The Delivery Man
Page 23
Chase wakes up to find Bailey sitting next to him. Bailey is leaning forward, staring intently at the horrible injuries. Nothing is said for about a minute as Bailey just stares with a kind of sick wonder at Chase’s wrecked face.
“Stop it,” Chase finally has to stay.
“I know who it was,” Bailey says. “And when you’re ready, we’ll take care of it. However you want to handle it.”
“Of course you know who it was, Bailey.” Chase closes his left eye.
“When you’re better—”
Chase raises a hand to cut him off. “Stop it.”
“We’ll all work together again,” Bailey is saying. “Like we started out.” Bailey rests his hand high on Chase’s thigh. “I cleaned up your ride, too. You could eat off that shit now.”
“I can’t be around you anymore,” Chase says. “You have to go. You have to never come back.”
“But everything’s happening perfectly,” Bailey says. “We’ve still got half the summer left.”
When Michele is not taking care of Chase or booking appointments she stays with her cousin in North Las Vegas and not with Bailey. But Michele goes back to Bailey’s house one afternoon. Michele begs for the money that is hers. Michele says she is leaving for good. Michele mentions going back to El Salvador. Bailey calls her a whore and rips a patch of hair from her scalp when he drags her out of the house and leaves her on the street bleeding from her nose and mouth. That night she accepts his apology. A day later she agrees to Bailey’s terms. One: to let the money situation go for now. Two: they will resume working the business together again.
According to the surgeon the procedure involves rebreaking Chase’s face to allow for the precise positioning of the bones so he’ll look normal again, at least in theory. Exposure to direct sunlight will trigger severe headaches for months, if not years, and Chase may walk with a limp for the rest of his life because his femur was fractured in three places. Chase tries to explain this to Michele when they leave the hospital for the fourth time that week. He walks with crutches. He may eventually switch to a cane. The sun is brilliant and white and though the sight in his left eye hasn’t been restored, the brightness—even with the prescription sunglasses—makes his eyes water and burn, and the headache gets even worse. Explaining the procedure to Michele seems to be a distraction that works.
“They’ll bring my left eye up even further so it’ll be in line with the right one. Then they’ll remove the wires from my jaw and in two or three weeks I can go ahead and get my teeth done.” Chase is speaking to Michele through his clenched mouth. His jaw is still wired shut. “I’ll look like a monster.”
“No you won’t,” Michele says, sounding like she’s trying to reassure herself.
“They made an incision around my skull and pulled the skin down so they could insert the steel plates and screws. That’s what they told me today when they took them out. They showed me the picture. Your face really does peel right off.”
“They’ll fix it,” she says in an even voice as tears spill from her eyes. “It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
Michele undresses him when they get back to the suite. She tosses his clothes on the cream-colored couch and his black Killers T-shirt falls to the paint-splattered drop cloth she brought from his apartment. He can stand for only a moment before the first surge of nausea. The room is all easels and blank canvases and CVS pharmacy bags and little brown bottles. It’s his for now.
Chase says something to Michele the next morning while he’s still in bed. Michele smiles weakly. “You say that because I’m the only one here.” She turns away. Chase lies in his underwear as Michele slides a warm wet towel along his neck and chest and gently over the part of his rib cage that isn’t wrapped in a cast. He flinches and she apologizes. The soap she’s using smells like apples. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. When her fingernails graze his skin he shivers. Holding the corner of the warm towel she slides her hand under the waistband of his underwear. He breathes in sharply and holds it. They’ve been doing it like this for a couple of weeks. She moves her hand slowly and he tells her that she’s beautiful.
Chase watches her pack: first her things into the Tumi bags and then all of his things into a duffel bag. Then she stands at the window and looks out over the Strip. It is the last day in the suite. Michele doesn’t seem to mind. She simply shrugs and laughs at the fact that Ted from KB Homes actually came through and put Michele’s fifteen thousand dollars down on a place in a glossy brochure that lands on Chase’s lap: the Paseos, a Phase IV development in Summerlin. And though the house isn’t yet complete (the grass will arrive next week) Michele already started moving her things in. And Chase will move in with her. This is the newest plan that Michele has devised. She doesn’t look at him when she speaks. If she did she’d see that Chase has closed his good eye as a flash of panic seizes him. Room service arrives. Egg-white omelets and blueberry pancakes and coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Chase will watch Michele eat and he will sip orange juice through a straw. Michele tells him she has an eleven o’clock booking. When he offers to leave he realizes he doesn’t have to. It’s an out-call.
* * *
When his headache isn’t so bad Chase staggers down the hallway of the twenty-second floor in the Palace, past a family whose two young daughters stare at him. He imagines how he must look to them: a scarred gimp with exposed purple stitches and staples running down the back of his shaved head. The valet is a kid whose movement—an easy jog—Chase envies. Chase cracks a smile when the kid helps him into the taxi and doesn’t wait for a tip from the monster. And even with the oversize sunglasses the sun is blinding on the Strip. The taxi heads northwest to Summerlin. Chase squints. The cab is moving too fast. Chase is an old person now—he considers asking the driver to turn back but he needs the prescriptions refilled and the new meds are at the Albertsons and the nearest one is in Summerlin. He’s thinking about Montana and maybe going up there once he’s able to drive again and then maybe he’ll head west to Oregon to see Hunter. Those are the plans Chase is devising.
At the Albertsons on Rampart Street Rush has dropped the hiphop look and is now a surfer. He wears long shorts and a beige shirt unbuttoned, Oakleys on his head, skin tan but peeling, a coral necklace. He slides his flip-flops along the floor behind an older blonde woman with huge breasts and a Prada bag who Chase assumes is his mother. They have two carts filled with groceries and as Rush carefully places a six-pack of Budweiser into the cart he sees Chase and turns away. Two aisles over Rush and Chase make eye contact again. Rachel is now standing behind him. Her hair is blue. She covers her mouth with her hand when she sees Chase. Rush’s mother is confused: this battered man and her son are staring at each other but not saying anything. Rush is transfixed by Chase’s face: the trail of stitches from his scalp to his jaw and the yellow bruises around his eyes.
“Hang loose, dude.” Rush waves his thumb and pinkie.
“You’re next,” Chase says.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Morgan Entrekin for believing. Jofie Ferrari-Adler for making everything better, as well as Andrew Robinton, Eric Price, Deb Seager, Amy Hundley, and the rest of the incredibly talented and supportive staff at Grove/Atlantic. My two wonderful agents at ICM: Katharine Cluverius and Josie Freedman. For their generosity: Roland Merullo, Craig Nova, Jim Shepard, Jill Eisenstadt, John Katzenbach.
The graduate fiction workshop at American University who let me sit in and learn … Jim Porter, Stacy Evers, and professor/author Richard McCann.
Scott Dickensheets at Las Vegas Weekly for giving me a chance to write for him and get to know his city. And special thanks to all the Vegas kids and families who took the time to talk and share a little bit about their lives to help me better understand their hometown. And Marybeth: for showing me how it works.
Friends who always cared enough to ask about “the book” and everything else along the way: Jon Craig, Chris Hadgis, Stacy Weibley, Mason Branch, Anna Riggio-Rosen, Ma
tthew Guyer, Bruno Neeser, Ian Mishalove, Ako Mott, Matthew Sanger, Don and Jacqueline Easley, and to the DC basketball crew at Balance Gym and the Jelleff court, keep pushin’ the rock.
My sisters and brothers: Christine Marque, Suzanne Boyer, Matthew McGinniss, and James McGinniss (you’re next).
Al and Phyllis Ford—for their kindness and love.
Especially for Nancy Doherty, editor extraordinaire, and for my father, Joe McGinniss, who inspires me.
Most of all for Bret: your generosity astounds me. Thank you.
And to Jeanine and Julien: This is our golden age … let’s take our time.