The Motel Life

by Willy Vlautin

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Jerry Lee asked when we had slowed to a walk a half a mile or so away.

  ‘The guy was a real asshole.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

  ‘You’re going crazy,’ Jerry Lee said. ‘You could have killed him.’

  ‘I ain’t going crazy.’

  ‘You can’t do shit like that. If you get in trouble, then what do we do? If they call home, then what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘That was stupid, really fucking stupid.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ I said to him.

  ‘You’re a stupid bastard,’ my brother said and then I swung at him. I hit him in the head, near his left eye and we began fighting. Even though he was older, I got him to the ground and hit him in the face over and over. I broke his nose that day and made both his eyes black. I left him in the yard of some row house, crying and unable to move.

  I never went back to school after that day. I quit it all. Even the friends I had I wouldn’t see. I wouldn’t answer the phone either, and even if I did I just told whoever called that I moved to a different state.

  13

  THAT NEXT DAY I walked over to Larry’s Hideaway Lounge. It’s a place behind a grocery store on West Avenue. There’s a neon sign that says ‘Larry’s’ and a door. There aren’t any windows, no parking places. Inside’s a TV, a jukebox, a couple couches, and the bar itself. There are fishing nets on the walls, model boats hanging from the ceiling by fishing line, paintings of the ocean and ships, and a couple dirty fish tanks with half-dead goldfish trying to swim around. It feels like you’re in a boat, or maybe in a port in the Philippines, or Thailand, or Japan.

  My friend Tommy Locowane, Jerry Lee and I would go there and watch war movies that the owner would play from seven to nine each evening. Not the new ones with blood and guts spurting everywhere, dead babies and flying arms, but the old ones. The ones in the forties and fifties where the guys would be glad to get their legs blown off for their captain and for their country.

  So I went in there and I was drinking beer and watching TV when Al Casey came in. He’s a guy I met when I was older, in the bars. He’s pale and stocky with brown hair; he looks like a boxer, with his nose bent and his face scarred. He was kicked out of college for cheating, and now moved from job to job every couple months. Each time I saw him he looked worse, had gained more weight, bathed less, and dressed more like a bum.

  He sat on the stool next to me at the bar and ordered a vodka cranberry.

  ‘Guess where I been?’

  ‘I don’t know, where you been?’ I said.

  ‘I been in the loony bin, the state mental ward off Glendale,’ he said, grinning, and hit the bar with his fist.

  ‘What the hell were you doing in there?’

  ‘I stumbled upon a bottle of liquid acid, and I couldn’t stop taking it. Ended up walking down Virginia Street, right down the center of town. All I was wearing was my underwear and my flip- flops.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A month ago.’

  ‘You must’ve froze your ass off,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t feel a thing,’ he said and laughed. ‘But I woke up in a mess. Luckily I’m still half sane. They say they try to get you straight, but they make you crazier than hell. I ain’t ever going there again.’

  ‘I hate hospitals,’ I said and finished my beer. I ordered another with a shot of Jim Beam.

  ‘I used to like them okay. At least they’re better than working, but Christ, out there, that’s no way to live. They had me on all kinds of shit. At least in a real hospital the women look halfway okay, the ones out there, they’re ugly as a dead mule.’

  ‘What you doing for work?’

  ‘Just working for my dad. Nothing much. You?’

  ‘I haven’t shown up at my job in a week.’

  ‘They’ll take you back, won’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said as the bartender set down my drinks.

  ‘I moved,’ Al said.

  ‘Where to?’ I asked.

  ‘My aunt, she’s got this garage she lets me live in it. Feels sorry for me. Ain’t much, but it’s got a wood stove and a toilet. Ain’t heard of many garages like that, but that’s what it’s got.’

  ‘Sounds all right,’ I said and drank my shot. I drank half my beer and stood up. ‘Well, I’m heading home.’

  ‘Well,’ Al said, ‘don’t get thrown in the mental hospital. It’s worse than you’d think.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said and walked outside into the night, heading for Saint Mary’s.

  When I got there I took the elevator up to Jerry Lee’s room. He was asleep, but the TV was on. I pulled a chair next to him and took the remote and began going through the channels.

  ‘Hey there,’ he said.

  I looked over at him and he yawned and tried to wake.

  ‘They say anything about your leg?’

  ‘They ain’t sure. Just depends if they can stop some infection I guess I got. At least I shot myself in the leg that was already bad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘You’re drunk, hunh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said and smiled.

  ‘I wish I was. It’s so boring in here. Their TV sucks too. They got cable, but not much else. Where did you go?’

  ‘The Hideaway.’

  ‘You heard anything about the kid?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I ain’t looked in the paper or anything. I just been moping around.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I’m tired as shit. I’m sorry if I fall back asleep.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I’m just gonna sit here for a while.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said and closed his eyes and drifted off.

  I sat there and watched TV for an hour or so, then I found a pen and a pad of paper in the drawer next to him and wrote him a story hoping it would help pass the time and give him a break from the TV.

  Jerry Lee,

  Well … you’ve probably been wondering where I been? Well … I don’t know why I did it, but I stole almost twenty grand from my dad, Dick Senior, on his credit card. His emergency card. His card for the pawn shop. We have the same name. Dick Van Buren is my dad, and I’m Dickie Van Buren. I was gone for over two months. I guess he didn’t check the card until after I was done, until his accountant brought it to his attention.

  I rented a car and drove to Carson City, and I stayed at the old Ormsby House. It’s a nice place. I got a room with a king-size bed, a bed the size of a car. I spent three days on it ordering in from room service and watching TV. Then I went down to a department store and bought a few suits. One black, one brown, one green. I’d never worn a suit in my life, but I wanted to look different, you know? I got two pairs of J.C. Penney imitation wing tips, a gray overcoat, a few packs of underwear, and a couple packs of socks.

  Then I drove over to the Cotton Tail Ranch. I met a girl named Deana and over the course of a week I spent $4,000 on her. She had some huge tits. They were amazing. They were fake, but it was a real pro job, you could tell. I can’t begin to explain what got into me, really, it’s the god’s honest truth I can’t. Maybe it was just that first night she and me sat in the hot tub. I spent a couple hours in there with her, nothing much, just the normal. Smoked a little weed, talked about dancing. But she was good. Let me just make that clear. She was damn good. Then when I was done I paid her and left. No big deal, right?

  But the thing is, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. The next day I picked her again and had her dress in black leather. I paid her to get under the covers with me and bite me on the chest while I spanked her ass. Jesus, I don’t know why.

  The day after I talked to her and her madam, and for $1,000 up front I got to take her out of the brothel. I wanted to play a game of tennis with her. I bought her a racket and a tennis outfit. I thought I’d kick her ass, but she beat me three games straight. Six-love, six-three,
six-four. Who would have thought?

  We changed in the hotel room, ate lunch together, then went back to the brothel where I picked her and another girl named Lara. We all sat in the hot tub, and let me tell you it got crazy. Everybody on everybody. A real free for all.

  I saw her every day that week. On the last day I finally said why the fuck not, and I read her one of my stories. Did I ever tell you I wrote stories?

  Well, the one I read was called ‘Lyndon Johnson and his Encounters with Aliens from Space while Driving to Reno’. I read it to her while she sat on her knees and gave me a blow job. The story’s not about ex-President Lyndon Johnson, but another Lyndon Johnson who owned an auto body shop in Las Vegas. This Lyndon Johnson was abducted by creatures from space, and while there was probed and dissected. Then the aliens dropped him back to earth as a child. They had made Lyndon ten years old, bald, and so traumatized by the whole ordeal that he never spoke again. It’s not a bad story, but not one of my best either.

  Anyway, after I was done, she said I should go down to LA. The story, she told me, was that good. She thought it would make a great movie. She even told me the last hummer was on the house. She was that impressed. She gave me a hug. She kissed me right on the lips for Christsakes. So I put on my clothes, put my story of Lyndon Johnson in my coat pocket, slipped her a hundred, and walked out. I decided right then I was going to drive all the way to Los Angeles, California. Was I crazy? I don’t know. Maybe, but she may have had a point, who knows? I checked out of the hotel and left that day. That first night I got a motel in Bishop, California. The next morning I gave a ride to this guy who was hitchhiking to Long Beach. He and I got high, so I didn’t give a shit about anything. I took out one of my stories, and had the man read it. I told him if he wanted to ride with me that was his payment. It was one called ‘In the Ruby Mountains, Ten below Zero, Snow Storm, Lost and Left for Dead by Aliens. The Amazing Story of Donny Dibble.’

  The thing is, the guy had a great speaking voice. It was like he was a radio man on the lam. After he had finished it, hell, I was even impressed that I wrote it. The hitchhiker said he couldn’t believe I could write such a tremendous work of art. He wouldn’t stop talking about it. The whole way down, the guy went on about it.

  I dropped him off on the side of the road somewhere in LA and then went to a motel called the Ocean View on Sunset Boulevard. I rented a room for a week and became a shut-in. A man with a mission. I wrote four stories. I don’t know what got into me. Inspiration is a miracle, a pinnacle of light at times. The first one was ‘Alone in the Tundra of North Canada with a Toothbrush and a Spool of Wire: A Story of Survival’. The second, ‘The Radiation Man and his Search for his Lost and Forgotten Radiation Planet’. Then while taking a bath I wrote ‘Help = Death on Mars’.

  The final story, and maybe my only masterpiece, I wrote after going to a strip club on Hollywood Blvd. It was a nasty, nasty place, but I saw this little Asian chick named Candy and I wrote my first and only love story, ‘Hey, Candy, It’s Me, Romeo!’

  Then the craziest thing happened. I was driving around Hollywood when I saw an old woman get run over by a city bus. She was in the middle of the street trying to chase down this white poodle who’d run into the traffic. I pulled over to the side of the street. Then the bus nailed her. I ran over to see what had happened. The bus driver was standing over her. She was dead, you could tell. The bus driver broke down. How could this happen? the guy screamed in tears of rage and sorrow. How could something like this have happened? How? How? How? My life is ruined all over a dog who got loose!?

  When the police came, I gave them a statement and they took pictures and wrote things down. Then the ambulance came and took the old lady away. I felt bad for the bus driver. He was a real mess. They asked about the dog, but no one knew where it was. The officers thanked me for sticking around. No problem, I said. But I knew then I was going to get the hell out of LA. Adios amigo! So I trotted back to my car. But Jesus Christ if I didn’t see the dog on the way. Hiding in the bushes on the side of the road.

  I waited until the police officers were looking the other way, and then I ran over to it. I took off my coat, threw it over the poodle’s head, grabbed it, and sprinted to my car. I opened the trunk and threw it in. I looked in the rear-view mirror as I drove off, but no one noticed anything. I drove side streets for hours looking for the cops or an undercover tail, but I had lost them, given them the slip, as they say. So I eased up, turned on the radio, and went to a grocery store and bought a gallon of bottled water, a five-pound bag of dog food, and a plastic bone and snuck the dog into my motel room.

  I decided to move to Alaska that night. The last frontier. The last place in America for freedom, for individuality, for honor, for peace. It’s also a great place to raise a dog. I dropped off the rental car, took a cab to a used car lot, and picked up a 1975 Ford Bronco for $2,000. On the way out of town I picked up a sleeping bag, winter clothes, a camping stove, freeze-dried food, an ax, and a fishing pole.

  Ten days later I was sitting in a bar in Juneau, Alaska. Some of the weirdest people I’d ever seen in my life live up there. I spent the first week in a motel watching TV and reading Jack London. Got through most of his whole collection. I wanted to study, I really did, but after reading White Fang I knew that the wilderness was no place to live. Have you read that fucking book? You’d have to be nuts to live like that. Out in a cabin with no TV and no heat. And then it dawned on me, I got a fucking poodle, not a husky. I’d need a fucking husky, but then I liked the poodle. I didn’t know what to do.

  So I drove the truck down to Portland, Oregon, got a motel room, and spent a couple weeks watching cable TV and playing with the dog. But then I started getting homesick, real homesick. I don’t know why I did, but I did. We all know this town is a shithole. But it’s my shithole. Then I freaked out and bought a solid gold wristwatch with diamonds on it for my dad. It cost a fucking fortune. Or cost him. Ha! Ha! Ha! Shit, anyway, I had it engraved, ‘To the best dad I know, love Dickie Jr.’ I drove back to Reno the same day they finished the watch. Then I was in Grants Pass at a rest stop, and I let the dog out to take a leak. Problem was, when I was ready to go I just got back in the car and drove off. I forgot about the dog. I was almost in Reno by the time I remembered, but by then I was too tired to go back.

  Anyway, I gave my dad the watch and he didn’t know what to think. Then a couple days later he found out about the card, and the son of a bitch committed me to a private mental hospital for evaluation. Can you believe that? But I didn’t give a shit. Why should I? It’s better than working. At least that’s what I thought at the time.

  The first guy I met in there said he’s Liberace’s son. I said Jesus, Liberace didn’t have a kid. So we got in a fight, it was touch and go for a while then I kicked the shit out of him and ended up in the state mental ward. It took me three months to get out of there, but it wasn’t as bad as you’d think.

  Signed your pal,

  Dickie Junior

  I don’t know what time it was when I was done, but the nurse finally kicked me out, so I set the story on Jerry Lee’s chest and made my way home.

  14

  I GOT UP THAT NEXT MORNING, took a shower, shaved, put on some clothes and walked to my old job at the restaurant supply and repair company. The day was sunny, cold out, but there was no breeze and the walking warmed me up. The place I worked was on Virginia Street. I was a local driver, sometimes I’d go on longer trips with another guy to Fallon or to Lake Tahoe, but mostly it was just around town picking up and delivering fryers and ovens, doing repairs and installations, things like that.

  I didn’t want to go in there since I hadn’t called or told them why I hadn’t shown up for over a week, and when I got there I could see that the truck I used was gone, so figured they’d found someone new. I went in there anyway, though, and the main boss said a few things to me, then took me into his office and sat me down in one of his leather chairs. He was an all right guy, but he was mad a
nd he wouldn’t stop talking about how mad he was. Then he started up on his business, his family, honor, pride, and sales. I didn’t say anything, and when he was done I just thanked him for the job. I went to the accounting lady, got my last paycheck, and left.

  After I cashed it, I walked over to the Gun Rack where my friend Tommy Locowane worked for his Uncle Gary. The place was an old brick building on Wells Street. It had been around for years, ever since I could remember. On the left was a pet store, and on the right a carpet store. The pet store was an old place too, a place where my mom would buy fish for a tank we had when I was a kid.

  That morning Tommy was alone sitting at the counter eating breakfast.

  ‘Want an Egg McMuffin?’ he asked when he saw me. A radio was playing in the background, and he was reading the newspaper.

  ‘All right,’ I said and leaned against the counter. He handed me one then got up and went into the back room and came out with a cup of coffee in an old Harrah’s coffee mug.

  ‘Sugar only?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, took the cup from him, and set it on the counter.

  I’d known Tommy from when I was a kid, from high school. We’d been friends since the day we met. His mom had left them back then, and him and his dad fought all the time after that.

  His dad would hit him, give him a black eye, bruise his ribs, things like that. So he began to stay with Jerry Lee and me. He did that on and off until he was seventeen, when he finally moved out of his dad’s house for good and in with his Uncle Gary, his mom’s brother.

  Tommy’s half Scottish, half Paiute Indian. His build is average, but he’s gaining weight all in his stomach and in his face. He eats worse than me or even Jerry Lee. Cans of Dinty Moore Stew and candy bars, fast food, and twelve-packs of soda. He’s always drinking soda, always has one open. He’s not good looking either, girls don’t like him.