“I don’t have another car. I’ll need this one for two months.” They looked at each other happy for a problem to resolve.
“I think we can work that out.”
“And I’d like a letter of recommendation, just say-ing I was let go because of market conditions or something.”
“We can do that. I’ll send them to you as soon as I receive your files, if can buy some boxes and send them UPS, put them it on this week’s expense report, which will be your last one.” It was winding up, it had taken just a few minutes. I had kept my dignity and so had they. “We’ll come down with you, we need to check the car.” Harrry had move to the bed to make a phone call, lying across it with his short legs hanging off and looking like a cheap whore in a suit. Skip moved out the door and we walked down the hall, it wasn’t my place to say goodbye to Harry so I didn’t. As we neared the elevator he came running down the hall, tiny, nervous, not wanting to miss a thing. His ridiculousness made me feel stronger. I broke the silence in the elevator.
“How long will you be here?”
“We’re leaving tonight.” We walked silently to-ward the car.
“Only damage was to the tire wall. I blew a tire on Alligator Alley, it ripped some of the fiberglass off.”
“Get it washed before you return it. I’ll call you and let you know how long you can keep it.” I opened the rear door and laid my briefcase down on the back seat, than approached Skip.
“Skip.” I measured the handshake to be firm but not aggressive. “Harry.” Skip looked at me differently, as if he knew I had pulled one over on him.
CHAPTER 21
“You dialed…´Susan Kaplansky’.” Susan Kaplan-sky had been given my voicemail. I was cut off. I no longer existed, no one had called to say good-bye, peo-ple I had talked with two or three times a week. I was now beyond the pale, in the never-never land of the ex-employees banished from paradise. The future seemed dark and distant, hidden in the approaching rumblings of an afternoon thunderstorm. Todd Harris had been given my territory and we we’re meeting for dinner.
I was anxious to hear the company gossip, but to hear what I wanted I would have to wait as he spoke through the crunch of the lettuce, wiping bits of blue cheese dressing off his chin. His conversation was like a bad chess opponent, but I was happy to have someone to drink with. “God Damn, how the hell am I gonna get 80,000 lbs of black pepper, delivered to Mobile for $1.36 a pound. Impossible. I call …..”
“How do you like humping around Julioville?”
“You sure didn’t like it. MG Packers, your third largest account, Yolanda, says she hasn’t seen your ass in six months.”
“If you like her so much take her to lunch.”
“Fuck that, what were you doing down here, you just lied your ass off on the weekly reports, didn’t you?”
“I haven’t been doing much lately. Go out to the pool, do some reading, its hard to get motivated. How many calls did you make today?” Morbid curiosity for how the other half really worked.
“Nine, nine real calls. Skip told me you had been jacking off. I can’t see why they didn’t fire you earli-er.”
“Thanks asshole. You wanna go shoot some pool?”
“No, lets go to a titty bar. I’ve heard there are some good ones down here.” It was the last thing on my mind, a Wednesday night at 10:30PM.
“Might be kind of slow.”
“And the pool hall is going to be full of people, let’s go, your old employer will pick up this tab.” What I had remembered from a bachelor party hadn’t really excited me as the bright lights danced on the dark six lane highway. The bouncer was doing his best imitation of a secret service agent.
“Good evening gentleman.” Solid Patinum was an upscale nude bar, clean, hip without any strange smells and exceptional young ladies. A resilient blonde danced on the stage while the other girls mingled in the crowd and Todd talked.
“Aren’t you going to miss America, they don’t put SEC football games on there, do they?”
“Nope, but they’ve got soccer games.”
“I don’t know, seems like it would be easier to find something around here.” The blonde that had been wrapping her strong legs around a pole to a top twenty song approached the table.
“Would you like a dance?”
“Hell yeah.” His spontaneity was refreshing. She unnerved me with her long false stares as she danced her clothes off and climbed atop the table. Todd nod-ding his prematurely bald head to the music, a smart-ass grin running out the side of his mouth. The body was too real, the music, the hair, the glances were too per-fect, too cold. The body didn’t call for me the way it should have. Todd slid the bill slowly into her garter belt, stroking the thigh muscle, beginning to enjoy him-self. Another round of drinks. I was entering the point were the alcohol can make everyday occurrences tran-scendental, which is the true beauty of drunkenness, when it very occasionally releases the clarity behind the disorder. It’s difficult to be happy thinking about the future; alcohol puts us in the moment, making it the second drug of the capitalist empire. They give you coffee in the morning then booze at night so you forget that you’ve been busting your ass all day. Rare was the barroom full of drunk work-mates bitching and moaning that ever got up and really did blow up the factory.
A thin brunette, dark, her stomach collapsing under her ribs, the solid nose marking the Mediterranean face. She gazed on the world from always, a whore house in Pompeii to a Renaissance court, she didn’t say or not say, no more than a ray of beauty in time. The legs and waist moved to a music with a rhythm that knew fash-ion, the great whore of the ‘Mare Nostrum’. Her stare was for me, wanting me and believing only me. The thigh rose to my chin, the skin pliable under my moist hands waiting for the bill to be left.
“Do you want a drink?” They could drink with the customers between dances though they had to give a dance every half an hour.
“Can you wait a second, let me get my friend.” A small, compact blonde, shy and sweet.
“Hi.” She smiled at Todd. “I’m Kim.” Tina was mine for as long as my moment would last and I was only moving in the moment, in the raucous laughter of drunken fun. Tina lifted Kim’s bikini over her shoulder. Kim’s long nails carefully unwrapping Tina’s skirt, the dark eyes looking up in pleasure and arrogance. She was a queen being attended to by a willing and adoring court. From the green and yellow streaks in the dark eyes I saw myself, as she saw me.
The dances followed the drinks, following the laughter and the corrupt hands on young flesh. Time moved through Tina’s graceful and polluted limbs, pull-ing and squeezing at every moment, expecting an end that only postponed its arrival. The guests slowly left, leaving the center of attention at our table, drinks for all the new arriving girls. “John, I’m not going to have enough to even pay for half of this, and I can’t use the credit card because my wife will kill me.”
“Todd, the whole tab’s on me, you relax, spend your money on your baby girl.” I wanted to be splendid in a moment that would mark an end. Eight girls in my court, all smiles and skin, my princess Tina beside me. Somewhere between the laughs and the bouncing breasts I took care of the tab on a credit card that I would never pay and we left.
CHAPTER 22
The escape. From work, family, credit card bills, I-95, Begoña, death, doctors, and maybe something worse. I was running. A well developed sense of es-cape, of the exodus, it’s in our genes, always there waiting to be called upon. How many times had my ancestors escaped just in the nick of time? More than the ones who hadn’t lived to be anyone’s ancestors. They had escaped from approaching armies, from plagues, from weather and from cold; from fire and from hunger and from hate. I couldn’t help but enjoy it. I enjoyed it because it was ephemeral, it was a moment of absolute freedom.
*
The apartment was obsessively neat; the furniture and some boxes carefully waiting to be removed.
I sliced the envelope open with a steak knife, the final installment from Stephen, the last piece in place. I put the check in my wallet and I tossed the envelope into the garbage with seven unopened thirty-day notices. My eyes crossed the room picking up what was left, a few boxes to be lifted to the car, maybe the last trip. The project, begun months ago, was coming to an end, and I wanted to enjoy it like the last numbers crossed out in a complicated equation.
The phone rang out sharply by my side, all now screened, most of the callers being collectors. I waited thirty seconds than checked the message, a credit card, call the 1-800 number. Like the thief who could hear the sirens in the distance, time was turning her screws, keeping me on my feet. There were still things to solve, all was not done and I could still get caught. I imagined time in six months, slower, emptier, more me-thodical. And as the end approached, sweet and painful, seemingly unending yet undoubtedly finite. The sloppy footsteps clicked up the sidewalk. I waited for the pause, which was too long, then the strong thumping on the hallow door.
“John, how are ya, good, great, well I’ve got an of-fer, but before I give it to you I want you to remember that prices have been flat of late, it’s a good offer, a re-ally good offer.” The dirty binder fell on my wooden dining room table, he pulled his pants up over the mag-ical equator of his spacious belly, then handed me the offer sheet from behind a squeamish grin. I stared ex-pressionless down at this rodent who would surely outlive me.
“Sidney, didn’t I tell you I wanted $92,000, wasn’t that our agreement?” The offer was actually on the button, $85,000, my magic number.
“John, I told him, but it’s a solid offer, he’s pre-approved for the loan. He’s put the down payment in escrow, you told me you were in a hurry.”
“So I’m paying you a 7% commission to sell cheap, do you think that’s fair? Why do I need a real estate agent if the only thing he’s going to do is lower the price?”
“I want to close this deal, it’s a good offer, look.” He said as he stared at the table. “If you really don’t think I bargained in good faith I’ll lower my commis-sion by a point. That’s money out of my pocket, you know.” He grew as he spoke of the money.
“And the difference between $92,000 and $85,000, were is that coming from?”
“That price was too high, I told, you, too high for this market.” He scraped at my violent nerve. I felt my jaw open, maybe a distant instinct from when we bit each other.
“I asked you if you felt comfortable with the price, you said yes, now the first descent offer comes along and you lower your pants, counter $88,000.”
“I don’t know if he’ll go for it, I know my busi-ness, take the $85,000.”
“If he accepts $88,000 it’s really going to annoy me that you’ll get more commission, go sell the apart-ment, call me when you’ve got a signature.” REAL ESTATE AGENT, it has to be one of the most pathetic excuses for a job a man with any sort of pride can have. Selling with neither art nor intrigue. I reminded myself that Sidney would outlive me, probably made a lot more money than I did and wormed his way around to a pretty easy existence.
Alone with the winter light reflected off the moist green of the lawn, alone waiting for the furniture buy-er, surrounded by hollow chests and empty drawers, more than moving out I was moving in but in reverse. The space I had carefully created to near perfection was slowly coming apart, a building that is gutted behind the still standing facade. That day it would be perma-nently undone. Like the secret places I prepared as child for small plastic battalions or collections of toy cars. I didn’t want anyone to know what it had been, the space and me, only the plants I would leave could remember. The transaction with Sidney would end the relationship, a signature and a new life would begin in the space that I had sculpted to be my own.
“Hey there John, Roy Sander’s, we talked on the phone.” He scared me. I couldn’t tell if he was some kind of mobster, a hustler or just a rough furniture buy-er, the doubt maintaining the mystique and respect. “This here is Philippe.” The long Haitian stare out of the bloodshot eyes. “Well, what do we got?” I showed him through the rooms, he carefully looked over the various pieces of furniture, jotting down a note for each one in a respectful silence only interrupted by an occa-sional and direct question. Philippe behind Roy, as if he were stalking the white boss.
“Would you fellows like a beer?” I asked, hoping to bring on a friendly negotiation.
“I’d love one.” An innocent smile left the other-wise intransigent face of Philippe. I put the bottles with glasses next to them, watching my glass fill with foam while Roy wrote number after number. Philippe looked at a blank wall, Roy banged away at his miniature cal-culator, we watched and waited. I had no idea how much to ask for and I didn’t want to bargain without knowing, it was more the convenience of getting rid of things than the money. The phone rang. I had a feeling it was Sydney.
“What?” I was being too cocky for my own good.
“John, I’ve got great news, Mr. La Casse has agreed to the terms and signed the revised offer sheet.”
“Sydney, don’t you think there is a thanks in store for me? I just made you $210.00.”
“John, let’s not forget I did some work here. Mr. La Casse wants to close as soon as possible, once the inspections and appraisal’s are finished, since he’s al-ready approved by the bank we just need to get him approved by the condo committee.”
“I don’t think he should have any problems, keep in touch Sidney.” Roy and Phillipe appeared as a de-crepit dynamic duo as Roy sucked on his menthol cigarette. I could imagine them in a dark bar getting stoned drunk on an early Friday afternoon, Phillipe not understanding a word of the Roy’s half imagined past, afraid of being so drunk, afraid of Roy and not wanting him to get angry.
Roy became docile. I would take what ever he of-fered me for all of it, including the TV and video, the stereo a parting gift for Kerry.
“John, $1,200 for the whole thing.”
“Make it $1,500 and you’ve got a deal.” I wasn’t going to do it but it came out, he set a rhythm and a number to be danced with. His head shaking, a feigned frown, the deal was done.
“I shouldn’t do it. All right, Phillipe, lets start get-ting this stuff in the truck. John, your last name, to write the check out to?” I was left in the near dark with plastic blowup mattress on the floor and the tele-phone resting softly on the tile, the sound and light new and refreshing. The walk in closet had become the staging area for the great escape, there stood the boxes of books and CD’s to be mailed, the suitcases waiting to be filled with the clothes on the shelves above the hanging suits.
I played a game, turning back, what would I do. I worked out fruitless scenarios ending in ugly scenes with judges, doctors, policeman and my father. Midday dawns and midnight dusks, the days passed in a collage seen from the floor, the only place I could inhabit apart from the car, which was soon to be taken away.
I drove through industrial parks I had frequented as a salesman, around the Miami of Begoña, through dilapidated tourist areas which had finally found a personality only with their demise. I tried to record, to remember and to become sad and romantic, but I only got hungry and spent to the limits of the only credit that still worked on long lonely sushi dinners awash in sake. The physical existence of the place should mean some-thing. I wanted it to mean something, but I decided it didn’t. It didn’t mean anything to me, only my Dol-phins meant something to me because I had suffered with them too much for them not to.
One last toy to buy in the Magic Kingdom before I was eternally banished to an old world death and exile for my sins. The store that was an experience, you needed a special card to get in the high tech galaxy of purple colors and space ship like washing machines. West Miami, a constant stream of jets made their final approaches over the store full of Latin-Americans very anxious to spend lots of money on the toys they were denied at home. I need, I need, I
needed too, one more toy, the portable short-wave radio. So sleek and sexy, digital and black. I approached the check out not sure the card would work, swipe, she looked at the register, silence, the machine engaged and out came the ticket. “Sign here.”
That was it. I was ready to go. I had physical pos-session of everything I needed to live, including a bank check written out to me for $43,000 plus three grand I was taking in cash.
A rare winter rain crashed out of the sky, the famil-iar house had become unfamiliar, distant and unforgiving. In twenty feet I had become soaked, drops of cold water bouncing off the black plastic of the tuner, down the thin CD player and around the tape deck. The unhinging of the chain. “John, come in.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble.”
“Just let me get the speakers.”
“Let me get you something to drink.” A puddle formed on the floor, a floor I had seen on many nights, strange in the darkened thundering daylight. “When are you going?”
“Tomorrow, they’re coming in the morning to take the car.”
“Did you close on the condo?” She was between nervous and sad, no longer happy I was going, afraid for me.
“I week ago, they’re letting me stay until tomor-row, they already have a set of keys. How is the kiddo?”
“Great, let me drive you to the airport, what time is the flight?” The tone had become motherly and I rushed to it like a boy with a fever.
“I’ve got to get a direct flight to Madrid that leaves at 5:30, I’ll need to get their about 3:30 or so. I’ve got to go have dinner with my dad.”
“I’ll be by at 2:30.” She would arrive on the dot. I was safe, safe for a moment before I returned to the abyss.
*
The last zipper on the last bag found its place, snug and secure. They stood attentively by the door, ready for the long voyage. I wore a dark suit without a tie, single breasted, with a yellow shirt, top button open, my Patek Phillipe now comfortable on my wrist, Armani rising from under my new shirt, black loafers, the Du-pon inside my jacket and a recent $50 haircut. The moment was flat, not knowing what to expect but sens-ing a lack of emotion. “Do you have someone to pick you up when you arrive?”
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