Leaving Las Vegas (14 page)

He awakens on a hard cold floor; it is wet. His eyes see only white. As consciousness returns, more or less fully, he realizes that he is on the floor of a public rest room, his head in a urinal. There is sand on the floor, and looking around, he sees that it is one of the public beach rest rooms. Very nice. Sitting up he finds himself still in one piece, unmolested and unrobbed; in any case, his big money is safe at home. Stiffly he stands. He rinses his mouth and splashes his face. Outside, the recently risen sun reveals his car, alone in a parking lot about a hundred yards away. The keys are in his pocket, along with a wad of blue American Express receipts. He is amazed at how well he is taking this. A year ago, if he had found himself sleeping in a urinal, he probably would have committed suicide on the spot—death by grossness. Instead he goes back into the rest room and cleans up as well as he can. He recognized a restaurant up on the road; he is just south of Malibu.

He gets up to his car and pulls out onto the coast highway. He’ll head for home, to shower and rest and get his stuff, and then drive to Las Vegas. He makes a mental note to call ahead and get a room, as he’ll no doubt need a bed as soon as he hits town. A bed, not a urinal, he thinks, that sort of thing has got to stop before it gets worse… worse? First he needs a drink. It is early so, thinking that he will have to make do with a six-pack for now, he looks for a market. But apparently his luck is holding; he sees a bona fide fully liquor-licensed restaurant that is serving breakfast. The banner reads:
Hair-of-the-shark special. Two eggs, Two strips of
bacon, Two pieces of toast, and Two marys, screws, or hounds. Your choice.
Bloody marys, screwdrivers, or greyhounds—breakfast of carrion, he thinks, pulling into the lot.

“Hi. Have you had a chance to look at the menu?” says a bouncy young ponytailed girl, pencil at the ready. Ben is seated on the sunny patio, and the waitress is politely ignoring the fact that he is, at best, disheveled.

He envies her seemingly happy life, her willingness to stay ignorant of his miserable condition. He keeps getting whiffs of urine from, he guesses, his own face, and hopes she doesn’t notice; but again, he’s not as mortified about it as he ought to be. Perhaps this is how the mind starts going. An early warning sign of mental illness: the subject readily accepts the odor of piss on his own face.

“Good Morning,” he says, “I would like a piece of dry white toast and two double Bombay-tonics, please.” He awaits her reaction. Inside he feels anxiety rearing its nasty little head. He knows that he is still well-loaded from last night, but just the same its time for more. Now.

“That’s all?” she asks, getting it all down. Surprisingly, she is not surprised. Perhaps she is not as young as she looks.

“That’s it for now,” he says. “Oh, you do take American Express here, right?”

“Yes sir, sure do.” For some reason, she beams with this information. “But there is a ten dollar minimum.”

“No problem,” he says, urine assailing his nostrils. “Could you point me to the rest room? I’ve had a little accident.”

She picks up his menu. “Right down there,” she says, pointing.

He gets up, and with difficulty, walks. The rich odor from the coffee machine reaches him and momentarily replaces the foul smells of his night. He hears a sea gull scream, feels a cool ocean breeze. He already misses Los Angeles, the whole fucking place.

Her first sensation is thirst; then she feels wet. Her bed is saturated with sweat, so much that it could be wrung from the sheets, and it
has grown cold and terribly uncomfortable during the night. It is her sweat, and though she hates the way it feels, against and alienated from her skin, she remains where she is, staring at the ceiling and vaguely wondering why the cracks in the plaster no longer bother her. Al, her old and new lover, occupies the place next to her. Still asleep, the expression on his face is one of garlic aplomb. His eyes are deep in their sockets, as if in retreat from too many miles witnessed. Sera’s eyes do not move; her mouth is dry and open. The bed is cold, wet, and fucked-up, and she wonders if it isn’t time to get out of it; indeed, the sun is already stale in the sky.

Awakening two hours later, Al finds her lying next to him. The wetness of the bed delivers its message to him, and he secretly
revels in the fact that he can still create this much terror in her. Safely on his target, he now admits to himself his recent doubts about his power over her. Clearly it continues to exist; she remains his possession.

“I missed you, Sera. You have been lonely,” he says, master of the assertive question.

She blinks and turns her head to him—two motions. “I’m older now, Al.”

“But still a flower. Why such a little home? Why such a little life?” He slides his hand under the sheet and grasps firmly between her legs, his large hand easily encompassing her, meeting neither resistance nor acceptance. “You have been lonely.”

Suddenly the cracked plaster on the ceiling makes sense. She
has
been lonely. His voice makes sense. This voice from so long ago—she was so young and clean then, had never been bruised—makes sense, could almost be soothing. She feels so many blanks, so many vacant strings of thought. “I’ve been all right,” she says.

“You don’t look like you have been all right, flower. You have bruises on your face. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I have been trying to keep an eye on you for the last week, but I also had other business. This will not happen again. I will keep you safe.” He rolls to her side and whispers, “We are both older. You have been lonely.”

The flow of sweat resumes; she has never been so thirsty. “I am lonely, Al.”

“Yes,” he says, mounting her, “so am I.” And later: “I am very hungry, Sera. We must discuss things as you make my breakfast.”

Sera expressionless and Al indifferent, they sit at her little table and eat, he more than she; in fact, she not at all.

“I cannot stay here with you, Sera. At least not until you find a larger apartment. We will have the money—you know how much money I can bring you—and we will find a big apartment…
no, a condominium! I like it here in Las Vegas. I have not been here for years—since before I knew you. But I like it. I think we can make a fortune again here.” Taking a bite of food, he smiles hungrily at her. “You are sly! You knew all along that there was money here, didn’t you?” Protracted, pensive chewing, a swallow, then: “Why else would you have run away.”

She tenses and looks down at her cold food.
Will he hurt me now?

As before in the bed, he can smell her fear, and it is enough. This is all he needs, just a little confirmation. He laughs, “No… I told you that you have nothing to fear from me. Just accept me, Sera. We belong together.”

Not knowing what else to do, she nods. She thinks to smile, and does that; she used to do that a lot. Apart from these little gestures, she has no idea what to do or how to behave. She decides to sit still and wait for his cue. Beyond that it’s just fog.

“What I wish to tell you is this: I must move into one of the hotels—temporarily, of course. I need some time to establish new contacts for us. Also, you can see that these are not the sort of surroundings I am accustomed to. You know, I truly belong in wealth and luxury. You will call this morning and find a suite for me in one of the tall buildings. Perhaps the Sahara would be best. I remember it from my last trip. It is not the mockery that some of the newer hotels are.”

Momentarily confused, she asks, “Where have you been staying?”

He drops his fork. “With an old friend,” he tells her. “That is none of your affair.”

A hole appears in the fog, small and really only a logical tiptoe away. “You’ll need some money then,” she says.

He measures his anger. It is still very soon, and he has been away for a long time. “It is, after all, Sera, my money.”

“Yes, of course it is, Al,” she says as she rises to fetch it. “How much do you want?”

“All of it. I need some clothes and things. I will try to line up some things after I check into my suite, but it will take time, and we may have to work a bar tonight. Maybe you should work the street. I have been watching you. You have a place that you like. You can go there if I am busy.”

Clothes and things?
She steps closer to him. One. Two.

Pressure. Al hates this scrutiny. It is not as it used to be, he thinks. Enough is enough. “What are you looking at,” he screams, slamming his fist on the table and causing his plate to rattle threateningly, but not overturn.

“Where’s all your jewelry, Al?” she asks, but by now she has guessed the answer, even before the emerald of his one remaining ring tears the still-bruised flesh of her cheek. She tumbles back against the refrigerator and crumples to the floor.

With surprisingly weak knees, Al sits down. He is trembling, and is disconcerted to find that it is not out of anger. He dare not rise to help her, but rather, sits at the table and watches her stillness. Indeed, they are both older.

Early in the evening as she prepares for whatever it is that Al will ask her to do, Sera once again finds herself on both sides of her mirror. In addition to a persistent headache, Al’s backhand imparted a message to her in the form of a laceration on her cheekbone. Over the last decade her flesh has taken enough abuse for her to know that this cut will never completely heal. There will be a small white scar here that will last until the day comes for it to disappear into the depths of a wrinkle, the first ever permanent infliction to be borne on her face. It establishes itself amidst her
beauty even now, as the bruise beneath it, leftover from her misfortune with the three boys, labors confusedly at the final stages of healing.

But the scar is not the message; it is merely the messenger. Unlike the light, constant of speed as it paints and repaints the image before her, her thoughts are slowing, deteriorating as she sits by, the helpless spectator. Part of her wants to be detached, but a deeper, more elemental part cannot be. The fat man at the Hilton, though merely Al’s instrument, was a much harder trick than even the misdirected boys of earlier in the week. She can’t seem to fix this one, and she’s not sure that she even cares. There is a difference, but she doesn’t know what it is. Something is missing that was here before, but she doesn’t know what it is.

She cries—a privilege of being alone in her room—and a saline tear stings the cut of her cheek as it washes by, taking with it a partial coating of flesh-colored powder which she was hoping might help to hide the wound. Thus laden, the tear falls from her chin and onto her panties, where it is swallowed by black lace. All is well about this, for the panties might easily have been white lace, and the tear more of a provocation.

Fully dressed, Sera tires of the mirror and goes instead to the living room to wait for Al’s call. Here she turns on the television and watches not the screen, but the lambency it creates on an opposing wall. It is the stuff that dreams are made of, so with the volume off and the silence in the apartment unbroken by the phone, she falls asleep for the duration of the night.