The Motel Life

by Willy Vlautin

  ‘I was wearing a bikini?’

  ‘And you looked great.’

  ‘What color was it?’

  ‘Black.’

  ‘I like black,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  She giggled.

  ‘We have to be quiet,’ I said, ‘or Number Seventeen will wake up.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay, Sixteen,’ I said in a whisper and continued. ‘So I throw the food into the speedboat, which was still sitting on top of Number One, and then we both get in and wait until the ship sinks and the speedboat’s free and we head off to this island which we can just make out through the rain and darkness. The storm’s rough, I mean ten-foot waves, but I handle it okay, and soon, just as the sun’s coming up the storm eases and we head into this beautiful bay and we stop at this dock and you jump out in your bikini and tie up the boat. I get out with all the food and we walk up to this large mansion sitting on this bluff overlooking the sea and a huge beach. No one is inside, just us. There’s electricity and we walk around. There’s a jacuzzi inside with a slide, a huge movie room, and an ice skating rink, which is good ’cause I know how you like to ice skate. We sit on this huge deck and they have a telescope and we try to find our crew, but no one’s in sight. We move a bed out to the deck and we just lay out on it and watch the waves crashing the beach. “I guess we’ll stay here for a while,” I said. “I guess so,” you said. The End.’

  ‘I wish that were true,’ she said. ‘I wish more than anything in the world that was true.’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘It just ain’t happened yet.’

  I was at the counter staring off like that when the lady came up to me and gave me a western novel called Lonesome Dove. She said she thought it might pass the time, and so I spent the rest of the day getting wood, shoveling, eating, and trying to read that book, which turned out to be a pretty good one.

  Around dusk the bus showed up. It was three hours late and by that time it was snowing again. I bought my ticket and sat in the back, near a window, and fell asleep. Hours later I got off in Boise. I had just enough money for a ticket to Reno.

  10

  WHEN I GOT HOME I didn’t do anything but sit in my room and watch TV. I didn’t call anybody, not even work. I just lay in bed and waited for Jerry Lee, hoping that he was okay, hoping that he’d come home.

  On the third day Polly Flynn, the girl who burned Jerry Lee’s pants that night, came to my room. I opened the door in my underwear and a ski cap.

  She entered wearing skin-tight jeans, a light green parka, white earmuffs, and leather boots.

  ‘What happened to the window?’ was the first thing she said and walked over to it and looked out.

  ‘A duck,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A duck flew into the window.’

  ‘You’re not funny. Just get some clothes on.’

  I closed the door behind her and got back in bed. She sat in the chair I have by the window and began crying.

  ‘The reason I came,’ she said finally, ‘is that Jerry Lee shot himself last night. Didn’t you know? Hadn’t you heard? He shot himself in his bad leg. They might have to amputate the rest of it. Isn’t that just the most horrible thing you’ve ever heard?’

  I got out of bed, put on my clothes, took the last of the reserve money I’d hid in my work boots, and we left.

  While she drove us there she said Jerry Lee had told her that he had tried to kill himself, but that he didn’t have the nerve to shoot himself in the head and decided to shoot himself in the thigh and bleed to death. He’d come by her house yesterday and asked to borrow her car. She gave him the keys and he left. He didn’t say where he was going or what he was doing. Then he drove to Horsemen’s Park, shut off the engine, turned up the radio, pulled out the gun, pointed it at his head, then at his leg, and fired. Turned out the park he chose was near a firehouse. The firemen heard the shot and called the police.

  When the police found him, he was unconscious and bleeding heavily out of his right thigh. He had a loaded .357 in the seat next to him. The fire department then came, put a tourniquet on his leg, wrapped it in a bandage, and called for an ambulance.

  She parked the car in the lot at Saint Mary’s Hospital and we walked in the side entrance and took an elevator up to the third floor where Jerry Lee lay in intensive care. He had an IV in his arm, all sorts of wires coming from his hands, and a tube in his nose. There were a few machines gauging things. His bed sat near the window and he was awake.

  Polly Flynn began crying.

  Nurses kept coming in and out, making me nervous. There were other patients in the room, two of them. Old men, alone and watching TV.

  Jerry Lee wouldn’t say anything much. He just stared at the TV. Nobody said anything and the whole time you could hear the sound of Polly Flynn crying. Everyone began staring at us.

  ‘Look,’ I finally said to her, ‘would you mind leaving us alone for a bit? I got a couple things I want to say.’

  She took a Kleenex from her purse and wiped her eyes. She stood up.

  ‘You heal up, kid,’ she said and kissed him on the forehead. ‘I’ll be back. Don’t you worry about a thing.’

  He smiled at her and then she walked out of the room.

  I pulled up a chair and said as softly as I could, ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’

  He remained silent for a time then said, ‘Why should I live if that kid doesn’t get to? There ain’t no reason, is there? I’m a loser, Frank, and I know it, and I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m too tired. Could you just find us something on TV?’

  I took the remote control and began switching channels back and forth. I found a movie and left it on that. He showed me his leg and said a few things about the operation. He looked awful, all sweaty and pale.

  I stayed there all day, but he was asleep most of the time. When I left I bought a six-pack of beer at the first mini-mart I came across and walked to a dollar movie house. I snuck the beer underneath my coat, and sat in the back drinking and watching this movie about a waitress and a busboy. It was a love story. I’d seen the movie a couple times before. I knew all the words and the shocks and when everybody was supposed to cry. I knew when the bad parts would happen, and I knew I could just go to the bathroom during those parts and make it back to the parts that weren’t so bad, and the parts that were good. But when it got real bad for the last time, and the guy in the movie was ready to die, I finished my last beer, put on my coat and hat, and left.

  11

  I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to do with myself once I’d left. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jerry Lee, so I just went back to the hospital. When I saw him he was awake and seemed better and we just sat for a long time not saying anything, just watching the TV. Then finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked him about the car. He coughed and took a drink of water and looked around to make sure all the other patients were asleep.

  ‘After you left,’ he whispered to me, ‘I got in the front seat and decided I should go alone. I felt horrible about getting you involved. I’m real sorry I even came by that night, I am. I could get you in trouble, and I never want to do that. That’s the last thing I want to do. So I just threw your stuff out and started driving. But I was tired and the weather was bad, and after a while I started seeing things. I hadn’t slept much. I didn’t know where I was going. I was just driving on 95, north, and then I saw the kid standing in the middle of the road. He was bloody and crying. I tried to stop but I was going too fast. I hit the brakes and almost went off the road, and when I should have hit him, he disappeared and everything went back to normal. That’s the way it went. But I didn’t stop there. I should have, but I didn’t. Finally by sunrise I was in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do or where to go ’cause I was so tired. It was like every idea I could have had, good or bad, went out the window. Then I came to this town, I forget the name, but it w
as small. They had a motel and I got a room and then I went and ate breakfast. I sat in the restaurant and ordered pancakes and bacon. I figured I had to eat. I drank some coffee and started to settle down. I started getting a handle on myself. But when I began eating everything started moving. I thought I might pass out. So I paid the check and went back to the room and got in the bathtub and fell asleep. I woke up a couple hours later when the water turned cold. I almost froze to death. Then I got out and dressed, got back into the car, filled the tank, and bought two five-gallon gas cans and filled them, got some beer, and decided to keep driving. The snow had cleared up, and somebody had plowed. I left the chains on and began taking off-roads, and finally, by dusk, I was lost. The road I was on had snow on it with no other tracks that I could see. There were woods surrounding me in every direction. So I parked the car and went walking around. About a half- mile into them I sat down and drank a few beers. I made sure no one was out there, no cabin or mountain man tooling around. Then I went back to the car, got my sleeping bag and everything I could think of, and stacked as much wood as I could find in the front and back seat. I even put some in the trunk. Then I took the license plates off and tried to scrape off the numbers on the door. It was almost dark by then, by the time I poured gasoline all over the inside and all over the outside and the engine. I started the car and threw a match inside and started running. It burned and burned and I ran until I had to walk and then I just kept walking and eventually made it to a main road and hitchhiked back here. I didn’t ever hear it explode like you’d think.

  ‘And I guess it wasn’t until the third day of me not being able to sleep that I thought of shooting myself. It seemed like the only good idea I’d had since I hit that kid. I mean, I ain’t nobody, I got nothing, and I killed some kid who probably had a big family and a ton of people that liked him and would have helped him out. I ruined all their lives. They’re always gonna be in hell. His family always will be, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I know,’ Jerry Lee said. ‘That’s one thing I do know. So don’t lie to me and say any different.’

  12

  OUR MOTHER DIED in a hospital when I was fourteen and my brother was sixteen. I’ve had a hard time with hospitals ever since. Even when I’m hurting, with a fever or bleeding from a cut, or even when my stomach acts up … I won’t go. Not unless I’m forced to. They make me that worried. When Polly Flynn drove me to Saint Mary’s to see my brother, that was the first time in years that I’d set foot in one.

  My mother was a good lady, and I’m not just saying that like you think I would. She rented us a house off Wells Avenue. We had a yard and a porch. She worked as a secretary in the office of an electrical supply company for fifteen years and never complained and was always pretty nice to us, even when she got sick. And her being sick went on for two years. Jerry Lee dropped out of school and got a full-time job with a concrete company and I got a job washing cars on a used lot after school.

  By the end all my mother could do was lay on the couch and watch TV or read magazines. She would hardly even eat. But one evening, not long before she died, both Jerry Lee and I came home from being at the river. When we walked in the door we could smell a cake baking in the oven. The kitchen table had a white and red checkered cloth on it and three places were set. My mother stood in the kitchen wearing a dress. She’d made her face up and was wearing a scarf around her head.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ she said when she saw us. But even the make-up couldn’t hide how pale she was, and her skin hung from her face loose like an old woman. ‘Put some clothes on and then come out and sit with me. I bought some steaks, and the grill’s lit, but I have to say I’m running out of energy.’

  Jerry Lee and I went into our room and changed, then went out to the backyard where she was laying on a lawn chair in the fading evening sun.

  ‘How was swimming?’

  ‘There was no one at our spot, and the water didn’t seem that cold.’

  ‘It didn’t feel cold at all,’ I added.

  ‘Good,’ she replied. She wore sunglasses but I could see that her eyes were closed.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I bought a six-pack of Coke for Jerry Lee and a six-pack of ginger ale for you, Frank.’

  Jerry Lee got up and went inside. He reappeared moments later with a Coke, a ginger ale, and a bag of chips.

  ‘You even bought chips,’ Jerry Lee said and smiled.

  ‘We’re having a party tonight,’ she said.

  ‘What’s the occasion?’ I asked.

  ‘That we’re all sitting here. That I have my two boys, that it’s sunny out, that you two went swimming. That we have steaks.’

  ‘I’ll cook the steaks,’ Jerry Lee said.

  ‘Hold on, though,’ my mother said. ‘Not quite yet. I want to talk to you two for a bit.’ She sat up and took off her glasses. ‘Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we have to talk about the options. If something should happen to me, which it might, the only other family I have is in Montana, and I left Montana because of them. Because a lot of things happened there. So I’m not gonna send you there even if I could. I don’t know what to do, really, that’s the problem. If I can hang on, then soon you’ll both be old enough to live on your own. But if not, I think it would be best for you two to stay together, don’t you think?’

  We both didn’t say anything.

  ‘I don’t know your dad’s family,’ she continued. ‘I’ve never even met them. And your dad, we’ve never really talked about him, but tonight and from now on I’ll try. His being in Carson City, in prison, was his fault, and he knew it, and he went in knowing it. But he wasn’t mean. He just gambled too much and he stole from his work because of that, and then he got caught. That’s not the worst thing anyone has ever done in this world. Believe me it’s not. When I knew him, when I fell in love with him, he was a good man. And I did love him, and I’ll always love him because he gave me you two. You’d both probably like him, a lot of people did. The thing is, when he got out, he just couldn’t adjust back to us. So he left. I don’t know where he is now. The last time I heard he was in Laughlin having a hard go of it. That was about seven years ago, maybe a little longer.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Jerry Lee said and threw his Coke can out into the yard. He wiped the tears from his face.

  ‘It’s not worth it to be mad,’ she said in her best calm voice. ‘I understand you feeling that way, but it’s too much work to be angry. Believe me I know. I’ve been so angry about this happening, but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t help. So try not to be, okay?

  ‘Look, I have my retirement plan from work and I’m planning to take it out and set it in a bank account with your names on it. That alone could pay the rent on this place for a couple of years if everything comes through the way it’s supposed to. That way you boys will at least have a decent place to stay until Frank’s eighteen. The only problem is finding you a legal guardian who will be in charge of you at least in the eyes of the state. I’m working on that. I don’t want you two to go into foster care.

  ‘Now if I do die, which I don’t plan on, but if I do, there’s an old wooden box in my closet, behind all my sweaters, it’s an old cigar box, and inside is $500 and my will. The will gives you instructions on what to do with my body, how and where to pay rent. It has title to the car, that sorta thing.’

  ‘You ain’t gonna die,’ I said to her.

  ‘No, I don’t think I will, Frank,’ she said. ‘I’m trying hard, I really am. But who knows? No one really knows.’

  We all sat for a while, none of us talking.

  ‘Okay,’ my mother finally said and smiled, ‘the last thing is, no matter what, I want you to stay in school. Jerry Lee, you’re a wonderful artist and you should keep trying hard at that, and Frank, you’re a good student and you play baseball, and sports are good. Do you promise me you’ll stay in school?’

  We told her we would.

 
; ‘Good, then that’s enough of that. Enough heavy talk for tonight. All right, Jerry Lee, put on the steaks. Frank, when the timer goes off check the cake and if it’s done take it out. Check it with a toothpick. If it’s done let it cool, then put on the frosting I have sitting on the counter. I made potato salad too, and there’s some beans on the stove.’

  Jerry Lee and I both got up and did as she said while she stayed sat out in the yard, enjoying the last of the day’s sun. I put the radio on low to a country station we all used to listen to and watched Jerry Lee at the barbecue. When the steaks were done we put them on plates with the potato salad and beans, but when we called for her she was asleep on the lawn chair. I put a blanket over her. Jerry Lee and I ate our dinner in silence sitting on the back porch. The sun had lowered by then and you could just make out some stars beginning to appear.

  Six months later she passed away. I stuck to my word and was still in school and doing all right at it. Jerry Lee, he’d already quit going. It was spring and I was playing in a baseball game at the high school I went to, on a Saturday. I had been moved up to varsity shortly before. I played second base and the game was in the fifth inning, we were winning by four. I remember a kid was trying to steal second, the catcher threw me the ball and I tagged him out. The kid had slid into me, though, his cleats went into my leg.

  ‘You son of a bitch,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck you,’ the kid said back.

  The umpire called him out, but the kid kept looking back at me as he ran off the field.

  After the game I found him standing alone behind the bleachers.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said as tough as he could.

  I ran at him and began hitting him. I wouldn’t stop. I can’t remember how long we fought, but in the end he was just laying on the ground and my brother pulled me off him and we left. There was blood on my hands. There was blood all over the kid’s face. I didn’t stop, when I was on him I mean, I didn’t stop hitting him even after he stopped hitting me.