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Chapter 44
Camping

The dog sat in between them in the old pick-up. The sun was out and the day was warm as they headed towards Gerlach, Nevada, and the Black Rock Desert which lay beside the small desert town.

Allison was wearing sunglasses, her hair back in a pony tail, and she was talking and petting the dog.

‘I’ve never really been camping.’

‘We’ll just sleep in the back of the truck,’ Dan Mahony said. ‘We can pretty much drive out onto the desert and camp wherever we want. It’s beautiful at night with the stars. You can hear the trains roll by. It’s so big and flat out on the playa, where we’ll be, that they have the land speed records there. It goes on for miles and miles.’

‘I made us fried chicken,’ she said. ‘Do you like fried chicken?’

‘If you made it, I’ll like it.’

‘I bet,’ she said.

He reached over and squeezed her hand.

‘Can we have a fire?’

‘I brought wood. It’s gonna be cold as a mother out there tonight. In the morning we can go to a hot springs I know.’

‘I didn’t bring a swim suit,’ she said.

‘There will be no one out there most likely. You can just go in your underwear or we can go naked if you want.’

She moved closer to the dog and put her arm around him and the dog licked her arm.

‘I made up my mind,’ Dan said and looked at her.

‘Made up your mind about what?’

‘I’m gonna go back on as a plumber. At least part time. I’ll sorta miss those guys at the VA, but the money’s good with my uncle, and maybe it’s time.’

‘You should try if you want to, and if it doesn’t work out I’m sure they’d let you come back to the hospital.’

‘Probably,’ he said.

‘But remember, if it’s too much don’t do it. I like you just the way you are.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes me want to try.’

It was nighttime and they lay naked in the bed of the truck under blankets and an old sleeping bag. The dog lay on Allison’s feet as they both looked up at the stars.

‘I don’t feel so bad about myself being out here, looking at the stars this way,’ she said.

‘If I was as good looking as you, I’d feel pretty damn good.’

‘I bet,’ she said.

‘It’s true,’ he said and took her hand in his.

‘Do you think we’ll hear the coyotes?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Maybe we could stay out here one more night.’

‘I could if you want.’

‘I don’t want to go back there.’

‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘Not just yet.’

The next morning she woke to the sound of Dan cooking breakfast. He had a fire going and she could smell the coffee and bacon he had cooking. The dog lay next to her. The sky was blue and gold and the sun had just started to rise over the mountains. She stayed like that for a long while, just listening to the fire.

When she sat up she petted the dog and said, ‘Is it cold out there? You cold?’

‘It’s not so bad once you get out. But there’s no need for you to get up. You stay in bed as long as you want.’

‘I will then,’ she said and smiled. ‘It sure is beautiful out here.’

‘When I got out of the hospital, when I was good enough to walk around, my uncle and I came out here. He’s got a small camping trailer. It was fall and colder than shit but we stayed out here a week. During the day we’d just drive around. We’d explore, get firewood, go drinking at the bars in Gerlach. We’d drive up to Cedarville and Eagleville. We’d sit in the hot springs. Then in the evening just before dark we’d cook dinner, then we’d get in the trailer and try not to freeze to death. I was pretty damn down. I moped around an awful lot, and my uncle he didn’t know what the hell to do with me. But by the end of the trip I was a hell of a lot better than I was when I first got in his truck on the way out here. Everything makes better sense when you’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘Were you scared? After you drove home and it was over and your uncle left you at your place, did it all come back? The horrible feelings?’

‘They did,’ he said. ‘But then I had this place to daydream in.’

‘And they got less with time?’

‘They can hijack you sometimes. But not like they used to. Not with you around. They don’t seem as bad now. You want a cup of coffee?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I just want you to come back to bed. I’m starting to get cold.’

Chapter 45
The Strip

She had made a pot of coffee and put it in a Thermos. It was midmorning and she was dressed in her warmest clothes, walking to the Cal Neva Casino where Dan Mahony sat on the sidewalk waiting for her.

‘You must be tired,’ he said. ‘This is when you usually sleep, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. I had a little trouble getting going but I wanted to come,’ she said.

‘I brought you some donuts.’

‘You’re gonna make me as fat as a cow,’ she said. She sat next to him on the curb, and poured him a cup of coffee, opened the bag, and took one of the donuts.

‘Can you hear it? They’re just starting,’ he said finally. He stood and helped her to her feet and together they walked down Center Street. He led her across Second Street and turned left towards Virginia.

There were policemen along Virginia Street and barriers closed it off. They waited until the cops let them cross, then they stood on the other side of the street amongst hundreds of people and watched as they got ready to tear down Harold’s Club and the Nevada Club.

Dan took pictures of the buildings and of the workmen and trucks lined along Virginia Street. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘Harold’s Club was one of the first real casinos in this state. With the gimmicks and tricks, with the different kinds of games. Food specials and things like that. Harold Smith was the guy who ran it, then I think his kid ran it. Then I think his grandson, I’m not sure. But those guys ran it for years. In a way they started it all. And now it’s gone. All the old places from that era are disappearing. I guess nothing stays the same. My uncle always says it seems like they just build strip malls now and tear down the beautiful brick buildings and landmarks that tell you about the things that have gone on here in the past. I guess no one here really cares about the past anymore. Might not seem like anything, but maybe it is. So many people move here and to Vegas and all over the West. They don’t have any sorta roots. Maybe chain places are the only roots people have anymore. Maybe roots are Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell and Wendys. And places like Wal-Mart and K-Mart. The people moving here, they don’t know what it was like before, and most of them probably don’t care. Most people think this is an ugly town. I mean, that Harold’s Club sign and the Nevada Club sign, they’re beautiful to me. I don’t know, but I really think they are.’

She took his hand and said, ‘I guess people just need a place to live. Everyone does. It’s hard when something you know changes, when things get worse or different and you remember when times were easier or at least felt safer and not so busy. That’s what Las Vegas was like for me. Where everything changed, and changed for the worse.’

Dan looked across the street at the buildings. ‘I remember my uncle and me walking down the strip and we’d stare at the Harold’s Club sign and my uncle would ask me to tell him about all the people in it. Every time we’d pass by he’d do it. He’d ask me the name of the mountain man, and he’d ask me where the Indian lived and if he was married, and how many kids the lady in the wagon train had. Sometimes we’d go eat at the Kilroy Diner inside the Nevada Club. Just my uncle and me. We’d sit across from each other and talk. He has this way about him that you can talk about anything with him. We’d just sit there and eat, sometimes he’d let me play Keno and sometimes he’d walk me through the casino and he’d tell me what a bunch of suckers all the folks there were. Maybe that’s why I’m here right now, too. Scared to lose the memory of that. Of walking down this street with him staring at those old signs.’

A siren sounded and minutes later the buildings began to implode. They could hear as the charges began and suddenly the two buildings collapsed into rubble. In less than a minute it was over. There was dust and broken concrete and metal. The crowd of people stood, watching, some cheering. The girl looked around at them and then for an instant saw a man who, from the back, looked like Jimmy Bodie. His hair was the same, greased and black. The coat the man wore was black leather and looked like the one Jimmy had. Her heart froze in panic and she stood still, unable to move. Then the man turned, and she saw that it wasn’t him.

She closed her eyes and said to herself, ‘Please don’t let him find me. Please, please, please, please.’ She repeated it again and again until Dan spoke to her and she opened her eyes to see him. She grabbed his hand and kissed him. She kissed him with desperation. She kissed him with fear and hope and uncertainty. And in weakness she gave everything to him right then and there among the people and the fallen, ruined old casino buildings.

P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .

About the author

Meet Willy Vlautin

A Conversation with Willy Vlautin

About the book

“She Fell into Me One Night and I Began Writing Her Story . . .”

Read on

The
Northline
Soundtrack

Have You Read? More by Willy Vlautin

About the author

Meet Willy Vlautin

Willy Vlautin
is the author of
The Motel Life
,
Northline
, and
Lean on Pete
, and the singer and songwriter of the band Richmond Fontaine. He currently resides in Scappoose, Oregon.

A Conversation with Willy Vlautin

What is the best road trip you’ve ever taken?

A few years ago, a day before Christmas, a friend and I were in line buying beer at a grocery store in Portland, Oregon. We didn’t have anywhere to go for the holiday. We didn’t have much going for us at the time either. He looked at me and said, “If I could do anything I’d wake up drunk as hell in Winnemucca on Christmas day.” We started laughing at that and right then we decided to do it. The problem was I didn’t have a car and his didn’t start half the time and it wasn’t insured and had expired tags. He didn’t even have a license. But being the good Samaritan I am, I told him if he drove I’d go with him and we left an hour later. We spent the first night freezing at a closed camp ground. There was snow falling and snow on the ground. The next day we drove into Winnemucca. We spent three days there. It was a trip of good luck and easy times. He won a bit on gambling, there was a great country lounge band in the casino, we met some nice people, ate great Basque food, and the car made it there and back and so did we.

Your alt-country band, Richmond Fontaine, formed in 1994. How did you come by that name?

When we were looking for a band name I told the guys we had to name it the Impalas. Back then I loved the old cars. Dodge Darts where my thing, but also Pontiac LeMans and Impalas. That week it was Impalas. So finally I talked them into it and we were the Impalas and we made up tapes and played a bunch of shows and tried to get something going. Then we found out that there were five other bands in the U.S. called the Impalas. So suddenly we had to change our name. The problem was that none of us could come up with anything. During this time our bass player, Dave Harding, went down to Baja, Mexico, for vacation. He and a friend drove into the desert and they got stuck in the sand out in the boonies. They didn’t know what to do so they just camped by the side of the road and waited. A day went by and then a man drove up in a truck and got out. From what I’ve been told he was an American expat, a burned-out hippy who’d partied too much and had given up on the U.S. But even as burned-out as he was, he helped the guys get out. Afterwards he invited them to his place. The guys followed him home and they stayed with him for a couple days. Supposedly, that time at his trailer was really something. Very crazed.

Dave told us all about him and his place and we all busted over laughing. Turns out his name was Rich Fontaine. Well we had a gig coming up and we had to have a new name so off the cuff we said, “How about Richmond Fontaine?” We all thought it was pretty funny and at the time you don’t think the band will last so you don’t worry much about the name. You just hope no one has the same one. We’ve been together now almost fourteen years.

The
Sun
(London) had this to say about your songwriting: “Quite simply, Vlautin’s one of the most compelling songwriters working today, compared equally to great American novelists like Raymond Carver or John Steinbeck and musicians such as Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits. . . .” Take us back, Willy, to that moment in your life when you least expected to earn this sort of praise.

Well, you know, all that is nice to hear. I can’t say it isn’t, but really, I never think that way. People just have to write things. Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad. In my gut I know I’m not in the league with those guys you’ve mentioned, but to me that’s all right. I’m just glad to have discovered them and I’m glad to get to write stories and songs and get compared to them once in a while. Those guys have gotten me through some serious hard times. I can’t tell you enough how much John Steinbeck and Tom Waits have meant to me. Whenever I start drifting down that path where everything seems too bleak and uncertain I reread
Cannery Row
or
Tortilla Flats
and it pulls me back. His love for working-class people and his good heart have always comforted me. His novels have really helped me out. And Tom Waits—when things go bad for me I always put on Tom Waits. I don’t know why, but I do. When my mom died the only music I listened to for weeks was Tom Waits. I didn’t even think about it, I just always went for his songs and I listened to them over and over. Now I listen to a ton of stuff but there are always those guys who get me through the night. Musically, Tom Waits and Willie Nelson are my guys.

You were born and raised in Reno, Nevada. How deep are your family’s roots there?

My great-great-grandfather worked thirty miles away in Virginia City, home of the Comstock mine, and my great-grandfather was a lawyer in Reno. Supposedly he divorced some pretty famous Hollywood actresses when Reno was the divorce capital of the USA. My dad grew up in San Francisco but spent his summers in Reno and eventually moved there with my mother.

You’ve been known to hole up in a casino hotel in order to write lyrics. Is that how you approach your fiction, too?

I wish I could. I just don’t have enough dough to live in a decent motel full-time. Mostly I write at the local horse track here in Portland, Oregon, where I live. It’s called Portland Meadows. It’s a great place to write. It’s like being in the library but once in a while you can bet on horses or look around and see all the interesting guys. It’s a great time. It’s my favorite thing in the world to sit there and work on stories. If I’m home I’ll always screw around. I’ll always find something else I have to do. Plus there’s
Matlock
and afterwards
Perry Mason
and I’m a real degenerate when it comes to TV.

Which is harder, writing a story or a lyric?

They’re just different. I think it’s easier to write a story, but to write a good one, well, that’s hard. I usually try and take care of myself when I write stories. Maybe try and go running. Lay off getting drunk and staying out late. I try and eat better. It’s all about discipline and putting in the hours, where songs are about emotion. I always write best on a hangover or when my life is falling apart.

Speaking of hangovers, let’s discuss some things you’ve said in interviews. Interviewed by British music magazine
Comes with a Smile
in 2002, you said this: “A lot of the time I suppose I’m trying to confront things that worry me, or scare me in a way that won’t leave me alone. That’s why a lot of the things are so dark. Alcohol has a good hold of me, and has been such a part of my life that it has to be in the songs as well as violence. I’m scared of violence, of seeing it, of being in it. It haunts me, they both do. They’re some of the themes that run in me and I can’t get them out yet.” Heavy stuff, Willy. Has your pursuit of writing allayed or aggravated your fears and compulsions?

One of the great things about writing is that you can drink an awful lot and never be hungover. I wrote this one novel and I swear each guy drank about seventy-five beers a day. It was fun as hell to write and it really did get it out of my system. I could drink all day with these guys and then put them away and do something else. So in general, at least so far, writing has always eased my mind and not aggravated it. It only aggravates it if I’m worried about being good. But that’s just a bad habit to think like that. You just have to do your best. The great thing about writing is you can control your fear and compulsions. You can look at them in silence in the corner of the room and try to figure them out, and most of all you can see them and study them without them physically coming after you. It’s your world and if you bring fear into it then it’s by choice.

How often do you gamble?

Besides betting on horses, I don’t really gamble. What cured me of sports gambling is that my nerves aren’t the best and watching game after game is just too much. It gives me ulcers. As for casino gambling, I’ve never been much for it either, mostly because I’ve never won. For a while I used to cash my paycheck at a casino. When you did you received a free breakfast and six drink tokes and you got a pull on a special slot machine where there was a possibility you could win dinner, a roll of quarters, or even double your paycheck. The problem was, after the pull you most likely just had the drink tokes, the free breakfast, and a week’s pay in your hand. Like a bum I started gambling part of my check away every week. Not much, but some, and some turned into more, and more turned into more. A couple times I got drunk and blew the whole thing. I’d put it on black at the roulette table. I only did it a few times but that was enough. I never won that way. For as stupid of a bet as that is, you’d think I’d hit it at least once. Sadly I never did.

I’ve seen guys lose everything ’cause of gambling—their house, their car, their wife and kids, even their job. It’s a rough habit to kick. I’ve always been too worried about that to get in too deep. And horses, I just like horses and I like the environment at the track. Plus it’s hard to lose too much money ’cause the races are every twenty minutes and I don’t really bet simulcast.

Name your favorite casino.

I really like the sports and race book at the Cal Neva in Reno, Nevada. It’s where I’ve spent the most time. For years I ate there, and it’s the place where I used to cash my paycheck. I always thought I’d end up dating a cool cocktail waitress there. The problem was none would ever give me the time of day and all I ever did was sit by myself and watch horse races and get drunk. But the place is all right for a casino. That’s why I had Allison Johnson work there. I’ve met some great waitresses there. But all in all I’m not a big fan of casinos. They do have interesting people to watch, and in the old days when I was a kid there were great lounge bands, but if you stay in there too long you end up getting suckered into gambling, and once you do that you’re ruined.

“I’m a real romantic about places and the desert is a very romantic place,” you told the
Sun
(London). “I listen to bands from the desert and I love movies set in it.” How often do you get back to the desert?

I’ve always liked movies and novels and records set in the desert. I spent years as a kid driving around in the desert with my dad and then with my mom’s boyfriend. Both of them loved it out there. Nowadays I try to go to the desert as much as I can, but the band and my girlfriend are in Portland, Oregon, so I’m pretty entrenched here. But the high desert has always been my favorite place. Eastern Oregon and Northern Nevada. I also really like Arizona and New Mexico and I think in that quote I’m talking about those states. The last Richmond Fontaine CD,
Thirteen Cities
, was recorded in Tucson, Arizona. I was really excited to make Richmond Fontaine’s version of a desert record.

Name your favorite desert band.

I’m a huge fan of Calexico. They’re based out of Tucson, Arizona. I think they’re the best for desert music. Their instrumentals are really something, and if you ever get to see them live you’ll be hooked.
Hot Rail
and
The Black Light
are good ones to start with but my favorite is
Feast of Wire
.

Your favorite desert movie?

It’s probably
Gas Food Lodging
. It’s a movie set in a desert town in New Mexico. In a lot of ways it’s the story of my brother and me and our life with our mother. It’s a movie that’s stuck with me for years and years and one I really wish I could have written. It’s not often that a movie feels and seems like your real life.

The
Irish Times
(Ireland), reviewing your latest album,
Thirteen Cities
, said: “Willy Vlautin’s songs are musical bedfellows to his novels and short stories. They come from the same space and the same desperate, lonely outsiders populate them, hovering on the edge of despair. . . .” Do you ever tire of this, of the insistent—if inevitable—comparison of your songs and stories?

No, I never really think about it. But in my head the two forms are married. They both come from the same part of me, and my songs become stories and my stories become songs. The comparisons are just easy to make because I have a book out and I’m a story-based songwriter. They compare the two because they’re there. The only real difference between the two is I think I have the ability to be lighter as a novelist, where I’ve always had a hard time being easygoing in my songs. It’s one of my biggest failures as a songwriter.

Also, my songs are usually more personal, even if they just seem like a story. I started writing songs as a kid to help me get my head straight. I was too shy and insecure to talk or admit I was having a hard time, but for a while I had a hard time. So my songs always come from that side of me, even twenty-five years later. But my stories, although dark, seem to breathe a bit easier.

“I’ve been writing novels since I was twenty-one,” you told the
Rocky Mountain News
(Denver). “I’ve written five of them. I’ll write a draft and put it away.” So much talent, so much energy—one half expects to learn you never tour without your easel and watercolors. Into which additional genres does your mythic creativity take you?