The Motel Life

by Willy Vlautin

  I took a good drink off my beer, and not knowing what else to do, decided I’d set it loose.

  I put my bag of beer on the ground and started stretching. I retied my shoes and began doing jumping jacks. It struck me then that I hadn’t run more than twenty yards in years.

  Maybe I was just too drunk to know better or maybe it was the sound it made, but I went up to the gate, opened it, and stepped into their backyard. The dog was still standing there, still moaning quietly.

  I walked up to the back porch and petted it, and it started licking my hand. It was held by a rope to its collar. The rope was tied in a knot that I couldn’t undo. The dog was licking my face at this point, and I was trying to pull his collar over his head, but it wouldn’t come. I went back to the knot, but I was drunk and my fingers began to freeze up in the cold. I put my hands back in my pockets and warmed them and went at the knot again. After three or four tries I got it. I picked up the dog, and started running for the street. The dog wasn’t doing anything, just sitting there in my arms looking at where I was going.

  Once out of the yard and into the alley, I put him down, grabbed the beer, and we ran for a while. A block or two away I stopped and petted him. Then I started walking again and the dog followed me. I could see the hospital from where I was and decided I’d hit a mini-mart again before I went to see Jerry Lee.

  When I came out of the store the dog was sitting by a trash can. I sat down on the sidewalk and the dog came up to me. I had a pint of milk for my stomach, and when I saw him looking at me I just opened the carton so he could stick his tongue inside, and put a Ding Dong on the ground. He ate it so quickly I gave him half of my burrito too.

  Under the fluorescent lights of the mini-mart I looked the mutt over. He was so scrawny and thin you could see his ribs. It looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and his fur was matted in clumps all over. But even then he seemed like a good dog, he wasn’t mean and he never growled, he just tried to lick my face.

  I didn’t know what to do with him once I got to the hospital, so I sat down on the steps of the front entrance and petted him for a little bit.

  ‘If you’re still here when I get back,’ I told him, ‘I’ll keep you, if you want me to.’

  The dog wagged his tail some then just laid down next to me, and when I got up off the steps to go in, he didn’t move an inch.

  It was past visiting hours, but I made it in without anyone noticing. The room was full. Each bed taken by an old man. Three old guys and my brother, Jerry Lee. They were all watching TV or trying to sleep. I said my hellos to the ones awake and sat down in a chair next to my brother.

  He was watching a movie with George Kennedy and an out of control airplane. Charlton Heston was in it. A whole bunch of other famous people too. Everybody was sure they were going to die, and most likely it seemed they would.

  ‘Will you come closer, Frank? I got something I got to say that I don’t want anyone else to hear.’

  I moved closer to him. I put my ear right next to his mouth.

  ‘Did you find out anything about the kid?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘His name was Wes Denny. He lived in a house, some sorta foster place, I think. I talked to a guy who knew him. Said his folks died in a car crash, that he’d been shuffled between homes his whole life. No one really gave a shit about him, it sounds like.’

  Jerry Lee began crying.

  ‘For real?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘You ain’t making it up?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he was like us. He didn’t have nobody left.’

  ‘That makes me so damn sad,’ Jerry Lee said. ‘I hate myself, Frank. I ain’t done anything with my life.’

  ‘That ain’t true. You done a lot of things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A lot of things.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘You can draw.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean shit.’

  ‘You’re my brother and you took care of me. We’re just starting our life, we don’t have to have done anything great yet.’

  ‘What’s a kid doing riding his bike home in a snow storm with no coat?’

  ‘Probably the same thing we were doing by trying to catch that train that night. Just being a kid.’

  ‘I bet I’d have liked him,’ Jerry Lee said.

  ‘It ain’t your fault.’

  ‘But it feels like my fault, and it always will.’

  When I looked at him I wanted to say something to help him out, to ease his mind, but there was nothing I could think of. Maybe there was nothing anyone could say. I saw the kid in the back seat, with his bent legs and arms, all day long. I knew it would haunt me. I knew I’d always think about it, and always see that image.

  ‘Did I tell you that I might have us a dog?’ I finally said a while later.

  ‘No shit?’ Jerry Lee said and wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘Stole it out of some guy’s yard. It was freezing, chained up, skinnier than hell, probably would have frozen to death.’

  ‘No shit? What kind?’

  ‘Some sort of mutt. He’s black mostly. I think I’ll keep him if he’s still waiting around outside. If he’s there, I got to figure out a way to get him in my room.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Jerry Lee said and tried to smile. ‘We always wanted a dog, and now we finally got one. Damn, I guess that’s something, hunh?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Hey, you mind getting my stuff out of my room? My rent’s up tomorrow and I don’t have any money and I don’t need a place for a while. You mind keeping my things at your place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get all the pictures off the walls, okay?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Don’t bend them.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘My keys are in the drawer next to the bed.’

  I went to the cabinet and took them.

  ‘You should go downstairs and get the dog before he leaves.’

  ‘I will,’ I said and stood up.

  ‘And remember not to go near the neighborhood you took him from. Don’t go near that goddamn house with him.’

  ‘I ain’t an idiot,’ I told him and left.

  18

  WHEN I WALKED OUTSIDE the hospital and into the cold, black night, the dog was there sitting on the frozen grass in the front courtyard. I ran up to him and petted him and was glad he was there.

  I stopped at a twenty-four-hour grocery store on the way home and bought a new collar, a sack of food, and a pint of whiskey. I began walking again but took side streets and eventually sat down on a curb and began taking long pulls off the bottle. The next thing I knew the dog was licking my face. It was morning, near dawn. My head was pounding. I was shaking, I was so cold. I was still drunk but glad I hadn’t frozen to death.

  I finally stood up and then I got sick and it was full of blood. My stomach was burning. I leaned on a car, picked up the dog food, and tried to walk but I couldn’t.

  The sun was trying to break through, but it was so cold it didn’t seem to matter. I couldn’t stand up. I opened the dog food, and poured some on the sidewalk. The dog began eating. I took the pint bottle out of my pocket and laid it down in the road.

  When I was able to get up, I crossed the street and finished the walk to my place. We weren’t allowed pets in the Morris, but there was no one around so I left the food in the alley, put my coat over him, picked him up, and carried him up to my room.

  Once inside I shut the curtains, turned on the radio, and quickly undressed. I put on my electric blanket and crawled in my bed to warm up. After a while, once the shivering eased I called for the dog, and he jumped up and lay on the bed next to me. I felt horrible, my feet were numb from the cold and my stomach was raw and sick. The room spun, and I was sure I’d be sick again.

  As I lay in the darkness, with the daylight only slipping through here and there, I began hopeless
ly thinking about Annie James again. I can’t explain why I thought of her then, but I did, and I always hated it when she came into my mind when I was sick and hurting. Because it was always then that the bad times we had had came back to me. When I felt low or was sick with a fever or a bad hangover those thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Back when it happened, we had moved for a time, Jerry Lee and I, to the old Mizpah Hotel, an old brick building built in the early nineteen hundreds. We had a room overlooking Lake Street. From there you could see Harrahs, the huge high-rise casino, and the Santa Fe Hotel, the best Basque food place in town. You could also just make out the beat-up train station that was mostly closed and we were just down the street from the Reno Turf Club, where the local men go to bet on sports and horses.

  Annie James and her mother were still living at the Sutro on Fourth Street, but by then we’d been going out for nearly a year, and most of her things were at my place. She spent almost every night with us, with me. The time I was thinking about, right then, it was near spring and she was in her senior year.

  We had planned to move in together. Once she was done with school and could get a job, she and I were going to rent a place off Wells Avenue. It was half of a dilapidated duplex. A guy I worked with was living there, and was moving out at the end of June. Jerry Lee and Tommy Locowane had just gotten a house together with another guy, Gil Norton.

  It’s hard to explain this or, I guess, even to admit what happened. But just so you know, I never got sick of being with her. I would have married her. I know I’m young but I would have. I would have had kids with her too, even though a person like me probably shouldn’t have a kid. But I would have if she’d wanted. At night, if Jerry Lee wasn’t around we’d lay naked under the covers. I’d lay on top of her and she’d talk to me, tell me how much she liked me, how much she loved me. She’d do all this while we did it. I never got tired of it. You hear guys like Tommy or this guy I used to work with, Mitch Harrison, and they’d always say being with the same girl was boring. But it was never like that with me. It wasn’t like that at all.

  When it was summer we’d go down to the Truckee River, and in the evening just after dusk we’d find a deep pool and go swimming together. We could see the city around us, all the people and traffic, the casino lights and noise, but it was like we were all right, that everything was okay, that we were the only two people that mattered, that could see how beautiful the lights of the city were.

  Nothing changed between us for a long time, I mean nothing went bad. Almost a whole year we were together. It was the best I’d felt since my mother died, maybe the best I’d ever felt.

  Then one night I walked down Fourth Street to the Sutro to find her. It was just an ordinary night with nothing much going on. It was a warm evening and not a cloud over the whole city. Jerry Lee and I were supposed to go camping with Tommy and his uncle up in Dog Valley, but the plans fell through so we just stayed at Tommy’s, ate dinner with him and his aunt and uncle, and then left.

  Jerry Lee and I went back to the Mizpah. We were watching TV for a long time, then I got up and decided I’d walk down to the Sutro to see what she was doing.

  When I got there I could hear music inside and people laughing. I could hear Annie and her mother. I could hear a man’s voice. I didn’t think much of it. I beat on the door and her mom yelled, ‘Is that you, Darrel? You back already?’

  I didn’t say anything. I don’t know why, I guess I just figured she’d open the door anyway, and when she did, she was standing naked, and behind her was a man, an older man, and he was also standing naked. In front of him, on her knees, only wearing black panties, was Annie.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The middle-aged guy. The TV on with the sound off, the radio playing. Her bare knees on the worn out carpet. The painting of a cowboy hanging on the wall behind her. The bathroom door open. I just stood there. Her mom didn’t say anything either, she just sorta stood there too.

  ‘Who the fuck is that?’ the man said.

  Annie stopped and looked around. When she saw me her face just fell. Her whole body did. I looked at her for a second or two, and then I turned and ran away.

  I didn’t go home that night. I tried to walk around, but I couldn’t even make a block without crying. I just wanted to die, to drown myself in the river. To disappear or jump off the Cal Neva or the Fitz and feel my body hit the pavement. I wanted to get into a fight and kill somebody with my fists or have somebody beat me so bad that I’d just lay in an alley and die.

  I walked all through town, up and down the neighborhoods, and finally when I got too tired to keep going I ended up sleeping in Idlewild Park underneath a tree. I curled up tight and fell asleep for a couple hours.

  But morning didn’t make anything better. The moment I woke I saw her like that, kneeling on the worn out carpet with that look on her face. I felt like that image would never leave me. That it would never go away, like a tattoo, like a scar.

  I didn’t go to my job. I called in and told them I was sick, and then I went back to our room. Jerry Lee was at work and I lay on my bed and cried.

  It was still morning when she came to my door. I let her in and fell back on my bed. I could barely breathe, my breath so tight it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Like a horse was laying on me.

  She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. When I looked at her, you could tell she’d been crying herself, her face all swollen and red.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t care,’ was all I could get out.

  ‘I hated doing that, what you saw. I did, I really did. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. You don’t know what it’s like. My mom, she owed this guy a whole bunch of money, and he said he was gonna kill her, so that’s what I had to do so she could pay him off. My mom used to make me sometimes. I don’t do it anymore. I used to, when I was younger I had to. She knew I was moving in with you and she knew she couldn’t get me to do it anymore. She said I had to pay her back. She said she’d get killed if I didn’t help. I swear, she made me.’

  ‘You’re a fucking hooker,’ I said to her. ‘Like your mom, you’re just like her.’

  ‘I am not,’ she said and began sobbing. ‘You take that back, Frank Flannigan. I’m not like her.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ I said.

  ‘I love you, Frank, I swear I do. I’ve never been with anyone ’cause I wanted to. Not until I was with you. I swear. I ain’t a hooker, I swear I’m not. I’m not like that at all. I want to be a good person. I want to be with you. I don’t look at anyone else, I don’t want anyone else. What happened was different. You don’t know what it’s been like with her and me. You don’t know.’

  ‘What should I think?’ I said. I couldn’t sit up. It was like I was tired but jittery all at the same time.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t believe you’d do that,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t have anyone besides you,’ she said. Her voice was falling apart. She was beginning to hyperventilate from crying. ‘I know I’m a bad person, but I can be good. You know I can. And you don’t know what it’s like with her. It’s been that way my whole life. Don’t take us away. If you do, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll probably just die.’

  ‘You should’ve just left with me if you had to do stuff like that. When she asked you, you should have. You stay over here all the time anyway. You always say you’re gonna move in, but you never do.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. She paused and wiped her eyes. She got up and went to the bathroom and blew her nose. She stood in the door. ‘I was scared. She went on and on about all the things she’d done for me, and how that guy you saw was gonna kill her. He really did say he was gonna kill her.’

  I sat up on the bed. ‘I don’t think I can see you anymore.’

  She began crying harder. She fell to the ground. ‘Please don’t, Frank. I won’t ever go back there. I won’t ever. I’ll leave everything I own there. I’
ll do whatever you say.’

  ‘Then leave,’ I said.

  ‘You can trust me, I swear I can be good. You’ve seen me. I try hard. I’ve been good to you.’

  But every time I wanted to forgive her, the image with that guy came in my mind.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Don’t make me, Frank, please don’t make me.’

  I got up off the bed. I looked at her, and just looking made me want to die and to kill her all at the same time. It really felt like that. I put on my shoes.

  ‘I’ll walk you out,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said, still crying. ‘Please don’t do this, please. I can’t lose you. Really, Frank, don’t. I can’t go back there. I want to be with you. I swear to God I do.’

  She curled into a ball on the floor begging me not to make her go.

  I remember I got her to her feet and made her leave. I told her I’d bring her stuff by later, in the next couple of days, but that I didn’t want to see her anymore. The last thing I told her was that she was a hooker. That in my mind she was now just a prostitute. I stood there in the hallway of the Mizpah and said it to her, just like that.

  She was leaning against the hallway, crying. Her eyes red, her nose leaking, and tears everywhere.

  ‘Don’t,’ was all she said. Then I went back into my room, shut the door and locked it.

  Jerry Lee came in that night but I couldn’t tell him what had happened. I just lay there, sleeping a little here and there, mostly I just felt ruined and exhausted. When I’d get to sleep it was bad. Tossing and turning, and waking with the shakes. The next morning I called in sick again. Jerry Lee and I went down to the Golden Nugget and had breakfast, and I walked him to work.

  I spent most of the day at the river, and by the end I decided to try to talk to her. That I would go to her place and see what she said.