‘You’re such a dick,’ she said.
We arrived at the bar where aluminum poles and a plastic yellow rope penned twenty people with faces blued by cell phone glow. At the head of the line three girls were arguing with the doorman. His eyes streamed tears and, as he told them that they weren’t on the list, he wiped his eyes as if truly heartbroken about the oversight.
I went up to the bouncer. ‘Excuse me, can I use your accessible bathroom?’
‘Go ahead. In and to the left.’
‘You okay?’
‘Allergies,’ he said, swiping away the streams of tears with one huge hand.
The bar was a black napkin and goji berry martini affair and crowded with people who reminded me of my brother Patrick. I suggested to Sarah that most people here had at one time described themselves, without irony, as ‘Working hard, playing hard’. She replied by singing, ‘Middle managers of the world unite and discuss synergies.’ We cut our way through the block of business casual by saying ‘Excuse me’ loudly, touching an arm here and there, and the occasional bump of my wheelchair against the back of a loafer.
‘I’m ready to leave, you?’
Ignoring me, she waved to her friends.
They were perched on stools around a tall table. They fit in with the crowd. They looked up in unison from their phones.
Sarah whispered to me, ‘No dickheadery. For me.’
They all kissed cheeks with Sarah. The table was tall enough to rest my chin on. Every time I said something, Sarah and her friends looked down at me from their stools as if I was an amusing pet. I fought a welling ugliness deep in my gut. JJ looked from me to the table and seemed to notice my discomfort.
‘Do you mind if we find somewhere else?’ JJ suggested. ‘This place is full of weekend warriors. It used to be a laidback place like the Crown.’
Because of his past with Sarah, I was prepared to hate him, but with that sentence, he seemed an okay guy.
‘I used to work at the Crown,’ I said.
‘Really? I loved that place. There’s nothing like that in New York. I should be asking you then. Where’s a good place?’
‘I haven’t been downtown in a long time. There’s probably still some old-man bars on Fourth.’
We found a bar away from the main street manned by dedicated hipsters serving a handful of equally dedicated alcoholics surrounded by Goldenrod photocopies advertising local bands and publicity posters from beer distributors showing pneumatic women with hand-drawn Hitler moustaches and blacked-out teeth.
‘It’ll only be a matter a time before the Sixth Street crowd find this place,’ JJ said. ‘Creative industry yuppies like me are the first sign that a place is no longer cool.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I work for a record label.’ He put his thumbs up. ‘As an account manager.’ Thumbs down.
‘Does your sister still work at the hippy store? Can she get Jarred a job?’ Sarah asked.
He dialled his phone. ‘Yo. What are you doing? . . . That sucks. I got a friend here looking for a job. You guys looking for anybody? . . . Cool. Tomorrow? . . . Cool. Bye.’
We had a good night out. Sarah’s friends were nice guys. They all had office jobs: the managers of people, projects and accounts. The pinball of conversation kept rolling back to the sink of office politics, commutes, vacation days not taken. Sarah was right there with them. It was my first glimpse of her previous power-suited past.
‘How’d JJ get a job like that?’ I said as we headed back to the car.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Account manager? Pretty dull for a guy who studied music.’
‘It’s called growing up. Try it some time.’
‘What’s that mean?’ ‘Day jobs are supposed to be boring; that’s why they’re paying you.’
We reached the car. She unlocked my door.
‘He’s going to get sucked dry by some company who gets him to drink the Kool-Aid and turns him into a company man,’ I said. ‘He’ll work sixty hours a week to get thrown enough money for him to lease a car, buy a house so he’s so scared of missing a payment that they’ll work him eighty hours. Then when bosses need to protect their bonuses, they’ll come downstairs, be awfully sorry and chuck him out. The guys that fire him will own shares in the bank that forecloses on his house and repos his car.’
I transferred to the passenger seat. Sarah put my chair in the trunk and got into the driver’s side.
‘Or, another possibility just as likely,’ Sarah said. ‘It turns out fine. You’re too old for hipster cooler-than-thou. Why do you care anyway?’
She started the car and pulled out of the parking garage.
‘I can see you miss that shit,’ I said.
‘Don’t pick a fight with me. I don’t miss anything. Are you talking about Kevin talking about his promotion? What does it matter to you? He was excited. He wanted to brag. Let him brag. Stop being so self-conscious. It makes you pathetic.’ She checked her mirrors and indicated to get on the freeway.
‘You made me look pathetic. Wheelchair boy needed his girlfriend to get him a shitty minimum-wage job.’
She growled with frustration. ‘You’re making me mad. I am not taking care of you. It’s a relationship. We help each other. You need a job. I knew JJ’s sister works at a place you’d probably like. If you don’t chill out, I’m going to punch you.’
‘Fine, punch me.’
‘Fuck!’ She hit the steering wheel.
‘Sorry, forget it.’
‘No! I didn’t put your wheels in the trunk. I leaned them against the pole and forgot to put them in, because I was busy having a stupid argument with you. Fuck.’
Fear seized my guts and my heart pounded in my chest. Sarah called herself names, apologising for being so useless. It took every ounce of self-control to keep the calm in my voice. I didn’t want her to feel bad about this.
‘It’s okay. They’ll still be there. No one is going to steal wheelchair wheels.’
People steal wheelchair wheels.
Sarah broke down uncontrollably when we returned to the parking lot and saw the pole with no wheels below it. I thought about the cost of replacing them, easily $500. I doubted Medicare covered theft. How does a paraplegic explain losing his wheels? I rubbed her back and told her it was okay. She screamed, called herself stupid, a fuck-up.
‘Stop that. It’s a mistake. It’s okay. We’ll figure something out. Look, there’s a fancy hotel across the street. They always have a loaner wheelchair to get old people up to their room. Just ask them, explain the situation. They’re not going to say no, we can’t help you and your cripple boyfriend.’
They said no to her and her cripple boyfriend.
I laughed. ‘Really? They said no. What dicks. Sarah, don’t worry. I’m not upset. It’s okay. Come here.’
I pulled her into my lap and held her. She wriggled away, all apologies.
‘Stop. You are wonderful. It’s a mistake. We’ll figure something out. I can get new wheels from the mobility shop in the morning. It’s okay, really. We’re downtown. There’s got to be a DoubleTree or something like that around the corner. This time don’t ask, just grab the loaner chair like you know what you’re doing. We’ll return it tomorrow.’
She parked in the street in front of the Four Seasons. I kissed her cheek and told her it was okay. She nodded and kissed me back. Five minutes later, she was back with a wheelchair with the word ‘hotel’ stencilled on the back.
‘Blue? They didn’t have a red one?’
She looked at me bewildered and started to cry again. ‘I’ll go check.’
She started to turn back and I shouted that I was joking. Calling me a jerk, she loaded the chair back into the car.
‘You okay?’ I asked.
We kissed and she was okay.
41
Our argument beside Mom’s grave was the last time I saw Jack for a decade, but I didn’t know that at the time. After the fight, I went over to Fritz’s and asked if I could cra
sh at his place.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘Let’s take a road trip?’
‘Where to?’
‘California.’
‘Do you have a car? Do you have money?’
‘No.’
‘Sounds like a pretty crappy road trip so far.’
I advertised Jack’s washer and dryer in the classifieds. As soon as the guy handed over the money and drove off with them bungeed into his truck bed, I phoned Fritz and told him we were leaving that day.
I broke into the neighbour’s house and took the keys to their saddle-backed Oldsmobile. By then the neighbourhood knew who was to blame when anything was amiss. We were that family.
I pulled up to Fritz’s apartment, tooted the horn and we were off. We shot north to take I-40 West, the interstate highway that had replaced Route 66. Fritz used Jerry’s credit card until he cancelled it on the second day. We sang along to the radio and ate junk food. My first road trip and it felt like the solution to every problem I ever had. Fritz said it took a country as big, as open, as changeable as America to discover this thousandth plus one path to enlightenment. The highway is the one promise that this country has kept. He was right.
By the time we hit the Texas panhandle, the mood had changed. Maybe it was the landscape. The flat openness, its measly offering of scrub bush and little else felt threatening. The wind slapped at you with a grudgeful persistence. By the time we were in New Mexico, Fritz was shunning me whenever I touched him. We weren’t talking at all by the time we got to Santa Fe.
We were somewhere in the Arizona desert and ahead of us was a man dragging a crucifix along the soft shoulder. I pulled to the side of the road behind him. He didn’t stop or look back.
‘We should do something,’ I said. ‘He could die out here.’
Fritz sat up and watched the man. ‘What, though?’
‘Give him a ride?’
Fritz made a face, but agreed.
I got out and jogged up to the man, the desert heat pressing on us. The bottom of his cross had worn to a sharp edge from being dragged.
‘Do you need some help?’
He shook his head.
‘You sure? It’s easily another thirty miles to the next town.’ I talked and walked beside him for a little more but the best I could do was convince him to take our water bottles.
‘Is he going to be okay?’ I asked Fritz as he drove us off.
‘Probably not.’
By the time we got to Flagstaff, we were friends again. The road had done its magic and we sneaked into a bar having a karaoke night. It was fun until I got us kicked out for doing the Buffalo Bill dance to ‘Goodbye Horses’. The Oldsmobile broke down the next day so we had to hitchhike to Phoenix. One phone call later and Fritz’s mom had wired him cash, and a plane ticket home was waiting for him at the airport.
‘Are you ditching me?’
‘I can’t ask her for two plane tickets. She’d go nuts. Here’s some money for a bus.’
I took the money and walked off without saying goodbye. I pulled out the earring he had given me and flicked it away. My ear felt hot.
As I cursed Fritz and felt sorry for myself, I heard a slow, heavy drip. I stopped walking to consider the sound. I thought of faucets, of trickling streams, of melting icicles. From the corner of my eye, there was a candle wax stain on my shoulder. I touched my ear, and my hand came away bloody.
42
Your ribs are broken. It’s going to hurt. Ready? One . . . two . . . three.
‘Is he still sleeping?’ Jack’s voice said from the other side of the door.
‘No, he’s awake. It’s one of those mornings,’ Sarah said.
‘I can hear you two!’ I shouted toward the door. ‘The hippies can do without me for a day.’ The grocery store’s real name was The Store. It was the kind of place where customers paid extra to scoop their own granola into a paper bag and make their own peanut butter. The notice boards sold moon cups, meditation classes and hydroponic equipment, all of which signed off with ‘namaste’. JJ’s sister, Peggy, hired me to work the register. She was a small woman with short hair, huge glasses and contagious enthusiasm. She was good about making sure I could get around the store. Whenever she went into the break room, she always moved a chair out of the way without making a song and dance about it. The customers were a mix of hippies, earnest college kids flirting with right-on politics and complicated dietary rules (no meat or egg but honey is okay) and wealthy soccer moms who had figured out it was less hassle to purchase ethical behaviour than practise it. Every two weeks, I handed over the majority of my pay cheque to Jack. He fussed every time, but I left the cash on the table until he took it with a ‘thanks’. It was the first time that I was okay or that I understood what okay could be.
By the time I was up and dressed, Jack was gone and Sarah was sitting in his chair watching tv with Mister Shakey curled in her lap. I gave him a few scratches behind the ear. She asked me if I was ready. Yes.
The moustachioed collection agent was in his car a couple of houses down, but his attention was focused on filling out paperwork. I leaned on Sarah’s car horn. He jumped and I got a moment’s satisfaction of eye contact as we passed him.
‘Do you think Jack has been acting funny lately?’ Sarah asked.
‘By funny, do you mean not giving me hell every two seconds? Funny like that?’
‘I don’t know. I just get the feeling something is bothering him.’
‘You can ask, but he won’t tell you. Only mystery and bullshit lie behind the great brows of Jack McGinnis.’
At the hippy store, I wheeled over to Sarah’s side of the car and leaned into the window to give her a kiss goodbye.
‘Thank you for being unreasonably patient with all my nonsense,’ I said.
‘I could say the same thing,’ she said.
After my shift I took a bus to Sarah’s coffee shop to hang out there until she finished. She had a customer so I waved and blew a kiss as I glided over to my corner. The man at the counter was speaking loudly to his cell phone. He was telling someone not to take less than ‘eighty k’ and repeating ‘fuck him’. He looked at the board above Sarah, not acknowledging her.
‘Latte with an extra shot.’ He pinched the phone between his ear and shoulder and pulled out his wallet.
‘Regular or large?’ Sarah asked.
Still talking to his phone, he tossed a bill onto the counter then turned his back on her.
‘Latte. Extra shot. Large asshole.’ Sarah said to her co-worker making the coffees. Sarah took the bill and made his change. He was still talking on the phone, leaning against the counter. She wadded the bills and coins and threw them. They bounced off the man’s back.
‘Show me some respect!’ she shouted.
Her co-worker and the man both watched, stunned, as Sarah ran from the shop. I found her in her car crying. I tapped the window.
‘Licence and registration,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Licence and registration.’
She put her window down.
‘You okay?’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’
My selfish heart stumbled with the fear that she would go back to San Francisco, but seeing her upset hurt more.
‘What do you mean? Forget that guy,’ I said. ‘What can I do for you?’ I opened her car door and leaned in to hug her.
‘Thank you, Jarred. You’ve been so good for me.’
43
After Fritz abandoned me, I caught a Greyhound, determined to complete my first road trip. The bus went to LA then up the coast. Viewing the jagged end of this young continent and the impossible grey expanse of the Pacific Ocean did feel like the start of a new adventure, but mostly I remember the loneliness aching in my stomach for the two days it took to get to San Francisco.
When I arrived, I spent hours sitting in coffee shops fly-fishing for eye contact, willing anyone to take notice. Fritz had given me a hundred dollars of his mom�
�s money, but I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night or what was going to happen after I woke up.
I sat on the kerb drinking out of a one-litre Coke bottle spiked with Canadian Club. The black half-moon of Bernal Heights hill rose from a sea of sodium-lit streets. A girl sat beside me and handed me a 7-Eleven Slurpee cup. I peered in to see a toad sitting at the bottom untroubled by his confinement.
‘Who does this frog look like?’ she asked.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Who does this frog look like?’
‘I think it’s a toad.’
‘You think so, Mr. Science?’
‘Jesus, it looks like fat Elvis.’
‘Totally. This is so awesome. I’m Karla.’
Her bleached-to-white hair was bobby-pinned like a braided halo. She was tiny with stick-thin legs that dropped from a short pleated skirt. She was smiling to herself, petting a toad with a bump on its head like a Presley hairdo.
‘Want some? It’s Canadian Club.’
‘Drinking’s for losers,’ she said and took a swig. ‘You live around here?’
‘Not sure yet.’
‘You can crash with us.’ She sat beside me on the kerb, and we stared into the cup while the toad sat motionless at the bottom. ‘We’re going to call you Fat Elvis. Is that okay?’
We talked and shared my drink. I watched her lips on the mouth of the bottle. She passed it back.
I took a drink and pretended I tasted cherry when she surprised me with, ‘My stepdad was a little too grabby-grabby and Mom, of course, didn’t believe me. It was all too after-school-special pathetic. I knew the guys from talking to them at shows. It was no big thing to move in. That was a week ago. It’s nice. I have my own bathroom, more than I had at home, and everyone watches out for each other. I think you’ll like it. Why’d you run away?’
‘Mom’s dead. Dad’s a drunk. No one was going to miss me. Why not?’
‘Fair enough. You want to see the squat?’ she asked.
‘Lead on.’ I slipped Fat Elvis into my jacket pocket. He felt cold, jelly and bones. The squat was a condemned hospital near an overpass. She squeezed through a hole cut in a chain-link fence and held it open for me. We followed a path that wandered through waist-high weeds. A grind of guitars and amplified shouts grew stronger as we stepped over toppled piles of bricks and tyres filled with muck and mosquito larvae.
The Coward Page 18