Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t stayed in worse places; it was only that he hated emptying his wallet for a dump like this.

  Freshly showered and wearing clean clothes, he went in search of food.

  The sun’s glare scorched his eyeballs. The Comet and its surroundings looked even worse than they had in the early-morning light. Every bit of faded and peeling paint, rusty metal, and broken concrete stood in sharp relief. So did the feral-looking kids clustered at one end of the parking lot, playing with a ball and a broken shopping cart. Jimmy smiled at them, but they didn’t smile back. He hadn’t expected them to.

  The Comet shared the street with several equally decrepit motels interspersed with weedy vacant lots and scabby-looking palm trees. A few blocks away, Jimmy found a gas station with an attached liquor store—handy for all of your DUI needs. But in addition to cheap booze, the place stocked some basic groceries. He chose a loaf of bread, aerosol cheese, a box of cereal bars, and a jug of water. His diet had been shit ever since he hit the road. He was probably going to get scurvy. But he couldn’t afford to eat out—not even fast food—and his in-room dining options were limited when he didn’t even have a fridge. He added a small carton of milk to his purchases. At least he’d get a little nutrition that way. He drained the carton while he walked back to the motel.

  He was restless and would have walked farther, but the sun beat down and the scenery wasn’t very promising. Besides, what if the cops returned to the Comet and he wasn’t there? Would they assume he’d skipped town?

  Shit, maybe he should skip town. The cops would find out soon enough that Tom died of natural causes, and then they’d stop looking for Jimmy. He didn’t care about anything in his car except for the boots, and the car itself was heading to the graveyard. But Officer Ramirez had treated him decently, had trusted him a bit, and Jimmy had given his word. He guessed he could stick around awhile longer.

  Back in his room, he sprayed cheese product onto slices of bread, rolled the bread into tubes, and ate. It had been one of his staple meals during childhood, along with dry cereal, peanut butter and crackers, and ketchup sandwiches. Ramen soup if his brothers could be bothered to work the stove. Shit. It was a wonder he hadn’t keeled over long ago.

  He washed his shirt, underwear, and socks from the day before and hung them in the bathroom to dry. He tried to stay clean whenever he could, and he hated being smelly. Dirtiness was unavoidable at times, especially when he had to sleep outdoors, but when he saw others draw away from him as if his filth and poverty were contagious, his heart hurt. He made special efforts at cleanliness when job hunting; nobody was going to hire a grimy bum.

  Downtime with nothing to fill it was another problem with being transient and unemployed. That’s why he’d tried to cultivate blankness. He sat on the bed and tried to turn off his brain, but today he couldn’t achieve it. His mind kept whirring, nearly as noisy as the Ford. The ancient console TV had a wavering staticky picture and only a high-pitched whine. Finally he grabbed his book and began to read. It was an old Stephen King he’d read before but didn’t mind rereading.

  Night fell. The noises outside his room became louder. A couple screamed at one another, and a baby cried. Cars sped by. Trains rumbled, shaking the entire building. Somewhere, from what sounded like the depths of hell, a woman repeated over and over, “You can’t stop it because it wants to stop you.”

  And the cops didn’t show.

  Although he wasn’t really tired, he eventually switched off the light and lay down, once again fully clothed. He dreamed of earthquakes and other natural disasters, and he dreamed of snakes.

  HE HAD to pay another thirty-five bucks in the morning. The clerk didn’t look any happier about taking his money than Jimmy felt about giving it.

  “Is there a grocery store somewhere nearby?” Jimmy asked.

  “Gas ’n’ Guzzle four blocks that way.” The clerk jerked his thumb.

  “Yeah, I was there yesterday. I was hoping for someplace that sells actual food. You know, the stuff without a million unpronounceable words in the ingredients list.”

  The clerk pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “Okay,” Jimmy said. “You have a nice day, now.”

  Out in the parking lot, he spied the kids. He was pretty sure they should be in school, and any adult supervision was evidently done by stealth. Jimmy knew from his own childhood that kids like these usually had a good lay of the land. “Hey,” he said, addressing the oldest one, a grubby boy around nine or ten. “Where near here can I buy groceries other than the Gas ’n’ Guzzle?”

  The kid narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “’Cause I’m tired of spray cheese.”

  “Gimme five bucks and I’ll tell you.”

  By now the other children had clustered around, eager to be entertained or enriched. “An entrepreneurial spirit,” Jimmy said. “I like that. But I don’t have an extra five dollars.”

  “Then I ain’t gonna tell you.” The kid crossed his arms.

  “Tell you what. You give me good directions to a supermarket, and when I get back I’ll juggle for you.”

  The kid raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Juggle?”

  “Yep. While I’m gone, you find three juggleable objects. That means nonlethal, not too big, and not too heavy.”

  The younger children chattered excitedly with one another, considering what things they could find, but their leader had a don’t shit me expression. “How do I know you can really juggle?”

  “You don’t. But even if I can’t, you get to watch me toss stuff around like an idiot, and that’s worth at least five dollars.”

  “Yeah, but what if you get back and you won’t do anything at all?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  The kid’s face clearly articulated how much he trusted adults. Jimmy couldn’t blame him. He’d be willing to bet the last of his cash that this boy had gone through plenty of demonstrations that grown-ups were lying, unreliable assholes.

  “What have you got to lose, bud? If you don’t give me the info, I definitely will not juggle. But if you do, I might. Odds say you’re better off spilling.”

  After mulling this over for a few moments, the kid nodded. “’Kay. But you better not be lying.”

  The grocery store was about a mile and a half away—a dusty walk past tired little houses with bars on the windows and doors. The store was small, with scuffed floors and an unpleasant smell of rotten food. But their selection was considerably larger than the Gas ’n’ Guzzle’s. He bought a couple of pull-tab cans of tuna and a box of crackers, a few small apples, a bag of almonds, some protein bars, and another small carton of milk. He could have done better if he had access to a hot plate or even a coffeemaker. He could do a lot with hot water.

  The bag grew heavy as he carried it back to the motel.

  He greeted the hooker at the parking lot entrance. The gang of children waited for him. “We found stuff for you,” announced a girl who was missing her top front teeth.

  “Great. Let me put this away first.”

  They clearly didn’t want to wait, but he marched past them, unlocked his room, and set the paper bag onto the stained chair. Then he went back outside. “Okay. What have we got?”

  They gleefully showed him the objects: a busted wooden baseball bat, a slightly mushy grapefruit, and a bald and naked imitation Barbie doll. “That’s quite a collection.”

  “I bet you can’t do it,” the oldest kid said with his chest puffed out. Jimmy imagined him in another decade, buff, inked, picking fights with the world. At least he wouldn’t get pushed around.

  Jimmy smiled at him before picking up the three objects and testing each of them in his hands, getting a feel for their weight and balance. Then he juggled them.

  He was pretty good at this. It was a skill someone had taught him years ago, when he and his mentor had been looking for a way to pass the time. The guy who taught him wasn’t actually all that talented at it
, but Jimmy practiced. It was a good way to kill twenty or thirty minutes, and it didn’t require much in the way of supplies. Once or twice when he was passing through a larger city and hard up for cash, he had set an empty paper cup on the sidewalk and tossed around whatever was handy—keys, a shoe, a book, rocks, a piece of broken plastic something. He’d earned enough quarters for coffee and fast food.

  The kids watched raptly, cheering when he got everything going really high. He kept the round going for a few minutes, then caught the items and took a deep bow. His audience clapped. For a brief time, all of them—even the tough oldest one—looked like happy little kids. He knew that wouldn’t last long, but he figured that even a fleeting moment of joy was worthwhile.

  “How did you learn to do that?” asked the boy.

  “I was in the circus. I juggled flaming torches while riding an elephant.”

  The kids were wide-eyed. “How come you ain’t in the circus no more?” asked a younger boy.

  Jimmy smiled. “Traumatic lion incident.” With a final jaunty little salute, Jimmy exited stage left. His tuna and crackers were waiting.

  NEITHER OFFICER Ramirez nor any other members of Fresno’s finest showed up that afternoon. Well, not for him, anyway. At one point in the late evening, while Jimmy was munching an apple and lost in the Overlook Hotel instead of the Comet, particularly strident shouts rang out from the parking lot. The screams grew louder—until gunshots abruptly cut them off. Jimmy instinctively rolled off the bed and hugged the floor. A stray bullet was a pointless way to die. Within a short time, sirens shrieked. More yelling ensued, followed by silence. He hoped nobody else had been shot.

  “You Torrances are weenies,” he said to his book when he was on his feet again. “I’d take a bunch of ghosts any day over fucktards with guns.” Haunted motels. What a load of bullshit.

  He couldn’t get back into the book after that. He sat on the bed with his back propped against the splintery headboard and considered his immediate future. He couldn’t spend forever sitting around and waiting for Ramirez to show up. Maybe he should find a job here. Find a place to live—a room in someone’s house or a slightly better motel room he could rent by the week.

  But the plan, such as it was, didn’t sit right. He didn’t have anything specific against Fresno. It wasn’t glamorous, but he’d seen worse. Yet he really didn’t want to stay. This city itched him like scratchy wool clothes. Most places did, eventually, but he felt it here already after only two days.

  He needed to go.

  One more day, he decided. If Ramirez didn’t make an appearance within twenty-four hours, Jimmy would hitch a ride or hop a train and get the hell out of Dodge. He’d keep on moving until the itch subsided. For a while.

  He took another shower, his second that day, as if he could bank the excess cleanliness for later. He folded the clothes he’d washed the day before and tucked them into the bag Ramirez had given him. He counted the thin stack of bills in his wallet. And he tried to go to sleep.

  But someone was arguing nearby. No gunfire this time, just rage and fear. A train rushed by, blowing its whistle, shaking the entire motel. And his brain was too stupid to turn off obediently. It churned unevenly, throwing out random bits of memory before settling on one memory that was recent and not random at all.

  You still got time, Tom had said.

  Yeah, Jimmy had almost nothing but time. Time, a book, a couple changes of clothes, some toiletries in a plastic bag, a few groceries, and about a hundred bucks. Tom said he should use that time to fix things. Screw that. Nothing in Jimmy’s life needed fixing. Well, nothing except that Ford, and even if he could afford it, the damn thing probably wasn’t worth saving anyway.

  Jimmy knew nobody would envy his life. But it was his, not anyone else’s. And he had no regrets. Sure, he’d made bad choices. Done stupid shit. He’d ended up in jail a couple of times; he’d blown good opportunities. He’d fucked men he shouldn’t have and didn’t fuck men he should have. He’d made a lot of wrong turns.

  And there was the stuff he hadn’t done. No relationships. No real friendships. No school past tenth grade. No home beyond the temporary. He’d never been important to anyone.

  Someday he was going to die like Tom—alone, maybe on the road. Nobody would give a damn, except for whatever unlucky schmucks got stuck with getting rid of his corpse.

  But fuck if Jimmy was going to sit here feeling sorry for himself, and he sure wasn’t going to run around trying to undo things long since done. He’d never had any kids to abandon, never had anyone to let down. If he wanted to live his life as a drifter—and he did—that was his own damn decision to make. He didn’t owe anybody anything.

  With his makeshift meal sour in his stomach, he rolled over and tried again to fall sleep.

  Chapter Three

  RAMIREZ DIDN’T show up the following morning, which Jimmy spent sitting on a big upturned plastic bucket outside his room, watching the kids run around the parking lot and the early hooker shift try to pull customers. Around noon, a man wandered over to join him. He probably wasn’t older than thirty, but he looked tired and used up. His no-color hair hung lankly over gray skin, and his brown eyes were muddy and faded.

  The man leaned against the wall before he took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. “You just get out of jail?” he asked. Maybe he’d seen Ramirez dropping Jimmy off—although the cops didn’t usually chauffeur people who’d just been sprung.

  “Nope. I haven’t done time in a while.” And never for very long. His crimes had been petty ones: vagrancy, trespassing, that ilk.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Just passing through.”

  The man spat and took another deep drag. “I been here seven months. Me an’ the kids.” He gestured vaguely at the children. Surely they weren’t all his, but he didn’t specify. “It’s a shithole.”

  “It could use a little updating,” Jimmy said mildly.

  “I used to own a house. Nice little place, and we kept it real clean. I had a decent job in construction, you know? Then the economy went belly-up. We lost the house. I was real happy when I finally found a job, but then I got hurt. Fucked up my back. And my wife….” He sighed, then tapped his head. “She’s got problems in here, you know? She’s been in the state hospital up in Stockton for a while. But she’ll be getting out soon.”

  Jimmy knew this story—or ones very like it. Families like this never seemed to get a break as the miseries piled up. And even when things went well, they lived so close to the edge that all it took was one small shove, one little misfortune, to push them over.

  “I hope things work out for you,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah, we’ll be okay. After Rosie gets out, we’re gonna go up north, us an’ the kids. It’s this fucking place that makes her crazy. Up in Oregon, Washington, she’ll be better. And there’s lotsa good jobs too. We’ll buy us another house….” His voice petered out as if his dreams stopped there. Or maybe he realized that he was hoping, and hope was poison.

  “Good luck with it,” said Jimmy. He went back inside his room to read.

  RIGHT AROUND the time Jimmy started thinking about dinner, someone knocked confidently on his door. He’d already paid the day’s thirty-five bucks, so he knew it wasn’t the desk clerk—who hadn’t looked as if he had the energy for knocking anyway. So Jimmy wasn’t entirely surprised to open the door and find Officer Ramirez.

  “I’m sorry it took so long,” Ramirez said. “Our coroner was being thorough.”

  “No problem. Can I have my car back?”

  Ramirez smiled at him. “You can. I’ll even give you a ride to the impound lot.”

  Jimmy rubbed his neck. “Um, if I have to pay impound fees….”

  “You don’t. Your car is yours, free and clear. You ready?”

  He wasn’t, but it took only a couple of minutes for him to put his leftover food in one bag and everything else in the other. Ramirez waited while Jimmy checked out, and then he opened
the cruiser’s passenger door with a little flourish. “Your chariot, Mr. Dorsett.”

  The inside of the police car smelled good. Ramirez’s cologne, or maybe just him. Fuck. It had been way too long since Jimmy got laid. He wasn’t starving for a fuck all the time, like when he was a kid. Then he used to hook up wherever and whenever he could and jerk off when he couldn’t. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have welcomed a nice, hard body against his.

  But not a cop’s. Obviously. Jimmy shifted slightly in his seat.

  As if cued by the movement, Ramirez spoke. “I am really sorry for the inconvenience, and I appreciate your patience. You did the right thing.”

  “I didn’t do anything but not leave.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Although I am glad you didn’t run off. I mean, you offered a ride to a man who needed one, and when he died, you called us. Thank you.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. Did you find his son?”

  “After a little trouble, yes. We were looking for Shane Reynolds instead of Shane Little. He has a different last name than the deceased. But Rattlesnake’s a pretty small town, and the police there helped us track him down.”

  “Congratulations on the outstanding detective work.” They were stopped at a light, so Jimmy shot Ramirez a quick grin.

  But Ramirez didn’t smile back. “The son didn’t want anything to do with him, not even dead. It’s too bad.”

  Jimmy’s gut twisted a little. “So Tom’ll end up cremated, huh? No funeral or anything.”

  “Yeah. But you know what? He spent his last hour or so warm and comfortable, and he didn’t die alone. That’s something, I think.”

  Maybe. And it was probably the best Jimmy could hope for when he croaked. He hoped nobody ended up stuck at the Comet Motel someday because of him.