Waylaid

by Ed Lin

  “Hey, lemme try that!” Mitchell pointed a finger at the game and nodded to me. That finger looked like three little linked sausages. I held my hand out and got the game and gave it to Mitchell. He gave it back later, but not until we pulled into the school.

  The sea of kids parted before Mitchell and me. Boys and girls darted to the sides of the hallway, their eyes big like frightened fish on nature shows trying to get away from the camera. We parted ways when Mitchell went into the office to hammer out a schedule. Lee Anderson came up to me at my locker.

  “Why are you hanging out with that asshole Mitchell?” she asked.

  “I’m not. He lives at our hotel now. We wait at the bus stop together,” I said.

  “I thought he moved away.”

  “He’s back. His family lost their house. I think the government is giving them money to stay at our hotel.” She chewed on her lips, leaving a red lipstick stain on her teeth. She could probably give a damn good blow job.

  “Why do you have to hang out with him? You’re such a smart guy.” I was wishing she wasn’t holding her books across her tits so I could feel them press against me. Instead, I had to settle for her thigh against mine. It felt soft and warm.

  There was a slap at the back of my head. It was Mitchell.

  “Hey, put your dick away! I’m in your class, so show me how to get to there,” he said.

  As drawn as I was to Lee, I couldn’t help but look away to see what Mitchell was doing in class. Rapping other kids’ knuckles with his pencil. Folding a page in his textbook over and over so it looked like a Chinese fan. Well-timed facial expressions and exaggerated yawns. I knew Mitchell was a bad kid, but he was damned funny to watch.

  Too bad it didn’t last the whole year. He never came back after that week. Instead, he stayed in the hotel room, watching TV.

  One day, after a heavy snowfall, he waited for me to get off the bus and nailed me with a snowball right in the face when I was on the last step. It hit me so hard I heard a buzzing sound in my right ear. I picked up a hunk of brown slush stained with car exhaust and hurled it at him, but it went over his head.

  I chased him up the drive, but giddiness and slipping on the ice slowed me down. This was my first snowball fight against another person. I used to throw snowballs at trailer trucks on the highway, but that wasn’t really a fight. I tossed my books by the swimming-pool fence.

  Mitchell’s hands were bare, so he could pack snowballs tighter and harder than I could with the worn-out work gloves I wore as mittens. I picked up a trash-can lid and used it as a shield. Mitchell did the same. We charged each other. I was holding a chunk of ice that must have weighed 10 pounds. I crowned Mitchell with it before he had a chance to block it. Stunned, he stumbled back and fell. For a moment, a flap of blubber slipped out from under his t-shirt.

  Suddenly, Mitchell was on his feet and in my face. I turned, but fell into a snow drift. Again and again, he smacked his trash-can lid into my head. Something sharp was gouging out my scalp, but it didn’t hurt because of the cold.

  When he stopped he said, “Holy fuck, man, you’re bleeding!” I touched my glove to my forehead and it came away slick and dark. I looked at the lid, now frozen in Mitchell’s hand. The ends of the bolts that held the lid handle in place were bloody.

  “Shit!” grunted Mitchell. He picked up handfuls of snow powder and rubbed it into my head. I sat up, looking at my bloody glove for a minute. My hands were empty…what was I carrying…school…

  “My books…I need my books,” I said. Getting back on my feet felt like climbing a rubber ladder. Mitchell went back and hastily grabbed my books. I staggered back to the office, one hand on my head and the other in front of my face. The wound didn’t hurt at all, but I was feeling cold and dizzy. We got back into the office, and I let Mitchell come into our living quarters behind the front desk — the first customer ever to do so.

  My mother was sitting on the couch, watching a soap opera.

  “Blood! What happen! Blood!” she blurted.

  “I fell down,” I said, sinking into a chair. Mitchell dumped my books onto the floor at my feet.

  “He slipped and fell,” Mitchell said, looking around the living room. “Hey, you got Atari!” he said. My mother glared at him, and he shrugged and left.

  “You so careless, play too rough,” she said. She went downstairs and came back with my father and a wet towel.

  “Look what your son did,” she said, wrapping my head with the towel. “Look what he did.” My mother was talking like I’d broken a vase.

  “You okay?” my father asked. “What happen?”

  “He playing rough with fat boy!” my mother snapped.

  Just then, someone charged into the office and rang the bell, BING! BING! BING! My mother abandoned me and popped into the office.

  “I saw it all. That fat white kid just slammed your son into the ground,” I heard Roy growl.

  “I know,” said my mother in a voice that sounded more shocked by the appearance of an angry black man in the office than by my bloody face.

  “I’m going to talk to that fat kid’s parents,” said Roy. “They have to show that kid some direction. I suggest you do the same with yours.” The front door swung in what sounded like a wide arc before shutting.

  “I fell,” I said softly. My father shook his head.

  “Better calm down, or else you lose more blood,” he said. After about an hour, the bleeding stopped.

  BING! BING! BING! went the office bell. My mother was taking a nap and my father was back in the workshop, so I closed my book and went into the office. It was Mitchell’s mother.

  “I saw the blood in the snow, and Mitchell told me you fell down. Are you okay?” she asked. I nodded and waved my hand.

  Something smelled meaty. Mitchell’s mother was holding our casserole dish. It was stuffed with pasta, sausage and cheese.

  “And this is your dish back, thank you for lending it to us,” she said. “You tell your mother an American never returns a dish empty.” She was smiling, but the expression on her face was condescending, like she was granting us a favor instead of returning one.

  The fact was, they were two weeks behind in the rent.

  “Are you paying the rent?” I asked quietly, looking into her eyes. “It’s late.” She reddened a bit and gently pushed the dish across the counter.

  “Jim’s still looking for a job. He’ll find one soon,” she said. “We’ve already talked to your mother about that.”

  “Okay,” I said. Dodging lenders was one thing for Mrs. Cone, but dodging me was another matter. How embarrassing it must have been to have to answer to a 12-year-old kid. A 12-year-old chink.

  They must have left in the night.

  On my way to the school-bus stop the next day, I saw that their car was gone. I went up to their room and saw that the shades were thrown wide open. They’d stripped the pillows and sheets from the bed. The towels were probably also gone. I cupped my hands to the window and swept my eyes across the room.

  They’d taken the television, too.

  Mitchell’s family had hit the road, bound for some other place that would take them in for a while. The father was trained in building homes, but he couldn’t find one for his own family.

  There was a hurricane on Groundhog Day. The entire hotel whistled and moaned as the wind blew through it. The skies were bruised gray and purple. Clouds were tight, thin strands of cotton candy that sped by like time-lapse photography.

  I was in the kitchen scrambling eggs and listening to the radio to see if school was going to be canceled. I’d already showered and changed, but I was ready to head back to sleep if it was.

  Two local school districts had already been closed so far, but not mine.

  Oil splattered against the cuff of my polyester dress shirt. I’d inherited a number of the shirts my father used to wear when he was a civil engineer in New York City. They were thin and didn’t offer much warmth, but they made you sweat where the fabric touc
hed your skin. My father now preferred wearing t-shirts, since his workshop was next to the boiler room. He was dressed like a kid all day while I was wearing a men’s shirt with a tag on the collar that read “14-28.”

  Three more districts canceled school.

  I shook some BacOs into the pan, stirred it a little, and turned off the heat. I slid the egg into my plate, but before I started eating, I washed off the spatula and pan. I opened the door to the toaster oven, stabbed both pieces of toast with my fork and dragged them onto my eggs.

  I’d just finished eating and was washing my plate and fork when it was announced that my school would also be closed.

  I went back to my bedroom and pulled off my clothes. I read a few letters in Mayfair, but I was feeling sleepy and couldn’t get hard. My stomach was warm, and fats and oils were seeping through my body, slowing everything down.

  I knew I was dreaming right away because school was canceled, but there I was in class. I was in my seat, but the other students were gone. A figure was slumped over in the teacher’s seat. The hurricane roared on. Outside the classroom windows, bare trees in the school yard were pulled back like slingshots by the onslaught of wind and water.

  The teacher sat up. It wasn’t Mr. Hendrickson.

  It was my father.

  He was wearing a t-shirt and briefs.

  “You ready?” he asked me.

  “Ready for what?”

  “You like singing, don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  “You like songs, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” “You’re going to like this song. You already know the words!”

  Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree Merry merry king of the bush is he Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra Save some gum for me

  It was a song I learned in third grade. What was a kookaburra? It was a bird. What was a gum tree? I still didn’t know.

  “Sing it with me!” yelled my father. His accent was gone,

  and he was strangely loose. I started to sing with him. “Kookaburra sits in the old…” “No!” “Kookaburra sits…” “No! No!” “Kooka…” “Stop! I start first! You wait until I hit the next line and

  then you start. You know what that’s called? It’s called

  singing in rows! I’ll start now, are you ready?” “Yes.” “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” He sang

  “Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra,” when I sang,

  “Merry merry king of the bush is he.” “That’s right,” he said as I finished up. “Do you get it?” “Yes, I understand.” “You sing the same exact song as me, word for word, only you’re one line behind. You’re always one line

  behind me.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s the same song!” he yelled, picking up a hammer and throwing it at the window.

  At the sound of the crash, I jumped out of bed. My window was wide open, and I stood on my night table and latched it shut. Raindrops splattered against the glass as if it were the windshield of a speeding car.

  Even the johns stayed away from the hotel in February. Maybe something about Valentine’s Day and sticking with the one you love. Seeing storefronts with cut-out cupids and “Be Mine” and “Yours Always” banners at the gas stations was enough to guilt even the most unfaithful man into taking the right exit off the parkway into residential suburbia, far away from our hotel.

  I was hoping to get laid on Valentine’s Day, which was a Saturday. My mother had dinner reservations for two at the local Italian place, Rizzuto’s. She and my dad would be gone for at least an hour. That ought to be long enough.

  I wondered if I’d be able last long enough.

  I kept an extra copy to the key to Room 54, which was near the end of the even-numbered wing. How could I get Lee Anderson there? She’d started letting me feeling her tits and ass in the teacher’s lounge if we were alone, but she wouldn’t touch my cock. I tried to press it against her hip, but she would just back up and giggle.

  I was prepared, though. I had an emptied tissue box under my bed filled with unused condoms I’d found in the rooms. There were lubricated, non-lubricated, and ribbed varieties. The ribbed ones were also lubricated. I also had those Venus beads and an unopened tin of orgy butter. Not that I was expecting an orgy. One girl was enough for now.

  I knew you could get a girl pregnant the first time both of you had sex. One Hustler reader thought that if the girl douched right after with Coca-Cola, the sperm wouldn’t be able to fertilize her eggs. How stupid.

  Other kids weren’t having sex sex, but there was this girl in the grade below, Nancy Kellogg, who gave blow jobs for five dollars. I heard she swallowed and everything. Lee even told me. When you saw Nancy waiting by the gym supply closet after school, you knew she was going to give a blow job. She was okay looking, with bangs of light blonde hair around her face, but her neck still had a collar of baby fat. Her body wasn’t fat, and she was getting some nice tits, but that didn’t really make up for it. I thought I could do better than her. Lee Anderson was the centerfold in my book. Nancy was just a girl you’d see in the hard-core mags.

  I called Lee’s house on the pay phone outside the closed

  hamburger stand. Her father answered.

  “Hullo?”

  “Hi, yes, may I speak with Lee?”

  “Yeah, wait a sec.” I could hear him yell, “Lee! Phone!”

  “Hello?” asked Lee a few seconds later. She had answered on another extension.

  “Lee, it’s me.”

  “Hey!” she said a little too loud and then immediately added a softer, “Hey.” I heard the sharp click of her father hanging up his receiver.

  “Are you going to be home on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Are you going to send me flowers?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I said, taken aback by her enthusiasm. Flowers? Never even thought of that. “No, I was thinking maybe you could come over or something.”

  “I can’t, it’s also my mother’s birthday. I’ve got to be home all day.”

  “You can’t sneak out around dinner or something, can you?”

  “No, my uncles and aunts are coming and everything for dinner. It’s a big thing. Maybe I could see you some other weekend, okay? At that hotel, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “yeah, some other weekend.” Hope jettisoned out an open hatch and into the void, tumbling over and over through silent space. Valentine’s Day was the only day I could be sure neither of my parents would be at home. Since I never had friends over, they sure as hell wouldn’t understand why I’d bring a girl over. Or maybe they’d know all too well.

  “See you in school,” I said, feeling like a sucker. She made a kissing sound. “Okay,” I said.

  I thought about what it was like having one of those big family dinners, and whether Lee’s mom and aunts were sexy or not. If they were, did they ever play around with each other?

  The receiver started buzzing, and I became aware that I was still clutching it. I hung up and started the long walk back to the office. As I passed by the rooms, I thought about all the people who had fucked in them. My life was renting and cleaning those rooms, but there was no fucking for me. Just flipping the mattresses over.

  Peter Fiorello was at the counter when I came in the office.

  “Hey, look who’s here!” Heartiness shook through his heavy frame. “Hey, why so down?”

  “Nothing.” I sauntered around the counter and sat down on the stool.

  “I know you boys get moody when you’re this age. My boys were always grumpy, talking back. You should enjoy it when you’re young.” Mrs. Fiorello stepped in, holding a large tweed suitcase in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.

  “Was that you riding your bicycle by the highway?” she asked me.

  “When?”

  “Last week! That was you riding with only one hand! And Peter thought it was a Chinese food-delivery man! You’re going to get in an accident! I sh
ould tell your mother.”

  “There’s no Chinese delivery in this town,” I said. “What’s in the suitcase?”

  “Oh, I’ve brought some presents for you and your mommy and daddy,” she said. She dumped the shopping bag on the counter, spilling little Chinese trinkets and candies. Tiny paper lamps. Rice-paper candies. Haw flakes. Honey noodle cakes. Even firecrackers. All strewn across the counter. What was this cheap Chinese stuff doing here, out in front for any customer to see? For me to see? How was I supposed to rent out rooms with all this chinkiness on display? It was a mockery of my authority. Of my status as an American. I was horrified.

  “I stopped at the oriental store!” Mrs. Fiorello said. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

  “Is this any good?” asked Peter Fiorello, picking up a small packet of dried sour plums.

  “You tell me,” I said, backing out of the office and into the kitchen to get a glass of milk.

  “Looks like a bunch of shrunken heads…” he muttered.

  The next weekend, Peter Fiorello was dead from a heart attack. I got a phone call from his son because his family found a key from our hotel in Peter’s vest pocket. They wanted to know if Peter had any stuff stored down here.

  I found out that Peter and the woman we thought was Mrs. Fiorello weren’t married. Peter’s real wife had died five years before. He’d re-met his childhood sweetheart at the funeral. Peter’s kids, who were in their 20s and living at home, hated the woman, so the two of them had decided to come down to New Jersey on the weekends to be alone. She became Mrs. Fiorello. And, of course, Fiorello wasn’t his real name.

  In March, we jacked the room rates back up and the old men moved out to God knew where. I watched them pack their beat-up suitcases into the backs of their beat-up cars. They handed in their room keys at the office, standing and talking to my mother as she endured one last conversation with each of them.

  I walked into the office and I saw her kiss Frank over the counter. It bothered the hell out of me, seeing her kiss this sprout of white hair and wrinkles. She and my father never kissed.

  “Sorry to see you go, Frank,” I said sarcastically.