The avocado green formica around the sink would’ve looked nice if it weren’t for the cigarette burns all down the edge. Well, maybe nice if it was twenty years newer or wasn’t chipped all over or actually had places were the finish itself hadn’t got rubbed off by the maids.
Richie took his teaspoon of asthma medicine and brushed his teeth fast to get the taste out of his mouth. He rapped on the bathroom door and yelled to his mom in the shower, “I’m going to sit over by the car until you’re ready!”
He didn’t wait for an answer. The answer would be either yes or no, but either way he was going out the door. She wasn’t going to stop her shower just to chase after him.
He ran past the cigarette half-burned out on the credenza, and the one burned down to the filter on the little table next to the window. They stank the worst when they were down to the filter.
The parking lot reeked of diesel fumes from Santa Fe Drive, all of it drifting toward the bluff right behind the motel. Santa Fe was the one route into Pueblo from the mesa, and usually the first road people hit on their way from the CF&I. The road was thick with trucks, sometimes so much that it looked like a convoy, bumper to bumper, belching out black clouds.
It was still better than sitting inside. Whatever chemicals were in the diesel clouds burned his lungs less than the decades of built-up cigarette smoke inside the motel room.
He dropped down on the curb next to the Johnny’s Olds 88. Johnny had gone next door to the EZ-Stop while his mom was showering. Richie would wait on the back side of the car until then.
He counted the trucks and tried to calculate how many trucks a minute it was. He imagined himself walking, steady as a metronome, like he always did. A hundred and twenty steps a minute. He ticked it off in his head as he watched the road, and popped up a finger on his right hand for every semi. For every handful on his right, he’d pop up a finger on his left. If he made it all the way through the fingers on his left hand, he’d cock up his right foot and keep going. Both feet would give him a count of fifty trucks, and he didn’t think it could be more than that, however busy the road was. By the time his brain got to a hundred and twenty, his hands and feet had gotten to forty seven. That would be just a little more than one semi every second and a half, which was a lot more than he guessed.
Johnny came past and was almost to the motel door when he stopped and looked over at Richie. He eyed the corner of his car that Richie was nearest to. “Hey, kid – do yourself a favor and don’t get anything on the Delmont. That’s a custom paint job and I don’t want some snotnose fucking it up.”
Johnny always talked like that when they were alone. When his mom was around, though, Johnny was polite and friendly. He sounded like an English teacher or something then. His mom never saw the difference and never even heard Richie when he tried to explain.
Johnny popped the motel room door open and yelled in. “Doris! Hey, baby – we gotta get a move on, sweetie! Times a wastin’ and money ain’t gonna make itself, like I say.”
Richie didn’t hear what she said. Johnny had already stepped inside and closed the door. They didn’t say much, though. There was a little back and forth, muffled by the wall and the drapes, then silence for a while, then moans. They did it like five times a day, it seemed. When the last sound died down, Richie started his clock. A hundred and twenty beats a minute. He’d only hit seventy when Johnny poked his head out the door. “Hey, kid, you stayin’ here or goin’?”
Richie read his face. All he really wanted to know is what Johnny had already decided. “I get to say?”
“Don’t be a wise-ass, kid. You’re stayin’ here. Watch cartoons or some shit. We’ll be back in a while.”
Then Johnny turned, “Hey, Doris – Richie says he wants to stay, maybe watch some tv while we’re out. Sounds okay to me. I told him to call if something came up.” He yelled it. Doris had the hair dryer already going.
Ten minutes later, they walked out the motel door and left it cracked.
“We’re going now, baby – be good while we’re gone.” Johnny was making “yadda-yadda” faces behind Doris, but Richie ignored him.
“I left the number for the place on the pad by the phone. Call me if you need anything.” Johnny shook his head.
She walked toward the car door. Johnny said, “Sorry, babe, I need some extra smokes.” He was in and out of the door in a flash, then opened her door for her. He slapped her ass as she stepped to get in. He gave Richie a little smirk and a wink as he went around to his own door.
Richie was back in the room before they were out of the parking lot. He checked the pad by the phone and wasn't surprised there wasn't a phone number written down. Maybe she didn't actually write it down or maybe that was Johnny's real reason for going back in.
Richie turned on the bathroom fan and opened the window to get some fresher air. Even so, with the two of them smoking, it was like there was already ash and gunk building up in his lungs. When they walked into the room the first time, it was like people had been smoking in there for a hundred years. Every inch was browned; every piece of paper felt sticky. When he put his head on his pillow the first time, it wheezed out an invisible cloud of tar and nicotine.
The best thing about Johnny’s visits was they made him go outside while they fucked. Otherwise, she kept him inside, saying it wasn’t safe out there, even though staying inside there was ten times as bad for his asthma as sitting on the curb, and twice as bad as sitting around at home, wherever home happened to be.
He laid back on the bed, legs dangling down. He didn’t feel like turning the TV on. He kicked his heels against the box spring. It was an old bed, and when he kicked it, the insides rattled a little, like a slinky when you stretch it and shake it hard.
A gate clanked somewhere outside the window. It took him a moment, then he remembered the little chain link area opposite the office. The vinyl slats blocked off everything but the tops of two vending machines. He knew his mom and Johnny would be gone for hours. She told him not to leave the room, but she’d never know. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would notice if he went out or stayed in or got swallowed by an earthquake. The last thought sat him bolt upright. He grabbed his spiral notebook and a pencil and was out the door in an instant.
On the other side of the fence, there were the vending machines and two metal tables the awnings had blown off ages ago. There was a funny picture frame area in the concrete center of the space. He’d seen it before in a friend’s back yard and knew what it meant There used to be a swimming pool right there, but it was a tiny one. More like an in-ground wading pool.
Even with a pool, he couldn’t imagine anyone coming there because they wanted to, but then he was there, so what did that say? Not only that, there was someone else there – an older girl, maybe two or three years, maybe in the eighth grade. She was reading, but she glanced up. She looked down and then back up and waved him over with two fingers.
He didn’t even remember walking over. She waved and he was there, sitting in the chair opposite hers. He opened his book to write or draw, or do something with the pencil that hung over his paper, suspended by the hints of red in her hair and the chocolately brown of her eyes. He was embarrassed just to be thinking those things. He didn’t know where they came from and he prayed she couldn’t see it on his face.
“Who are you?”
She couldn’t see that, but she was looking at something on his face.
“I’m Richie” like it explained everything, but he didn’t know what else to say. You don’t just read a strange girl your whole life story. He didn’t even have a life story, though, so just his name was probably the best thing anyway.
“Hi, Richie. I’m Natalie. What are you doing?”
“Ohcrap-ohcrap-ohcrap …” he didn’t say it out loud, but it was plenty loud in his head. “I was just – I wondered what was back here, so I ... I mean, I didn't know anyone ~”
“Uh-huh. What are you doing there? On the paper?” Her eyes pointed down at his blank notebook and her eyebrows went up.
“Oh, nothing, I was just …”
She closed up her magazine. “Are you a writer?”
“I’m … kinda …”
“You’re not very good at this, are you?”
His mouth just hung open. How would she know? Even if she could read upside down, both pages where blank.
“Talking. You’re not good at talking to people. Are you a better writer than a talker?”
“I … I’m just shy sometimes.”
“Uh-huh. What do you write about, Hemingway?”
He had no idea how to answer. He wrote about stuff, about things happening. He wrote a story where a boy named Carlos went to the fair and rode all the rides and went to the rodeo. There was a story where a boy ran away to the mountains and then came back after a few days.
“I wrote a story about a kid going to the fair. Like that? Is that what you're asking?”
“What happened to him there?”
“He just … he rode rides and went to the rodeo, and had all kinds of food, burgers and hotdogs and desserts and stuff."
She was looking at the gate while he said that, and her eyes swung slowly back to his, with a small smile. It was a smile he got from grownups sometimes. What was the word? Condescending. But not in a mean way, just … like they felt sorry for him about something. Like there was something big he was missing. Like they were up on a mountain looking down.
She broke the gaze and opened up her magazine again, just flipping through the pages.
Richie just watched her. His pencil was in the exact place it was when he sat down. He wanted her to say something, to acknowledge his presence, but maybe she was done with him and his lack of stories.
“Do you live here … Natalie?”
She shook her head and kept reading.
“Are you visiting?”
She shrugged at that.
“Who else is with you?”
“My dad.”
He started doodling on his page, which got her attention for a moment, before she brought it back to her own page.
He made little boxes and filled them with tiny circles and then shaded some of them in. He kept doing it. It was easy. He could do it for a whole page without paying much attention. Even though he wasn’t looking at her, his attention was on Natalie, wanting her to say something. He thought she was beautiful, but he couldn’t say exactly why. Her hair or her face or her eyes, or something? The way she sat? The way she was being quiet? He knew she could tell he was focused on her, but she didn’t seem like she minded.
He started drawing mountains at the top of his page. Two mountains with shading, then a little valley between with a stream coming down. That was all he knew to draw, so he did it again, and then a third time. The page was almost full of boxes with circles and mountains with streams.
“Veronica!”
That made him jump, but not her. She didn’t even twitch.
“Veronica Carmelita! Where are you!? We’re leaving, girl! Get in the car!”
“Yes, sir.” Her words were gray, like the shading on his mountains.
She folded her magazine slowly and scooted her chair back.
“Your dad?”
She nodded.
“You’re going a long way?”
She nodded, then shrugged. Maybe yes, maybe no.
“You’re not really Natalie?”
“I am sometimes. When I’m by myself.”
She walked slowly. She paused at his chair.
“Here’s something to write about.”
She bunched up her t-shirt and started lifting. For the tiniest of moments, he thought she would show him her bra and her breasts. He didn’t know why, but what else does a young boy hope for?
She stopped, though, when her belly was displayed.
It was flat and smooth and ordinary. She had little clumps of freckles scattered around, and a few bruises. No. No-no. She had a lot of bruises. She turned a little and he could see more freckles. He also saw two long wide strips of red like a belt would make.
“Those ~”
“Shut up. Shh!”
She brought her shirt back down and went straight out the gate and latched it. In seconds, a car door slammed and gears whined.
Everything Richie could think of doing felt stupid. He wanted to run out and stop the car and jump on her dad, to yell and get other people’s attention. He wanted lots of angry people running out and doing something to her dad.
He got up and peeked through the slats woven through the chain link. There was a really old station wagon just pulling out and heading east out of town.
Richie watched until it was gone, then went back to his seat.
He made slashes through the doodles and flipped to the next page.
There it was, waiting for a story.
No comments:
Post a Comment