Random on Tour: Las Vegas

by Julia Kent

  “Damn.”

  “Naw. It’s a good thing. Now I can sleep at night.”

  “Huh?”

  “With you out in Boston living it up with your boys, and with Josie all settled in with Alex out there, I’m living a good life with Calvin. We go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. I’m finally part of the Women’s Bible Study, which so far seems to be an excuse to drink communion wine and complain about our husbands. I ain’t got big complaints about Calvin, other than his farting problem, so I mostly listen. But I am part of it,” she added proudly. “Finally.”

  “That’s great, but what’s that got to do with Marlene?”

  “Marlene’s the reason I can’t sleep.”

  “Ah. Gotcha. It’s always somethin’, huh? What happened? She okay? She didn’t hurt herself, did she?” Last time Marlene got into serious trouble was when Mama, Calvin, and Marlene flew to Maine for Josie and Alex’s wedding. Marlene had herself a threesome Mile High Club thing going on with two college hockey players and poured out in a naked, tangled mess on the baggage claim conveyor belt. Got arrested.

  Alex’s mom had to help get her out of jail.

  Ever since the car accident more than twenty years ago, Marlene’s been a bit off. Traumatic brain injury is what the doctors say, but it seems to get worse as time passes.

  “She’s been begging for pain meds. Doctor shopping, sleeping with men – you know.”

  Yeah. I knew. “You know” was shorthand for all kinds of dysfunction back home in Peters.

  Then again, the Boston suburbs had their own version of “You know,” so...

  “And now she moved on to heroin,” Mama said. “It’s a big problem here. Easy to get. Buncha Mexicans come up with it stored in their mouths and you call and they deliver it to your door.”

  “Mama? What? That sounds crazy.”

  “It is crazy. Don’t make it untrue, though.”

  I’d read some articles about this. Even read a book called Dreamland by Sam Quiñones, about the crisis, much of the book focused on a part of Ohio, though not mine. Close enough. The conversation made me feel like I was breathing steam.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for Marlene. I kept getting calls from people around town, finding her passed out in their cars, sleeping on couches on their porches. The woman’s like a stray cat, landing wherever she likes, just seeking warmth.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sent Mike to collect her. If he wasn’t home, Calvin would do it, though I’m awfully ashamed. He tells me not to be. Says he knew what he was getting into when he married me. Says Marlene needs compassion.”

  My nose started tingling horribly, eyes getting wet. Goddamn Calvin. I was impressed.

  And grateful.

  “I’m glad –” I cleared my throat and started again. “I’m glad you have him, Mama. He’s a good man.”

  “That he is,” she agreed with a sigh. “It’s about time something in my life went right.”

  Indeed.

  “So Marlene pushed too hard this time. Got some drugs from someone who was at the campground nearby. Crawled into someone’s RV, the kind you tow behind you. They was leaving the campground and drove off about eighty miles before they stopped at a gas station and heard her screaming.”

  “Screaming? Hollering to get out?”

  “No. The damn fool had picked an RV with a raccoon.”

  “Say that again, Mama, ‘cause I –”

  “A raccoon, Darla. I ain’t mumbling. You heard me.” The soft whisper of a drag on a cigarette, followed by silence, told me whatever was coming next was bad.

  “Does, um, Josie know about all this?”

  “Yeah. She’s been dealing with the legal fallout. She’s Marlene’s next of kin, technically, poor girl.”

  “But it’s your sister, no matter what.” I couldn’t stop thinking about raccoons.

  “Right. And you don’t fuck around with rabies.”

  Sometimes Joe and Trevor tell me that my stories are hard to understand. I never believed them.

  Until now.

  “Mama, would you just get right to the point? Are you sayin’ Marlene was attacked by a rabid raccoon while illegally trespassing in someone’s RV?”

  “Day-um, Darla, you should write headlines for Fox News, ’cause that is exactly what I’ve been telling you. But you’re more blunt.”

  “And Marlene got rabies?”

  “No. But they let the raccoon out and it got away and ’cause raccoons don’t generally attack people, they made her get them rabies shots.”

  “Can raccoons shift?”

  “Can raccoons shit? Of course they can shit. What is wrong with you, Darla? You a little touched?”

  “Not shit, Mama. Shift – oh, never mind. What happened then? After someone found Marlene trapped in the RV with a raccoon?”

  “They opened the door. The raccoon came flying out and scampered off into the woods when the people who owned the RV stopped near Jelloway. Then Marlene came out, covered in claw marks with at least two bites, screaming and still half high on whatever she took.”

  “Oh, God.” Does it make me a bad niece to immediately want to add that to a future book about raccoon shifters?

  Don’t answer that.

  “So many people called 911 on the spot, the local news thought there had been a terrorist attack. Shut down a whole section of road until one of the state troopers recognized Marlene as the town whore of Peters and got everyone to back down. The folks who owned the RV found it a giant mess. Pressed charges. And Marlene went to jail.”

  “Again?”

  “Again.”

  I pressed my head against the cool plastic veneer of my desk, my breath warming my nose as it bounced back at me. Poor Josie. She hadn’t called to vent.

  Yet.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry about nothing. Marlene got all her shots and the judge said it was all caused by drugs, so she had a choice. Rehab or jail. Marlene chose rehab.”

  “She did?”

  “Well, Josie told her it was rehab or she’d never speak to her again or see any babies Josie and Alex plan to have.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Josie grew a backbone living there in Boston.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Glad to see it,” Mama added, inhaling slowly, then exhaling. I wondered if she was smoking cigarettes again or just vaping. Now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “Yeah. How long’s Marlene in?”

  “Mandatory sentence of two weeks.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I wish it was more. At least I’ll sleep for the next five days.”

  “This happened nine days ago???”

  “Yep.”

  Why wasn’t Josie calling me? I wondered. We often went weeks without talking, ever since I quit my job at the dating service she ran with her friend Laura. It wasn’t out of anger. Just from having parallel lives. The band, my new writing, and the two college classes I was taking online at Harvard’s night school kept me busy.

  So did Joe and Trevor.

  But not so busy that she couldn’t reach out to me.

  “You’re wonderin’ why Josie didn’t tell you all this, huh?” Mama asked.

  “You a mind reader?”

  “I just know you. Josie’s goin’ through her own shit. She knows you’re busy, so –”

  “What shit? You mean there’s more than this?”

  Silence.

  Then a long, aggrieved sigh. “You need to talk to her about it. I’m not breaking a confidence.”

  “What confidence? Josie told you a secret and wants it kept from me?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way. Just that she didn’t say I could tell you.”

  “When the fuck did that ever stop you from passing something on?”

  “Darla! Watch your mouth.”

  “My eyes don’t twist like that, Mama, and
I ain’t got a mirror handy. Now cough it up. What’s wrong with Josie, other than the mess with Marlene?”

  Another sigh.

  “Fine. She had a miscarriage.”

  “A what?”

  “She was pregnant and lost the baby, Darla.”

  All my skin went numb. I felt the sound inside me before I heard it.

  “And this shit with Marlene came around the same time.”

  Rage turned everything before me red. “You mean the stress from Marlene made her lose the baby?”

  “No. It would be so much worse if that happened. But she was already going through it.”

  Miscarriage. Whoa. Either they were trying to get pregnant or they had an oops! and lost it.

  “Was she… sad?”

  “Of course she was sad, Darla!”

  “Mama, don’t yell at me! I don’t know whether this baby was wanted or not!”

  “Oh.” She got soft with understanding. “It was.”

  “Damn.”

  “You know Josie. So private. She had to manage Marlene’s legal mess from afar, and finish up the bleeding. Alex said she’s fine and recovering, but she’s dealing with a lot.”

  “Why didn’t she reach out to me?”

  “She has Alex now. I don’t think she woulda told me about it if I hadn’t asked her to come to Ohio to help with Marlene.”

  I jolted. “Mama, those messages you left on the wrong number. Were they about Marlene?”

  Mama cackled sadly. “Yep. Dunlap finally called and asked me if I was smoking crack, ‘cause I was ranting about raccoons and rabies and RVs.”

  “At least you were alliterative.”

  “Of course I’m literate!”

  Never mind.

  “I need to call Josie. Now,” I insisted.

  “No, Darla. Give her time. She’s got Alex. I get the sense she can’t handle no one else talking to her about it now. Strong sense. She hated telling me. It was like pulling teeth.”

  “But –”

  “Sometimes the best way to help someone you love is by butting out.”

  “Who in the fuck stole my mama and replaced her with you? Since when did you ever show how you love me by butting out?”

  “Not you. That rule don’t apply between me and you.”

  “Jesus, Mama, you drive me crazy.”

  “Right back atcha.”

  We sat in silence. Bet she was smirking just like me.

  “How’s life for you? Aside from the Marlene mess.”

  “Just fine. In fact, Calvin’s doing so well, we’re thinking about coming to visit you in Boston this fall.” Pride oozed out of her voice.

  “What?” I about fell off my chair.

  “You got room, right? A pull out sofa? ‘Cause we can drive out there and stay a few nights with you. We ain’t doing so well we can get a hotel room for all those nights.”

  “Mama, of course you can stay with us! And no, we’d give you a bed and take the sofa ourselves. You can’t sleep on our ratty old sofa. But – what’s happening with Calvin’s business? There a sudden increase in dead animal stuffing I didn’t know about?”

  Mama got quiet, then cleared her throat. “He’s got this whole online thing going on. On eBay. It’s, uh… popular.”

  “Selling dead animals on eBay? Now I heard everything.” My stepdaddy Calvin’s taxidermy didn’t strike me as the kind of business that suddenly went viral.

  “Right. Surprised us, too.”

  I frowned at my phone. “And he’s making good money off this?”

  “Decent money. His daughter helped us do all the internet stuff. Told Calvin about this uh, group of people who like to buy, uh, his work, and so he decided to try it once. Word got out, and you know. Between that and my sweeping and my disability check, we’re doing well. Better than well, actually.”

  Mama’s “uhs” were bothering me. Mama didn’t stutter or stammer. In fact, Mama didn’t get nervous.

  “What’s the name of his eBay store, Mama? I’ll look it up. Maybe buy something so I can give him a good rating and help out.”

  “No! No, I mean, uh, he’s outta stock right now, so not selling nothing on eBay. Don’t you google him or, you know... uh, waste your time.”

  Now my eyebrows went way up. Josie not sharing her tragedies with me. Mama calling the wrong person and leaving raccoon rabies stories on voicemail, and being cagey about Calvin’s sudden online success.

  Nothing in my life made sense.

  Then again, when did it ever?

  “You said you have some good news,” Mama said, obviously changing the subject. I let her. Whatever was going on behind the scenes could wait.

  “I do! The band is going to Vegas! We’re performing at a resort on the actual Vegas Strip. Right next to the theater where Donny and Marie do a show!”

  Mama went silent, then asked:

  “Vegas? Las Vegas? The Las Vegas?”

  “Yep. The only one. The band has finally struck it really big, Mama. Vegas!”

  My phone beeped.

  “When you going?”

  “Not for a while. In about four months.”

  Mama let out a little sound, almost a gasp. “Oh. Good.”

  “Why is that good?” Giles was on the other line. Huh.

  “Just… I mean, good you’re going to Vegas! Congratulations!”

  Mama sounded so… fake.

  Beep.

  “Mama, I got someone on the other line.”

  “It’s fine! Talk to you later.”

  Click.

  Mama hung up on me.

  I clicked over to Giles, but too late. I paused, knowing he was leaving a message.

  Pausing is hard when your mind’s just been filled with images of rabid raccoons, your aunt miscarrying, your mama smoking again, and an eBay-based taxidermy surge.

  But I managed.

  Finally, the message Giles left registered on my phone. I tapped my screen and listened.

  “Darla, I am so sorry,” the message began.

  No. Oh no no no no no.

  I was right.

  Fuck.

  “You and I had a misunderstanding.”

  Here it came. He was canceling.

  “I write dates the European way.”

  He was asking me out on a date?

  “And so the contract dates are incorrect. Please check your email for the revised dates. In Europe, as you know, we put the day first, month second, year third.”

  Oh, boy. We were supposed to start August 4th. I interrupted the end of the message and checked my email.

  Yep.

  April 8th was the actual concert date.

  Hoe-lee-crap.

  My mind just reeled. All of it – asking Giles for a change in dates – was completely unnecessary.

  It also meant we had less than three weeks to book everything! Damn. No wonder Giles assumed I’d done all the travel arrangements and offered to pay for the difference.

  Quickly, I called all the guys and left messages to let them know about the bizarre change. My life was about to be a flurry of activity. They had their songs down cold, and Tyler agreed to come with us as backup, if needed, so all the actual performance stuff was fine.

  The logistics, on the other hand, all fell on me.

  My phone buzzed and moaned as the texts flew back, the guys confirming, buoyed by my news that the gig paid ten percent more and that all the travel was covered. I spent the next half hour booking hotel rooms and flights, using the band’s credit card. When I hit ‘Submit,’ all I could think was that I just spent more in one tap than Mama and I used to make in an entire year.

  You don’t suddenly adjust to that kind of thing.

  You just don’t.

  Deep in my own thoughts, head bent down over my phone, I wandered into the living room to find Amy munching from a bowl of chips.

  Amy looked up when I walked into the room. “Who was that on the phone? Your mom?”

  “Yeah. Bad news from back home.” I grab
bed a glass container full of leftovers from the fridge and popped it in the microwave.

  “What’s wrong? Did someone tip a cow?”

  I glared at her. Decided to teach her a lesson. I was up to here with overwhelm and when I reach the end of my rope, tormenting Amy is as good as any other form of stress relief.

  “Our old next-door neighbor died. Sudden, unexpected death. She was my age.” I let out a shaky breath, turning on my acting skills. “Man. Poor Becky.”

  Amy’s hand flew to her mouth in horror. “How did she die?”

  “Choked to death.”

  “Oh, my God! That’s awful! No one was around to do the Heimlich maneuver?”

  “Oh, he tried, but the pube wouldn’t come out.”

  “The… pube?”

  “Yeah. You know. Pubic hair.”

  “She died from choking on a pubic hair?”

  “Mostly.”

  Amy crossed her arms over her ample chest, cocked one eyebrow, and sighed. Then she said, “I’m going to regret this, but… explain.”

  The microwave beeped. I grabbed my hot plate of mac ‘n’ cheese with Spam in it and settled down on the couch. This was going to be a long story. Things get complicated sometimes in Peters, Ohio. They just do. Ain’t my fault.

  Especially when I was pulling Amy’s leg.

  “Becky was old Doc Oglethorpe’s niece,” I started.

  Trevor walked into the room at that exact moment and groaned. “Not the baby Jesus shoefucker story. I don’t have it in me to listen to that one again.”

  I shook my head sadly. “No. This one is about his niece. She just died.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to make a joke.”

  “Darla,” Amy said in an arch voice. “Tell Trevor how she died.”

  I looked at him. “Choked to death on a pubic hair.”

  He didn’t even flinch. “Her own, or someone else’s?”

  “Her own? Trevor Connor, do you know any woman who can munch her own rug? Because if you do, I need to meet her, shake her hand, find out how in the hell she does it, and nominate her for a Nobel Prize. I might even subtly pull some strands of her hair so I can get some of her DNA.”

  “Actually, back in college, there was this chick who was really into yoga, and –”

  “If women could train themselves to perform their own oral sex, men would be sorely hurting,” I mused. Amy caught my eye and we transmitted one of those XX-chromosome messages that guys don’t even realize exist.