The Motel Life (12 page)

I walked all through town, up and down the neighborhoods, and finally when I got too tired to keep going I ended up sleeping in Idlewild Park underneath a tree. I curled up tight and fell asleep for a couple hours.

But morning didn’t make anything better. The moment I woke I saw her like that, kneeling on the worn out carpet with that look on her face. I felt like that image would never leave me. That it would never go away, like a tattoo, like a scar.

I didn’t go to my job. I called in and told them I was sick, and then I went back to our room. Jerry Lee was at work and I lay on my bed and cried.

It was still morning when she came to my door. I let her in and fell back on my bed. I could barely breathe, my breath so tight it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Like a horse was laying on me.

She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. When I looked at her, you could tell she’d been crying herself, her face all swollen and red.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘I don’t care,’ was all I could get out.

‘I hated doing that, what you saw. I did, I really did. It wasn’t
my fault. It wasn’t. You don’t know what it’s like. My mom, she owed this guy a whole bunch of money, and he said he was gonna kill her, so that’s what I had to do so she could pay him off. My mom used to make me sometimes. I don’t do it anymore. I used to, when I was younger I had to. She knew I was moving in with you and she knew she couldn’t get me to do it anymore. She said I had to pay her back. She said she’d get killed if I didn’t help. I swear, she made me.’

‘You’re a fucking hooker,’ I said to her. ‘Like your mom, you’re just like her.’

‘I am not,’ she said and began sobbing. ‘You take that back, Frank Flannigan. I’m not like her.’

‘How can you say that?’ I said.

‘I love you, Frank, I swear I do. I’ve never been with anyone ’cause I wanted to. Not until I was with you. I swear. I ain’t a hooker, I swear I’m not. I’m not like that at all. I want to be a good person. I want to be with you. I don’t look at anyone else, I don’t want anyone else. What happened was different. You don’t know what it’s been like with her and me. You don’t know.’

‘What should I think?’ I said. I couldn’t sit up. It was like I was tired but jittery all at the same time.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘I can’t believe you’d do that,’ I said.

‘I don’t have anyone besides you,’ she said. Her voice was falling apart. She was beginning to hyperventilate from crying. ‘I know I’m a bad person, but I can be good. You know I can. And you don’t know what it’s like with her. It’s been that way my whole life. Don’t take us away. If you do, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll probably just die.’

‘You should’ve just left with me if you had to do stuff like that. When she asked you, you should have. You stay over here all the time anyway. You always say you’re gonna move in, but you never do.’

‘I know,’ she said. She paused and wiped her eyes. She got up and went to the bathroom and blew her nose. She stood in the door. ‘I was scared. She went on and on about all the things she’d done for me, and how that guy you saw was gonna kill her. He really did say he was gonna kill her.’

I sat up on the bed. ‘I don’t think I can see you anymore.’

She began crying harder. She fell to the ground. ‘Please don’t, Frank. I won’t ever go back there. I won’t ever. I’ll leave everything I own there. I’ll do whatever you say.’

‘Then leave,’ I said.

‘You can trust me, I swear I can be good. You’ve seen me. I try hard. I’ve been good to you.’

But every time I wanted to forgive her, the image with that guy came in my mind.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Don’t make me, Frank, please don’t make me.’

I got up off the bed. I looked at her, and just looking made me want to die and to kill her all at the same time. It really felt like that. I put on my shoes.

‘I’ll walk you out,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said, still crying. ‘Please don’t do this, please. I can’t lose you. Really, Frank, don’t. I can’t go back there. I want to be with you. I swear to God I do.’

She curled into a ball on the floor begging me not to make her go.

I remember I got her to her feet and made her leave. I told her I’d bring her stuff by later, in the next couple of days, but that I didn’t want to see her anymore. The last thing I told her was that she was a hooker. That in my mind she was now just a prostitute. I stood there in the hallway of the Mizpah and said it to her, just like that.

She was leaning against the hallway, crying. Her eyes red, her nose leaking, and tears everywhere.

‘Don’t,’ was all she said. Then I went back into my room, shut the door and locked it.

Jerry Lee came in that night but I couldn’t tell him what had happened. I just lay there, sleeping a little here and there, mostly I just felt ruined and exhausted. When I’d get to sleep it was bad. Tossing and turning, and waking with the shakes. The next morning I called in sick again. Jerry Lee and I went down to the Golden Nugget and had breakfast, and I walked him to work.

I spent most of the day at the river, and by the end I decided to try to talk to her. That I would go to her place and see what she said.

When I got to her room, though, it was empty. The curtains were open and I could see all their things were gone. I went to the manager and he said they had checked out that morning, the two of them, but he didn’t know where they’d gone.

19

THE NEXT MORNING
I wrapped the dog in my coat and carried him down to the street so no one would see him. It was going to snow again. The temperature was dropping. We went all the way down Virginia Street to Landrums, the old lunch counter which sat only eight people. I got bacon and eggs, saving the bacon for the dog, who waited outside underneath the bus bench. I got a coffee to go and drank it to keep warm as we walked towards Jerry Lee’s old room. I took side streets so the dog could walk on lawns.

When we made it back downtown I walked past the El Cortez Lounge, and as I did so, Al Casey came running out. I was across the street from him, and when the traffic cleared, he made his way over.

‘Jesus, Al, what happened to you?’

He was dressed in an orange jogging suit and his face was swollen with two black eyes, his nose was bent and bruised, there
was dried blood around his nostrils, his lips were cracked and covered with Vaseline. There was a bandage on his head.

‘Damn, I’m out of shape.’ He bent over to catch his breath. ‘Where you going?’

‘To my brother’s place. What the hell happened to you?’

‘I was walking home the other night after I’d rented a movie and a couple of these redneck bastards were waiting outside that gay bar on Virginia. The one with numbers on the outside. Near the vegetarian joint. Anyway, they called me a queer, and pushed me down and kicked the shit out of me in that parking lot across the street. I don’t know why they did it. I thought I was gonna die. It was that bad. Finally I just curled up in a cannonball and tried to wait it out. All because I was wearing a light green suit and walking by that place. I didn’t even know who the fuck they were, I’d never seen them in my life. My question is, why would you want to beat up a guy just for walking down the street? It was just terrible, Frank. And guess what movie I was renting?’

I shook my head.

‘
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, for Christsakes. It was Saturday and I felt like being in a good mood. You know? And they stole the movie. I remember one of them picked it up and looked at it, then just took it.’

‘Jesus,’ I said. Al was drunk, and blood from his nose began to drip on his suit.

‘Your nose is starting up.’

‘I’m a fucking mess,’ he said. He took a napkin from his pocket, tore a small piece from it, rolled it with his fingers and stuck it in his nose. ‘Guess where I’m going?’

‘Where?’

‘You know Darren Hofchek?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘He’s a guy who used to work at the pawn shop with me. The tall son of a bitch. Got the overbite.’

‘I’ve seen him, I think,’ I said.

‘Well, somehow he got two weeks in a condo up at Heavenly. You can ski right to your room. Free tickets and free lodging. We’re leaving tonight. Can you imagine that? Me as fucked up as I am, skiing down the fucking mountain. With the black eyes and the nose. I won’t be getting any ladies on this trip.’

The napkin in his nose fell out and dropped to the ground.

‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I guess I’m leaking pretty bad.’ He took the napkin from his pocket again and shoved another piece into his nose.

‘Whose dog is that?’ he asked.

‘Mine,’ I said.

‘It’s a good looking dog,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Well, tell your brother hello, and I’ll see you when I get back. I’d like to stay and talk but it’s colder than fuck out here, and I got a game of gin going inside. I’ll see you in a couple weeks. Tell your brother to hang in there.’

‘I will,’ I said, and with that Al disappeared back across the street and into the El Cortez.

Jerry Lee’s room was at the Rancho Sierra Motel on Fourth Street. It was on the good side of Fourth, near the Gold Dust West Casino, near the Gold n’ Silver.

Inside, it was like any other motel room, but his bed was made and his room was neat. His shirts were hanging in the closet and
the rest of his clothes were folded and kept in the drawer. He kept his things like that, clean and in order and put away.

Along the walls of the room were sketch drawings he’d done. Most were done in pencil or charcoal. One wall was covered with pictures just of motel signs, small ones the size of a piece of binder paper. The Mizpah, the Morris, the Chalet, the 777, Heart of Reno, the Sandman, the Ox-Bow, the Americana, the Ho Hum, the Horseshoe, the Riverhouse, the El Cortez, the Shamrock Inn, the Star of Reno, the Grand, the Rancho, the Austin Arms, the Keno Motel, the El Ray, the Town View, the Windsor, the Olympic, the Ace, the Cabana, the Reno Royal, the City Center, the In-Town, the Stardust, the Sage, the Fireside, the Roulette, the White Court, the Thunderbird, the Monte Carlo, the Sutro, the Lucky, the Desert Sunset, HI-WAY 40, Everybody’s Inn Motel, the Mid-Town, the 7/11, the Down Towner, the Reno Riviera, the Heart O’ Town, the Golden West, the Uptown, the Savory, the Flamingo, the Coach, the Shamrock, the Aspen, the Gold Key, the Wonder Lodge, the Time Zone, the Horse Shoe, the Mardi Gras, the Capri, the Castaway, and the Fireside Inn.

Most of those are within a mile of downtown, and most aren’t even real motels anymore. Once they were new and held vacationers and honeymooners from all over the country, and now they barely survive as residentials. And the people that stay there, they’re on the slide too. They get worse as the buildings do.

Above his bed there were sketches of women, most naked, some looked like showgirls, others had tattoos, some were riding bikes, one girl was parachuting. My favorite was a huge picture of naked girls playing baseball.

On the wall behind the TV were drawings of cowboys and
Indians. In some they were fighting and there was blood and guts everywhere and in others they were all just sitting around a fire. There were a lot of drawings of a woman he named Marge. Jerry Lee called her his wife. He had drawings of her swimming in the river, or sleeping in a bed, or laying in a bathtub. There was one of her water-skiing and another of her trap shooting. She was real good looking, and she was peaceful and calm, and you could tell just by looking at her that she was a nice person.

I put all his clothes and things that wouldn’t break in garbage bags, and set them by the door. The dog got up on the bed and fell asleep while I took down all the drawings and put them between two pieces of cardboard that Jerry Lee kept for them.

Finally, I was done, and I called a cab and when it came I loaded all Jerry Lee’s things into it and had the driver take us to my place.

That afternoon I left the dog once again outside the hospital, in the courtyard, and went up in the elevator to Jerry Lee’s room. The room was empty, just him in the same bed alone, and he lay there watching
The Young and the Restless
. He had shaved and his hair was combed back.

‘How you doing?’ I asked and pulled a chair next to him.

‘All right, I guess. They gave me a bath in bed. This fat lady did it with a wash cloth and a sponge. She was sucking on cough drops and had snot leaking down her face but she was pretty nice. It felt all right.’

‘You look better,’ I said.

‘I feel better,’ he said.

‘I moved your stuff out.’

‘Were they all right to you?’

‘I didn’t even see anyone.’

‘Good.’

‘I got to get some money, I guess, I’m almost out,’ I told him halfheartedly and sat down.

‘Maybe you could just pick day work. Maybe Claire needs a room painted, something like that. Will you do one thing else for me, Frank?’

‘What’s that?’ I asked him.

‘Tommy owes me a couple hundred dollars. Could you get it for me, and when you see him will you see if we can get an extra couple hundred off him?’

‘Sure,’ I said.