“Thanks. I just meant a business card. You know. In case I want to call. In case I need to get in touch with you for some reason.”
“Oh. No. Not really. But I can write the number on there.” He takes the coffee card and writes on the back in red pen.
“Thanks.”
Flip gathers his computer, cord, and other materials. Thi joins him so he can wipe the table.
“Thanks again,” Flip says, and pushes on the door.
“See you around.”
“Hey, Thi. Did your dad grow up around here?”
“Yeah, sure did.”
“What’s his name? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Christopher Hafner.”
Flip nods, then he walks out into the glare and the heat. He hates feeling so visible, so exposed.
His hunch had been right. He and Chris Hafner had been friends in high school. Graduated the same year. Flip had gone off to college and Chris had stayed to work for his dad’s contracting business. Thi might have been reading the same copy of Neuromancer that Flip loaned Chris twenty-five years earlier. Small world, he thinks. Then he starts walking.
Heavy Breathing
Back at the Lakeside, when he tramps tiredly into the back lot, Flip can see his door is standing open. He looks over at Dean’s table and chairs to double-check his bearings. Yes. My door is standing open.
He tries to hustle it up, but he’s too beat. He’s panting, his shirt is sticking to him, his shorts are plastered to his thighs, and he has a pebble in his shoe, and it’s a sharp pebble.
He approaches his room cautiously, spies someone smallish through a gap in the curtains. His body blocks the sunlight and casts a shadow as he steps into his doorway. He draws breath in order to ask what the hell is going on. But hesitates when he finds a woman leaning over his bed. For a frightening moment his mind flashes to the crazy mom from that morning and then to Lynn. Perhaps she has come to him. Perhaps she has missed him. But then the figure turns and smiles.
She is young, completely unadorned with jewelry or makeup, and has her long dark hair pulled back into a practical ponytail. Despite his body blocking most of the daylight, her teeth and eyes sparkle next to her caramel-colored skin. She tugs down the tail of her fitted shirt and tucks her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, like a bashful kid.
“Hello, Mr. Mellis. I’ll be out of your way in a moment. Just straightening up a bit.” She sounds slightly nervous.
Then she’s all motion. She snags a wadded pile of towels and sheets from the floor and strides toward him; he doesn’t move out of her way.
“I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“I’m Vanessa,” she says, looking up at him. “I do the bedding and towels. Didn’t Mrs. Wallace tell you? Sometimes she forgets.” She stands very close as she speaks, her body giving off a pleasant, fresh smell, like something tasty baking in an oven. His mouth starts to water.
“Yes. I think she told me. She said something. I remember that she said something,” he says uselessly.
“Could you excuse me, Mr. Mellis?”
“Oh sure. Sorry.” He moves to let her squeeze by, then leans out his doorway to watch her go. She drops the bedding in a pushcart sitting past Dean’s door.
“I’ll be back again on Tuesday.” She twists a bit at the hips and looks over her shoulder as if she could feel him watching her, expected to have his attention. Her neck is graceful, like that bust of Nefertiti. “Remember to use the hamper for towels, please.” She gives a quick, warm wave and disappears around the corner with her supply cart.
He completely forgets his exhaustion and hunger, the fact he has a rock in his shoe, and that his bag’s strap is wearing a groove in his shoulder. Dazed is the word for how he feels as he sets his bag on the freshly made bed. Maybe I’m having a blood sugar issue.
He sees that he left dirty clothes, including boxer shorts the size of a child’s sleeping bag, randomly littered across the floor. Figures. He flops back on the bed and wallows in the smell of the clean bedcover and his own loneliness. He drifts into sleep.
A few hours later, the kitchen tap spits a few times like an angry kitten when he tries to run the water, and when it starts to flow it’s warm and tinted orange. He lets it run across his fingers until it’s cool and clear. He fills a plastic tumbler and guzzles it down. He repeats the process a number of times, then showers and changes clothes. Refreshed, hydrated, and no longer sticky, he sits on the side of the bed near the telephone and takes out his to-do list. His clean outfit is nearly identical to the one he changed out of.
He calls information and jots down Kristin’s number. When he dials it, it chirps a few times before going to the answering machine. He leaves a message. Then he retrieves a card from his pocket and calls Dr. Hawkins.
“This is Dr. Hawkins,” a rich voice says, very professionally.
“Doc. This is Flip Mellis.”
“Mr. Mellis. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I just wanted to leave the contact information like I promised.” He leaves the information. “I guess that’s it. See you Thursday, bright and early.”
“Hold on just a second, Mr. Mellis. Do you have a minute to talk?”
“I’m kinda in the middle of something here,” Flip says.
“Really, it will only take a moment. I have something pressing to get to also.”
Flip can hear a woman’s voice in the background. He imagines it’s the waitress. What’s her name? Kelli. He thinks of her lounging naked on the doc’s bed, a sheet strategically covering parts of her body, but leaving long stretches of smooth skin exposed. In this scenario, the doc is sitting at the side of the bed, much as Flip is now. Flip looks back at the bed behind him. He tries to imagine Lynn, nude and playful, but he can’t quite get there. An image of Vanessa pops into his head instead. He banishes it as quickly as possible.
“Do you have a minute?” the doctor asks again.
“All right. Yes. What is it?”
“How are things going? Did you contact someone to speak to?”
“Like I said, things are okay. I got a call from a company that wants to interview me sometime next week.”
“That’s great news. You said that was the most important thing. You must feel happy. How do you feel about it? Do you feel happy?”
“I’m relieved. But mostly I am focused on getting prepared. Not really thinking beyond that right now. I have to get focused, get my game face on. One step at a time.” Flip finds he’s doodling on his legal pad, making an expanding labyrinth pattern.
“And what about contacting someone to talk to? A friend or family member who might be supportive?”
“It’s on my list.” Flip thinks he hears the woman’s voice again. It could just be a TV.
“Try to get to it today. Okay?”
“Yes.” Flip continues to make marks on his notepad.
“And no alcohol at all. Right? No pills, no chemicals.”
“Perish the thought,” Flip replies.
They say their goodbyes and disconnect. He finishes his maze and sets the pen down, then stews over the idea of calling a “friend.” He’s a grown man. He doesn’t really have friends any more. He has responsibilities—responsibilities that he has failed to take care of. He has never been the kind of person to hang out over beers or sports and complain about how much of a nag his wife is to a bunch of middle-aged men who happen to have kids in the same school as his own.
Lynn is his best friend, his only true, adult friend. But she can’t stand him and is kicking him to the curb, which may disqualify her as “supportive.” At least for the moment. Besides, the doc meant someone outside the current state of bedlam that constitutes his life.
Maybe he could call up Christopher Hafner. Ask if he wanted to get together and play a round of Car Wars. Dumb. He knows who he’ll end up calling. But he isn’t up to it yet.
It would be marginally easier to call home. Though that scares him too. He punches the buttons on his phone.<
br />
“Hello,” Sara answers.
“It’s me. Just wanted to check in.”
“Oh,” she says, unenthusiastically. “It’s Dad,” she says to someone. The phone knocks against a hard surface. Moments pass, and Flip wonders if the connection has been lost. That phrase strikes him as apt. The connection has been lost.
“Hello?” he says. “HELLO! HELL-O!” Nothing. Then he hears quick feet and the phone knocked around.
“Hi, Dad,” Dyl’s voice is sweet, but he pants heavily into the receiver, like some grade-school pervert.
“Heya buddy, how you doing? Did you watch cartoons this morning?”
“What?” Heavy breathing.
“Did you watch cartoons?”
“What?” Heavy breathing.
“Dylan, put the phone on your ear. Dylan?” A dial tone blares.
Flip returns the phone to its perch.
He thinks about calling back. He wants to be with his family; he should be in his own home. If he can’t get back there, he’ll kill himself. That’s all. He will do it right: with a gun. He will call Thi and buy a gun from Thi’s buddy, then he’ll drive somewhere, or walk, and just put the cold barrel against his temple, right there on the side of the bed in a cheap motel, maybe in the same room where he and Lynn made love all those years ago. Just sit right down, put the gun on his temple, and pull the trigger. Easy-peasy-ham-and-cheesy.
But he made the doc a promise. He’ll have to wait. Death isn’t what he wants, not really. He wants the stress and pain to stop. He can’t see any reason to persevere if there’s no hope that things will get better. What he truly wants is to be home, with his family. To be in a bed he shares with his wife, not at the other end of the house. Definitely not all the way across town. He’ll give things time to develop, buck up and push through for a while longer. But one way or another, it will all be over soon.
Truth is, he was already offered a good job. The day he was fired from McCorkle-Smithe he called up a headhunter who had been courting him for a while. Within a week he had a solid offer for a position down in Houston. But with the crash of the real estate market, all the equity they had built in their home was dried up. They couldn’t put a down payment on a new mortgage, his kids would be miserable if they had to move, and Lynn wouldn’t want to leave her mother. The only option had been for him to move on his own, live out of an apartment, and send his paychecks back. But that didn’t feel like family. He wouldn’t do it. He turned it down and told Lynn it had fallen through. Looking at the shape of his life now, he realizes what a stupid decision it had been.
He looks down at the legal pad, takes up his pen again, and begins at the opening of the maze. His pen races through the design until he comes to a dead end. He moves the pen tip back to an intersection and tries a different direction, again a dead end. After several more attempts, he realizes he’s left himself no way out.
He feels suddenly tense and short of breath. The only thing he’s really ever felt proud of is his relationship and his children. Maybe he took them for granted for too long.
He touches his palm to his chest. His breath catches in his lungs, his eyes burn, and his heart aches. There is a pressure building and he thinks, this is me having a heart attack.
He takes a deep breath. He counts in his head. He exhales. The tension passes, though he is damp with sweat again.
It’s nothing, he tells himself. Just emotions. The older he gets, the less capable he feels of processing deep emotion. It hurts to feel so much, or maybe it’s only my bruised chest.
Initiates Clandestine Purchase
He has other calls to make, but feels too shitty. He tries eating cold leftover Chinese food. The sauce has congealed. He scoops it with a plastic spork and spreads it on one of the remaining crab Rangoons. After a few bites, he feels horrid and puts the rest away.
He does a few pushups and checks it off his list. Then he goes next door and knocks on Dean’s door.
“Uno momento, por favor,” Dean calls.
Flip takes a seat on the veranda as a red convertible rips around the corner and into the parking lot. It’s an early ’70s Cutlass Supreme with matching red-painted mag wheels. The top is down and the driver shoves on the horn as he whips into a parking spot. The driver leaves the car running and the driver’s side door open. He stands beside the car with his hands on his skinny hips.
“Vanessa,” he yells toward the far end of the motel. “Vanessa,” he yells again in Flip’s direction. He waits a few seconds, then storms toward the motel office.
The door to Number Four creaks opens. The back of a gray head leans out. The head watches the loudmouth driver, then tucks back in and lets the door slam. Flip hears Gray Head employ the security chain.
“Ah,” Dean says as he steps outside. “The boyfriend is pissed again.”
“It looks that way.”
“He is pissed every other day. She could really do better than him. Though he is a tall drink of water.”
“You think so? He looks like a snot to me. But first impressions can be deceiving.”
“No. I think you nailed it.”
They both look fixedly toward the office for a while. Then Dean says, “Let me just finish something inside and I’ll join you in a moment. Oh. Tell me what happens.” He goes back in.
Flip picks at the hardened wax flow on the side of the tiki candle and snaps off delicate little sections, pitching the crumbles on the ground between his feet. After a minute, the boyfriend’s voice precedes Vanessa out of the office.
“. . . think I give a shit if the dryer is getting old. You want me to pick you up, you be fucking ready. I drive all the way out here, and you ain’t even ready.” He has Vanessa by the elbow and is quickly marching her toward his car. He opens the passenger side door and deposits her. He slams the door and strides around to the other side. He doesn’t look around, but Vanessa looks over at Flip, makes a face he takes to be an unspoken apology. He nods and waves to let her know it’s fine, but he can’t imagine what she thinks she has to apologize for. The Cutlass backs in a huge arc, skids to a stop, slams into gear, and peels out of the lot, kicking out asphalt pieces as it goes.
Flip feels bitter emotions rise up in him, a white, hot ember of rage pinches between his eyebrows, his whole face gathers into a painful scowl. He slaps his hand against the café table so hard the candle clatters over, extinguishing the flame and spilling liquid wax. He sets the tiki up and goes in his room.
He paces and punches the mattress a few times. He doesn’t like to see people bullied, especially not Vanessa. Which is strange and stupid, but true. Maybe he feels a kind of warm and gentle promise implied in her large dark eyes and her generous curves. Maybe she’s just a beautiful, blank slate for all his wants and dreams for a woman in his life. Or maybe he’s feeling parental toward her. If he stopped to analyze closely, he might say it’s a combination, which, upon further analysis, seems sick and wrong, but he is too unreasonably angry to pause and think. The higher functioning part of his brain has taken a back seat to something deeper and more basic. When he replays the moment when Vanessa looked over to him, he thinks maybe she was asking for help. And I want to help.
He looks around his room and finds the bottle of pain pills sitting next to the clock radio. Not where I left them. He tips two into his palm and pops them. The bottle is over half gone. I must be going through them faster than I thought. He shuffles business cards and snapshots from his pocket until he finds the one with coffee beans, turns it over, and reads the handwritten number. He gets on the phone and calls Thi.
“Drum Roaster,” Thi answers.
“This is Flip. From a little earlier. Remember?”
“Yeah. Hey. What’s up?”
“I would be interested in purchasing that specialty item from your friend. You know the one we talked about? As soon as possible.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Sorry. What were we talking about?”
Flip doesn’t want to say it over the
phone. He wants to speak in code. But specialty item didn’t do the trick. Kev must use a special language for making subversive transactions, something cool and easy. “You know. I want to buy that ticket to that show your friend is selling,” Flip tries.
“I’m really confused. Are you sure you called the right number?”
After a brief hesitation he goes, “A handgun. I want to buy a gun. Can you see if your friend still wants to sell a gun?”
“Right,” Thi says. “Now I get it. That’s what you meant? I remember. Yeah. Is that what you were talking about? Oh. I get it,” Thi laughs a small good-natured laugh. “I don’t think the feds have the phone tapped, man. I can text him now. When you want to do it?”
“Tomorrow,” Flip says. “And please don’t say feds.” Then he realizes he said it too. He immediately becomes aware the whole situation is a bad idea. His anger begins to ebb, and he feels tired, old, fat, and foolish. The tension leaves his face, seeps from his shoulders until he slumps down on the side of the bed.
“No can do. Chad’s dad is a preacher. He’s got church stuff all day tomorrow. How about Monday after school? Four o’clock maybe. Unless you want to meet him at the church?”
Shit. He’s on the phone trying to make an illegal handgun purchase from a high school kid. Maybe he’s at the community college. He should call it off, but instead he says, “Monday is good. Just let me know the particulars after you check with Chad.”
“You want to buy some weed or anything while you’re at it? ’Cause Chad is the guy who can make it happen.”
“No. Just the gun.” He leaves his number and hangs up. Weed might not be the worst idea.
Back on the veranda he’s bothered that the gun dealer’s name is Chad. He hates the name, considers it a bad omen. All the bad guys in eighties movies featuring evil yuppies and spoiled trust fund kids were named Chad; they dressed in blazers with the sleeves pushed up on their forearms, traveled in roving herds of sneering sycophants, like a malicious Ralph Lauren ad.
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