Waylaid

by Ed Lin

  My mother left the two girls on the odd-numbered wing and went back to the front desk. The maid’s cart was fully packed with the vacuum cleaner and massive amounts of toilet paper, soap, and towels. Its swivel wheels were stuck in four different directions. The girls struggled to push the cart down to the next room, but the wheels were jammed. They rocked the cart back and forth like a stubborn, overloaded mule.

  I was busy with hauling out cases of Howdy! and Briardale Cola, so I didn’t take any further notice of their lack of progress. If the girls weren’t so unfuckable, I might have paid them more attention. Both were wearing t-shirts and shorts, and didn’t have bodies that deserved to show any more. If I’d run across their pictures in a magazine, I would have flipped to the next pictorial.

  A short while later, I heard a few splashes in the pool. It was about 4 p.m., a few hours after check-out time, but I didn’t care if people went for a swim before actually leaving. I locked up the newly stocked soda machines and headed back for the office, passing by the pool. I saw four wet mounds of hair at the edge of the shallow end. Little ripples radiated out from the lightly bobbing heads. The Bennys were humping the maids in the water. The cart was still outside of Room 41, which meant the girls had cleaned one room in the past hour. My mother was going to flip.

  As I approached the office door, she was already charging out to the swimming pool with the cordless phone in hand. She had seen the girls jump into the pool from her perch on the office bar stool. The cordless phone wouldn’t work from that far away, but its physical presence and the threat to call the police on the two Bennys who were rubbing up against 15-year-olds would be enough to break up this pool party. I couldn’t hear what was going on down there, but watching the four bodies scramble out of the pool was enough to make me wish I had the balls to just grab a girl and fuck her.

  Later on that afternoon, I went around the hotel with a new pair of giant Craftsman shears. The evergreen bushes that had been planted across the arms of the hotel had grown out unevenly. The builder had intended for the bushes to line the inside driveway, like velvet in a jewel case, but most of the bushes had died, leaving withered stumps that drunk customers stumbled over.

  I cut into the overgrown bushes, trying to make them look like rectangles or round globs, depending on how dense the branches were. I was tired after the fourth one, and my arms ached like I’d pitched extra innings. But I did find a water-damaged and sun-dried issue of Gallery nestled in a pile of dead needles. The pages were warped, and some were stuck together, but I managed to get one pictorial opened — two women alternating on a pool table, with cue sticks. The pictures were discolored, and their skin had been stained brown. The next page I was able to rip open had the right colors.

  After staring at some pussy, I tore into the rest of the bushes with lust-driven abandon. I thought about fucking Lee Anderson on that pool table. Chop. Chop. Chop. When I was done, I swept the cuttings into plastic garbage bags and dumped them in the woods. My upper arms and shoulder blades hurt all night.

  On my way out to the bus the next day, I grabbed the key to Room 54. I had a Trojan ribbed condom in my jacket pocket. I was thinking about bringing the cock ring, but I’d never tried it, and I didn’t want to risk anything going wrong. I’d been jerking off so much anyway that I thought I’d be able to last long enough on my own.

  In the teacher’s lounge, I stuck my hand into Lee Anderson’s left back pocket. My thumb was on her panty line.

  “Come back on my bus with me,” I whispered into her ear.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “What kind of surprise?” I forced myself into her belt buckle and she frowned, but didn’t back away.

  “Is that all you want?” she asked. I shook my head.

  “I want some of this, too,” I said, sweeping my free hand across the side of her breast.

  “I…I don’t know,” Lee began, trying to maneuver away, but my hand on her ass kept her from breaking free.

  “I mean, you love me, don’t you? You said you loved me, Lee.”

  “I do.”

  “Then come back with me, if you really love me.”

  “I don’t want to do it, you know? Not yet.”

  “If you love me, you will,” I said. “If you really love me, you will.”

  I held her hand on the bus. When we got on, I was afraid that Mrs. Krackowski was going to demand a bus pass or permission slip for Lee. But the old woman just winked and said, “So, you’re taking a little friend home! She’s cute, she your girlfriend?” We didn’t say anything.

  Lee’s hand was sweaty and slippery. I could smell the salt in her palm. I sat by the window and kept watch for the familiar landmarks. The car wash. The pancake house. The gas station. I wanted to make sure this bus wasn’t going off-course. Nothing was going to stop me from fucking this girl.

  I suddenly realized that I hadn’t looked into Lee’s face since we sat down. I turned to her and brought my knee up on the seat between us without letting go of her hand. Her eyes were half-closed, but when I ducked my head to see under her eyelids, I saw her pupils rattling back and forth like beautiful blue marbles in a glass tumbler.

  “I love you, Lee,” I said.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” I said. “It’s natural.”

  When we got off, I snuck her off to the side to hide from my mother’s view if she was waiting in the office. We prowled up to the even-numbered wing of the hotel. Cars passing on the highway must have wondered what those two sneaking kids were up to. I looked down and was surprised to see that I was still holding Lee’s hand. I put my arm around her waist, and we made a dash for Room 54.

  The first thing we did when the door was shut and the shades were drawn was laugh. We laughed like we had just stepped off a death-defying carnival ride and were walking off the platform.

  It was dark, but I could tell the place hadn’t been cleaned. I smelled the beer and cigarette smoke. A thin strap of light from the window sliced through the room and lit up the neck of an opened beer bottle on the desk.

  Being in that dirty room with a girl felt strange. I had a sudden impulse to sweep the pillows to the floor, pull off the sheets from the four corners and fuck her on that bare comestained mattress.

  I felt for the edge of the bed and sat down on it, pulling Lee’s ass onto my lap. I kissed her over her shoulder as I fumbled with her belt.

  “It’s a magnet,” she tried to say as my lips squeezed hers like a vice with rubber grips. Her jeans split open. Then they were around her ankles, and my fingers were rubbing what felt like a big eyebrow.

  I turned and dropped her on the unmade bed. I stepped on the inner sole of each of my shoes and pried them off. My clothes slumped to the floor as I undressed quickly, shirt and jeans slipping off like butter on a hot biscuit.

  Vincent told me women liked to pretend to hate sucking cock, but they expected to have to, anyway. They had to pretend so you wouldn’t think they were sluts. I had my hands delicately wrapped around Lee’s ears. I pulled a little. After a moment of uncertainty, it was in her mouth. I held my breath the whole time.

  Then it was my turn to suck. I thought pussy would smell and taste bad, but I couldn’t smell or taste anything. Lee had taken off her blouse and bra. Her nipples were hard, and I teethed them.

  I ripped the foil and rolled the condom down until I felt a cold ring of rubber and lubricant at my balls. I’d practiced jerking off with the condom and lubricant in my hands lots of times.

  I crawled on top of Lee and pushed her thighs out. I felt less resistance than I thought there’d be. My body shook. By the sound she was making, I could tell her teeth were gritted, and I could feel her spit on my throat. I felt my muscles tighten, and then I came. I’d lasted about a minute.

  The penis-pump ads said premature ejaculation was anything less than five minutes. What was wrong with me? It took more than 15 minutes for me to jerk off when I w
as trying not to come. Maybe I would always come early when fucking for real. This was terrible.

  I got up and stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs. I tugged at the condom, and it slipped off into my hand. When my bare feet hit the cold tile, I hit the light switch.

  I’d heard about the blood that came from a popped cherry, but I didn’t know how much to expect. In the pus-yellow light, my balls were drenched in impossibly dark red. Blood streaked down my legs. The condom in my right hand looked like cellophane wrap that had been pulled off of fresh roast beef. A rhombus of light from the bathroom made a crooked frame around Lee’s body from the neck on down. She was rubbing her legs but didn’t make a sound. The blood against her white skin stood out in higher contrast than on mine. Her eyes shone in the dark, and she was looking up at the ceiling.

  She might have been crying.

  I’d never seen any pictures with blood smeared around, just come.

  I pissed on the floor. I couldn’t move my feet.

  I was tired as hell the next day in school. I’d gone into school after cleaning rooms all night before, but I had never been this tired. My entire body ached, even my ass muscles. I must’ve looked like I was a druggie. But Lee looked fine. As if nothing had happened.

  I’d called Seaside Taxi from the pay phone to take her home, then waited right by the highway with her, watching the sky darken to a deep blue and lights leaking from passing cars. I gave her five dollars and a small hug before she got in and left.

  Something was different now for us in school. Lee wanted to hold hands all the time. It was fun for a few days. Then it got embarrassing. Then one day she was out sick.

  “You get Lee pregnant, or something?” Crispy asked me.

  “Naw…” I said. I’d been careful every time.

  “You did fuck her.”

  “Might have,” I said, feeling a sliver of pride. “So when are you gonna be balling, Queer Bait Crispy?” I asked, punching him in the shoulder as hard as I could.

  Something slammed against the blackboard.

  “No talking!” Mr. Hendrickson yelled before continuing our review session. “A lot of you are asking me about the final exam even though it’s still a few weeks away,” he continued, kicking away broken chalk. “I haven’t even made a goddamn outline yet, so get off my fucking back, already.” As the school year drew to a close, Hendrickson’s dual persona had merged until he was launching into violent curses even when his glasses were on.

  I cared less and less about school. One day, I realized I had nothing to write with. I stuck a hand into the back of my desk. All I found was a stubby pencil. I tried to erase with it, but the metal eraser clip was empty, and I ended up ripping a slash in my notebook.

  We fucked a whole bunch of times. In Room 54, and a few times in the woods on an old blanket.

  I threw all my magazines into a Hefty bag and dumped them with the bush clippings in the woods. I didn’t need them anymore. I had the perfect girl.

  In the second week of June, a dizzying heat wave clamped down, slowing down my thoughts and movements. They let us wear shorts in school, and I shivered when the backs of my thighs touched the cold molded plastic of our seats.

  I had just gotten back to the classroom from gym. I was early because I wore the same shorts in gym that I did around school and didn’t need to change. Mr. Hendrickson came over to me.

  “Your daddy’s been in an accident,” he said. “Mrs. Daly will give you a ride to the hospital.” Mrs. Daly was the principal’s secretary, a bitter, crusty old widow. I had been terrified of her since my second-grade class had elected me to bring the absentee slips to the principal’s office. Mrs. Daly’s sharp eyes would narrow as she snatched the slips out of my hand.

  Mrs. Daly’s Duster was a shrine on four wheels. It was loaded with small boardwalk teddy bears and other dolls that crowded each other in the back seats and tumbled over the dashboard. Three poseable plastic figures hung from the stem of the rear-view mirror as if they’d been lynched. With the bears, the dolls, and the searing heat in the car, there wasn’t much room for air. It reminded me of a picture I’d seen of a Chinese temple with thousands of carved images of Buddha repeated on every surface. Rows and rows of smiling faces and rounded heads and bellies.

  “I am so sorry,” said Mrs. Daly. “I heard what happened. You have my sympathies.” She sounded sincere, but her expression still had a sharp edge that could slice apples through the core. I didn’t know what she was sorry for, though, because no one had told me any details yet.

  I signed in at the hospital desk and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. My sneakers squeaked against the polished floor like I was walking across a giant, empty basketball court. I never felt as small as I did when I walked into that room and saw the white curtain pulled around my father’s tired form under the sheets. His limp face was pale and rippled.

  I didn’t yet know what a stroke was, but my father had had one. My mother had found him in the basement trying to pull himself up off the floor. He’d been screaming for hours, but I was at school, and my mother had been out cleaning rooms.

  His left side was paralyzed, probably permanently. If any movement was going to come back, we’d know in the next few days.

  And then we knew.

  I was excused from the rest of school, all two weeks of it, and I spent those days behind the counter and cleaning rooms, playing tag team with my mother. No finals for me, but no Lee Anderson, either. She called a few times, saying over and over that she was sorry about my dad, that she loved me, and that she was moving real soon, in that order. She made me take down her address and phone number twice the day she was leaving. This time, when she made the kissy sounds, I made them, too. It was okay because no one was listening.

  My mother and I could never be in the same place at the same time because we couldn’t rent rooms if they weren’t clean, and we also couldn’t rent rooms without someone in the office. My father’s absence began to take its toll on the business. We had to cross two rooms off our sheets because the hot water wouldn’t turn off in one and the other didn’t get any water at all. I’d gone into the crawlspace and turned a few knobs, but I didn’t know what I was doing, and nothing had happened.

  One day, I found my mother sitting on the office couch with her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. She wouldn’t say anything. I thought she might be having a stroke, too.

  “Are you okay? Hey!”

  She took her hands away from her face and covered her ears.

  My father’s medical bills for just the first few weeks had sunk our savings. We had no health insurance. Why should we? He was young. We were all young. Who knew you could have a stroke at 42?

  The hospital worked out an installment plan for the rest, but we weren’t going to make it, even if the rooms were full every day. And we still had monthly mortgage payments on the hotel.

  Everybody was going to come down on us. The laundry service would cut us off. Then the cleaning-supplies company, the phone company, the electric and gas companies. The bank would repossess our stuff. Even the Pinto.

  I woke up once in the middle of the night because I heard shouting. But it had been me yelling in my sleep.

  There were calls to Taiwan. There were calls from Taiwan. I was sleepwalking to hotel rooms with a bucket in each hand. I put sanitized bands around toilet seats without even cleaning them. In the sunlight, the Bennys moved awkwardly and carefree, bouncing spinning Frisbees off of their toes and onto the beer bottles they were holding. There were a few barbecues on the lawn. I wanted to see those Frisbees turn into circular saw blades and lop heads off. I wanted to see headless bodies charbroil on the grill.

  I thought of my father in the rehabilitation wing, half of his face and one shoulder and hip slumped down as he struggled with a walker. He was literally a broken man.

  My father had given his life to the Bennys. Next on the menu were me and my mom.

  I dropped my cleaning buckets and went behind the odd-
numbered wing of the hotel. I was trying to breathe two inhales ahead of what I could, and I fell on my knees. I was so tired, it felt like too much work to lie down.

  My eyesight was going. I heard blood rushing past my ears. I looked up. Somewhere, high above, the sun was shining. But I couldn’t see it.

  I didn’t play Atari or even watch television anymore. I barely had time to brush my teeth before falling over asleep.

  One night, when I was cleaning rooms by myself, I went into the supply closet to get more toilet bands and saw the rocket-shaped rear reflector of my bicycle poking out from behind a wall of towels. I pulled my bike out and wiped it down. It still looked like it was in good shape.

  I went around the hotel, nice and easy. The moon was out, pouring a watery gleam over the handles as I made the turns. It was effortless. I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms, just the sensation of a slow coast downhill.

  Then I felt something give under my right leg. I looked down and saw the pedal coming loose. It fell off, and I hopped off and picked it up. The grooves around the mouth of the cylinder had been eaten away so I couldn’t reattach it.

  “Motherfucking whore slut!” I yelled at the bike. I kicked it in the spokes, then dragged it back home. I stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement and gave it a push from the seat. The bike bucked like a pissed-off horse in a rodeo as it tumbled down.

  The next day I tried calling Lee at her new number in California.

  “This is Paul Tee Real Estate,” said a man with a cheery voice.

  “Hello? Is Lee Anderson there?” I asked, looking again at the number I had written down and running my finger under it. I heard a heavy sigh.

  “Lee Anderson, you mean my little niece?”

  “You’re her uncle?”

  “Don’t get fucking wise with me!” the man sneered. “I don’t need to be taking phone calls for my fucking niece!”