My headache was amplified by the peeling echo of the telephone and I wished (yet again) that there was a way to turn the ringer off the without breaking it. I tried muffling the sound by holding a pillow over my face and ears and burrowing into the bed; but it was no use. When I finally picked it up though, there was no one on the other end.
“Fuck.” It hurt to talk, but thinking hurt even more. After some doing I sat up and looked around the motel room with its dirty tan walls, sticky bed cover and rickety plywood furniture. The empties were starting to add up. At some point, I thought, I’ll have to let housekeeping in to pick this shit up. What a fucking joke. Housekeeping. The entire housekeeping department of the Lost Dutchman was two Mexican women who barely spoke English and who glared at me whenever I passed them on my way to the ice machine. Maybe they were getting reports from the bedbugs that I wasn’t taking care of the room.
After managing to sit up on the bed and put my feet on the floor, I looked over and noticed an unopened beer next to the telephone. It would be warm; but at least it was something. I cracked open the can and poured it down my throat. The taste of warm beer and aluminum filled my mouth, but I closed my eyes and tried not to focus on it. Why couldn’t I have found a motel with a mini fridge? I hadn’t been in any shape to be picky. I still wasn’t. A month today. I’ve been living here a month today.
The idea was a simple one. Brit and I talked about it for a couple of days and I convinced her it was our best shot. There wasn’t any work to be had. The wave of general unemployment was sweeping down from Michigan and Ohio, and up from Kentucky. I hadn’t worked in months, and it was causing us problems Since I wasn’t working, Brit was working all the time to try and cover things. We were fighting a lot; it was all about money, my drinking, and the fact that her parents wanted her to leave me. Then I heard from my one of my old buddies, Paul. He was living out in Arizona. He told me things were still good in the west; that any dumbass who could swing a hammer could find work. That was an exact quote. Even though I hadn’t really done any construction work, he told me he could probably get me a job schlepping shit around construction sites so long as I could handle the heat and as long as I didn’t mind getting paid under the table. Brit didn’t like the idea of me leaving; but she still had her job, and there was a chance that she could get transferred to Phoenix. It would just take some time. But Paul told me that if I wanted him to hook me up that I needed to get out there ASAP.
At first she was worried about me going. “It’ll be an adventure,” I told her. “Like one of those westerns where the guy goes west to build a new life for him and his lady love. It’s almost romantic. Kind of heroic, actually.”
That one made her laugh. A little. So Brit and I scrounged together some money, borrowing what we could from friends and family, and I hopped a red eye Greyhound out of Indianapolis.
Two days and three transfers later, I was in the Phoenix station with one suitcase, the clothes on my back, and every expectation that I could land a job and that Brit would follow me in a couple of weeks. Paul met me at the station. When I called him from Santa Fe and told him I was on my way, he seemed surprised. I told him when I’d hit town and asked if I could just crash for a couple of days, until I got settled. He was non-committal; but we were old friends and he’d never let me down in the past. When he met me, though, he told me his old lady wasn’t comfortable having me there. “She just doesn’t know you,” he said. “Come over for dinner a few times. Once she gets to know you, it’ll be cool. It’s just how she is with new people.” I was too exhausted to argue, so I told him I needed to find a cheap place to stay. It was Paul who suggested the Lost Dutchman. “It ain’t much,” he said. “But it’s cheap. And it’s on the bus line.” And so I checked into room 232 and paid the first week. I figured it would take at least that long to find work and find a better place to live.
The beer steadied me and I stood up. My head was still killing me, and various parts of my body were starting to wake up and join in. I felt like I’d fallen down a flight of stairs. The face that stared back at me in the smudged mirror wasn’t bruised. No evidence of falling. Just an awful goddamn hangover. I stripped and turned the shower on; after the pipes made an arthritic moan the water spit out of the shower head, and I turned the hot water way up.
The shower helped; Brit could never understand why I liked my showers so hot. She used to tell me that I was scalding myself every time I took one. I let the water pour over me; I could feel the burning sensations beading on my head, and trickling down my back, my ass, my legs. I managed to milk a dab of motel shampoo out of the bottle and spread it through my hair as best could. Then I reached for the remainder of the tiny soap and did my best to feel clean. Just about the time the water started to go cold, I turned it off. The phone was ringing again. Fuck. I grabbed the last clean towel and dried myself off. But by the time I got to the phone, the ringing stopped.
Friday, I reminded myself. It’s Friday. That meant I had to pay my weekly rent or be out by noon. The clock read 9:59 AM. I put on some clothes that didn’t look too dirty and walked down to the office for a cup of coffee. It was horrible shit; not much more than brown water, really. But it was coffee, and it was free. My first morning at the Lost Dutchman I made the mistake of trying the “Continental Breakfast” – a series of stale donuts, muffins, and bagels hard enough to give serious concussions. The coffee creamer was rancid and the orange juice looked like piss. So I stuck with the coffee, since I had actually seen them making it once. I knew where it came from.
When I got down to the office, the morning girl wasn’t behind the desk. Must be sneaking a cigarette in the back. The coffee was lukewarm and tasted like shit, but it was no worse than the warm beer I’d started my late morning with. I drank down the first cup quickly, topped off the small Styrofoam cup, and went back to my room. Standing outside the door, I heard the phone ringing again. After fumbling with the key card and missing the time when motels actually gave you a fucking KEY, I got the door open. The phone stopped ringing.
“I hope that’s not Paul,” I said to the empty room. He’d been telling me for a couple of days that he was trying to line something up for me. He had to wait for the boss to get back in town, he said. Apparently the guy was in Fiji with his young new wife. Paul seemed to think this was a good sign. “If he can afford to run off to a tropical island,” he told me, “sure as shit he can afford to hire you on to do something. Trust me.”
Yeah, right. I trusted that I wouldn’t have spend what little seed money I had on a cheap motel where the only other long term residents crawled on six legs and scattered when the lights came on. I sat down on the bed next to the phone, picked it up, and dialed Paul’s cell phone number. Maybe he heard something. Maybe I wasn’t completely fucked on this entire deal.
He kept telling me he was doing the best he could. He invited me over for dinner a couple of times, but always cancelled at the last minute. That was what had happened the night before. When Paul showed up to (I thought) take me over to meet the old lady and try her award winning pot roast with baby potatoes and carrots, he had a large cheese pizza, two twelve packs of beer, and a bottle of tequila with him. “It’s just a bad night,” he apologized. “Don’t worry about it.”
I sat and listened to his cell phone go to voice mail and hung up. I didn’t feel like leaving him a message. Besides, I told myself, he’ll call when he’s got something. He said he’d have something.
The coffee was gone and I knew better than to think that there was anything on TV worth watching. All morning news and those annoying shiny happy people with their bleached smiles and spray on tans. No thanks. If I lay back down I probably wouldn’t have gotten up again for another couple of hours. The aches and pains were slowly starting to wear off, though my head was still a little fuzzy. Goddamn tequila. Maybe Paul figured if I was hungover enough I wouldn’t nag him about a job. Or his old lady’s pot roast.
I found my watch. It was still set to Indiana time. Brit would be at work and too busy to talk. Besides, I wanted to be able to call her with good news. We had put off getting married until I found regular work again, and the longer it took me to find something, the more it felt like the wedding was never going to happen. For the first week, we talked everyday. We talked about wedding plans. We talked about what it would be like when she moved to Phoenix. We talked. She complained about the fact that I didn’t have a cell phone. I told her she was too dependent on hers. The last week or so she wasn’t as talkative. She was working more, I think. Trying to get in good so she could get the transfer, maybe. She stopped bringing up the wedding and started asking about other things. She asked me about the weather. It was August, so the days got up to 119 or 120 degrees. “But it’s a dry heat,” she said. “Right?” I tried to explain that there was no way to compare the heat to what we were used to. I told her it wasn’t a matter of it being hotter, or of it being too hot. It was just different. She’d ask me what I meant and I’d tell her I didn’t really know. She’d have to see for herself.
The clock read 11:00 AM. I was either going to have to pay for the room or pack my shit. I reached into my jeans pocket and dug out the money I had left. I could swing another day. Maybe two, as long as I didn’t eat anything. Paul had been buying most of the booze and some of the food. Guilt on his part, I supposed. Dragging my unemployed ass halfway across the country only to tell me I’m shit out of luck.
One more day, I thought. Give Paul a chance to come through. I stood up and walked down to the office. The morning girl was sitting behind the desk reading Star.
“So are Brad and Jennifer going to break up?” I joked.
She looked at me and sniffed. “It’s NOT Brad and Jen anymore. Brad’s with Angelina Jolie.” She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Right,” I said. “Tragic. Horrible.” She wasn’t impressed. “I need to pay another day.”
“Room number?”
I told her.
“One more night?”
I sighed and nodded my head.
She brought up my bill and told me how much it cost. I gave her cash. She gave me change. Then she went back to her magazine.
What? I thought. No ‘Thanks for your business?’ I walked back up to my room. The phone was ringing again. I tried the key card. It didn’t work. I tried it a couple more times. Nothing. The phone stopped ringing. I trudged back down to the office. The girl had stopped reading about the secrets of the rich and famous and was watching The Young and The Restless while eating a can of Spaghetti-Os.
“Excuse me?”
She looked up. Annoyed. “Yes?”
I held up the keycard. “It doesn’t work.”
She huffed, set down her Spaghetti-Os, and reached out her pudgy fingers. I was surprised to see that her fingers weren’t coated in tomato sauce. I gave her the card. “Did I update it?”
“I don’t know. Don’t think so.”
She shook her head. “It won’t work unless I update it.” She looked at me as if she were saying Why didn’t you know that, numb nuts?
“Sorry,” I mumbled and smiled.
She shook her head again, ran the card through a machine, and punched some keys. Then she handed it back to me. That was when I noticed her bracelet – one of those WWJD rubber band bracelets. I looked at her in profile. Not a bad looking girl. A little on the chunky side maybe. But how did that song go? The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin’. Maybe she just needed a solid fuck. Something to clean out the dust and sanctimonious air.
But I didn’t comment. She stopped focusing on me and went back to squinting at the 12 inch TV and eating her abandoned lunch. When I got back up to my room, the keycard worked, but the phone wasn’t ringing. When I called Paul’s number it went straight to voice mail. Again.
I was about to give up and turn on the TV – maybe, I told myself, maybe I can get into soap operas and daytime talk and commercials about maxi pads – when the phone rang. I got to it before it rang twice.
“Hey! Hello?”
“Walter?” It was Brit.
“Brit! Hey babe. I figured you’d be at work, or I would’ve called you.”
“How are things?”
“Fine. I’m expecting a call from Paul today. His boss is back in town, so he should be able to tell me something.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Listen…”
“I can’t wait til you get here, Brit,” I said. “I miss you. Everybody here is fucking nuts, babe.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, granted, I haven’t exactly been around the crème de la crème … but once you get out here you’ll see what I mean. How’s that going, anyway? Any word on transferring out here?”
“Yeah, Walter. Listen…”
Listen. I’d heard that tone before. That time we broke up. The time her cat died. The time she thought she was pregnant. I’d heard her use that tone with her mother when they had to hospitalize her for her own good.
“What’s wrong? You can’t transfer? Fuck it, babe. Once I get settled just quit and come on out. You’ll have better luck, I know it. I bet Paul knows somebody.”
“
Walter…” she paused. “I… you remember a guy named Ferguson?”
I shook my head. How could I not? “His parents are friends with your parents?”
“Yeah.”
Sure as shit I remembered him. Brit’s parents kept a picture of him on the mantle in the living room; it was Brit’s senior prom picture. Ferguson had been her date. Whenever we went over, the picture was there, staring me in the face. They always had news about what he was doing. How his grades were in college. What he was studying. When he was coming home for a visit. I never met the guy; but hear Brit’s parents talk, you’d think he was the second coming. WWFD. When we asked for the loan so I could get out to Phoenix, they were more than willing to give us the money – as well as another sterling update about Ferguson, who had just been accepted to law school. From what I could tell, her folks were already planning on what to name the future grandchildren.
“What about him?”
She started crying. “He… died.”
“Shit,” I answered, trying to sound shocked. “What happened?”
I got the gist of it through her tears and sniffles. He’d been visiting friends in Cincinnati and was downtown going to some club or another when he walked down the wrong street. Bad luck, bad timing. Certainly not what was expected for Ferguson the wonder kid. Guess there was plenty of bad luck going around and he got his all at once. Brit was pretty tore up, so I could only imagine how her parents felt, now that all those grandchildren they’d been planning on would never come into existence.
“I’m sorry, babe,” I tried to console her. Secretly, though, I felt like a weight had just been taken off my back. He was dead. I was alive. Now all that remained was for Paul to come through and for Brit to move to Phoenix so we could get married and start thinking about kids of our own. “After things settle down, you should come on out,” I said. “Get away from all the sadness. The sun always shines out here, you know.”
“Walter,” she began. “I…I… I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“I can’t. I can’t come out there. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I never wanted to move,” she said. “But you were so determined.”
“I did this for US.”
“I… I just can’t. I can’t be that far away. Not now.”
“Why? Because Ferguson got killed? What the Fuck, Brit?”
She went on to tell me it was more than that. That part of the reason her parents gave us the money so easily was because they wanted to get rid of me. That she’d been spending a lot of time with Ferguson. That she was supposed to go to Cincinnati with him but that she couldn’t get off work. She tried to explain, but I stopped listening. There was nothing left to listen to, and nothing I could say. When she got to “I’ll always love you Walter, but…” I hung up the phone before she finished.
I sat there for a minute, not thinking anything. My gut hurt and it took everything in me not to start punching the wall. After a few minutes I stood up and started to breathe. Then I went to the sink and splashed water on my face.
Just then, the phone rang. At first, I wasn’t going to answer it. I figured it was Brit, trying to get the last word in. Trying to finish her bullshit sentence about how she loved me but wasn’t IN love with me… or some such other bullshit excuse for dumping me when I was nearly broke and stuck in the desert. The phone kept on ringing. Maybe it’s Paul, I thought. Maybe he got that job lined up. Maybe if I can get work lined up, I can convince Brit to come out anyway, and that she really loved me and that her parents were wrong about me.
I picked up after seven or eight rings. It was a wrong number.
