principal's office. Mrs. Daly's sharp eyes would narrow as she snatched the slips out of my hand.

Mrs. Daly's Duster was a shrine on four wheels. It was loaded with small boardwalk teddy bears and other dolls that crowded each other in the back seats and tumbled over the dashboard. Three poseable plastic figures hung from the stem of the rear-view mirror as if they'd been lynched. With the bears, the dolls, and the searing heat in the car, there wasn't much room for air. It reminded me of a picture I'd seen of a Chinese temple with thousands of carved images of Buddha repeated on every surface. Rows and rows of smiling faces and rounded heads and bellies.

“I am so sorry,” said Mrs. Daly. “I heard what happened. You have my sympathies.” She sounded sincere, but her expression still had a sharp edge that could slice apples through the core. I didn't know what she was sorry for, though, because no one had told me any details yet.

I signed in at the hospital desk and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. My sneakers squeaked against the polished floor like I was walking across a giant, empty basketball court. I never felt as small as I did when I walked into that room and saw the white curtain pulled around my father's tired form under the sheets. His limp face was pale and rippled.

I didn't yet know what a stroke was, but my father had had one. My mother had found him in the basement trying to pull himself up off the floor. He'd been screaming for hours, but I was at school, and my mother had been out cleaning rooms.

His left side was paralyzed, probably permanently. If any movement was going to come back, we'd know in the next few days.

And then we knew.

I was excused from the rest of school, all two weeks of it, and I spent those days behind the counter and cleaning rooms, playing tag team with my mother. No finals for me, but no Lee Anderson, either. She called a few times, saying over and over that she was sorry about my dad, that she loved me, and that she was moving real soon, in that order. She made me take down her address and phone number twice the day she was leaving. This time, when she made the kissy sounds, I made them, too. It was okay because no one was listening.

My mother and I could never be in the same place at the same time because we couldn't rent rooms if they weren't clean, and we also couldn't rent rooms without someone in the office. My father's absence began to take its toll on the business. We had to cross two rooms off our sheets because the hot water wouldn't turn off in one and the other didn't get any water at all. I'd gone into the crawlspace and turned a few knobs, but I didn't know what I was doing, and nothing had happened.

One day, I found my mother sitting on the office couch with her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. She wouldn't say anything. I thought she might be having a stroke, too.

“Are you okay? Hey!”

She took her hands away from her face and covered her ears.

My father's medical bills for just the first few weeks had sunk our savings. We had no health insurance. Why should we? He was young. We were all young. Who knew you could have a stroke at 42?

The hospital worked out an installment plan for the rest, but we weren't going to make it, even if the rooms were full every day. And we still had monthly mortgage payments on the hotel.

Everybody was going to come down on us. The laundry service would cut us off. Then the cleaning-supplies company, the phone company, the electric and gas companies. The bank would repossess our stuff. Even the Pinto.

I woke up once in the middle of the night because I heard shouting. But it had been me yelling in my sleep.

There were calls to Taiwan. There were calls from Taiwan. I was sleepwalking to hotel rooms with a bucket in each hand. I put sanitized bands around toilet seats without even cleaning them. In the sunlight, the Bennys moved awkwardly and carefree, bouncing spinning Frisbees off of their toes and onto the beer bottles they were holding. There were a few barbecues on the lawn. I wanted to see those Frisbees turn into circular saw blades and lop heads off. I wanted to see headless bodies charbroil on the grill.

I thought of my father in the rehabilitation wing, half of his face and one shoulder and hip slumped down as he struggled with a walker. He was literally a broken man.

My father had given his life to the Bennys. Next on the menu were me and my mom.

I dropped my cleaning buckets and went behind the odd-numbered wing of the hotel. I was trying to breathe two inhales ahead of what I could, and I fell on my knees. I was so tired, it felt like too much work to lie down.

My eyesight was going. I heard blood rushing past my ears. I looked up. Somewhere, high above, the sun was shining. But I couldn't see it.

I didn't play Atari or even watch television anymore. I barely had time to brush my teeth before falling over asleep.

One night, when I was cleaning rooms by myself, I went into the supply closet to get more toilet bands and saw the rocket-shaped rear reflector of my bicycle poking out from behind a wall of towels. I pulled my bike out and wiped it down. It still looked like it was in good shape.

I went around the hotel, nice and easy. The moon was out, pouring a watery gleam over the handles as I made the turns. It was effortless. I couldn't feel my legs or my arms, just the sensation of a slow coast downhill.

Then I felt something give under my right leg. I looked down and saw the pedal coming loose. It fell off, and I hopped off and picked it up. The grooves around the mouth of the cylinder had been eaten away so I couldn't reattach it.

“Motherfucking whore slut!” I yelled at the bike. I kicked it in the spokes, then dragged it back home. I stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement and gave it a push from the seat. The bike bucked like a pissed-off horse in a rodeo as it tumbled down.

The next day I tried calling Lee at her new number in California.

“This is Paul Tee Real Estate,” said a man with a cheery voice.

“Hello? Is Lee Anderson there?” I asked, looking again at the number I had written down and running my finger under it. I heard a heavy sigh.

“Lee Anderson, you mean my little niece?”

“You're her uncle?”

“Don't get fucking wise with me!” the man sneered. “I don't need to be taking phone calls for my fucking niece!”

“Is she there?”

“Why does this run in my goddamn wife's family? Why do they have kids when they can't hold a job because they drink all the time? Now they're giving the phone number out like it's their phone? Who pays the goddamn phone bill?

“I don't have enough problems, already? I'm trying to feed my wife and our kids and we have to take in her fucking older brother and his family? I'm taking messages for my stupid niece when I'm trying to run a business out of this house? I need people sleeping in my basement?” He was shouting so loud, I could hear his voice in the ear that wasn't next to the receiver.

“I'm paying for the phone call. I just want to talk to Lee…”

“And I just want to live without people hanging on my back! Why do you people have three kids when you can't pay down your mortgage? Why buy new color TVs when you know you can't afford the credit-card payments? Don't you people ever think of saving money? Is there no shame in leeching off of relatives? I've been working since I was 10 fucking years old! No one ever gave me shit!” He slammed down the phone so hard I thought I heard the receiver crack.

I woke up in the middle of the night again. It was becoming a bad habit. My stomach hurt so much, I put my hand over it and rolled out of bed onto the floor. What was wrong? I hadn't jerked off in more than a month. Maybe that was it.

I lay on the floor and stared at the moon. Something was jabbing me in the back, but I didn't know if it was a book or a shoe. Something else was pulling me up and away. Light from the moon and stars was shining on my doorknob. I got up and pulled on some jeans.

The next thing I knew, I was walking along the highway. I couldn't remember if I'd locked the office door or not. Clumps of rags and dented hubcaps littered my path. Sometimes a car would go by. The moon was pulling me to the beach.

I stepped up onto the ramp that led up to the boardwalk. Hearing the sound of my feet on the boardwalk made it seem like the rest of the world was dead. The ocean was pitch black, but I could hear it slithering along the shoreline in the background.

Then I saw the beach. The craters and dunes looked like a lunar landscape. I'd finally gotten my wish. I was an astronaut on the moon. I was going to be famous and get a big promotion at NASA.

I jumped and ran all over the beach, spinning in circles and doing long jumps. Sand was getting into my shoes. I pranced around and screamed. Threw my head back and yelled and shook my fist at the stars. How many millions of years did it take for their light to reach the earth? How many of those stars were already dead and useless?

I lay down in the sand and looked up. I wasn't on the moon. Looking up in the sky, I could now see that I wasn't any closer to it than I'd ever been. I wasn't any closer to being an astronaut, and I wasn't any farther away from the hotel.

I felt my heart swell with hate. Hate for women. Hate for men. Hate for my mother, my father. Hate for sex.

I could fuck Lee in a hotel room or in the woods, but could I ever have sex in a bed, in a house, in a home?

I was crying now. Not the sobbing kind, but the kind where you feel lousy and then you notice tears rolling down. I flipped onto my stomach and crawled up the beach, away from the ocean.