No answer.
“Last deuce of oh-one?”
“C’mon.” He dabs at his wet underwear with toilet paper. “Don’t be crass.”
“Crass? Isn’t that like an old punk band?”
“It means—Never mind.”
She downshifts. “You don’t think I’m very smart, do you?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“’Cause you go to an expensive school and I, well, you know . . .”
“No. Of course not.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “Ask me a question. Let me see if I can get it.”
“Like what?”
“Like something smart. Like what does crass mean? Wait, I’ll tell you: it means gross and stupid and . . . low-class. Ask me something else.”
“I dunno.”
“C’mon.”
“OK, um, how many hands do I have?”
“Two.”
“Would you say that’s more than or less than the average number of hands?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“It’s abstract or, like, analytical.”
“See, I’m dumb.”
“No, you just gotta know how to look at things in a different way—an expansive way—in academia.”
“Yeah, I’d embarrass myself with some stupid question like ‘Do pregnant chicks count?’” She trails off to little above a whisper for her final words.
“Why would you ask that?” He laughs with her, at her.
“’Cause then a person can have four hands. Six hands with twins. Even more. There’s a lot more pregnant ladies out there than one-handed or no-handed people.”
“I’d never thought about—Yeah, that doesn’t count.” He backs out of the conversation, forcing his attention to a stack of Mars Hill pamphlets on the back of the toilet. “So how into Mars Hill are you?”
“That stuff in there’s my mom’s.”
He does up his pants and starts thrashing around the bathroom floor, searching for the pills.
“You can tell me, Lane. Are you rubbing one out in there?”
“Caught me.”
“Come to Jesus?”
“Something like that. Tell me more about the Mars Hill thing.”
“I didn’t lie exactly, but I exaggerated before. I don’t go to church that much. Or ever. That doesn’t kill your vibe in there, does it?”
“I’ll manage.”
“It’s like my wedding ring at work. People think they understand you better.”
He picks his way through the rug and finds a pill mixed in with a bird’s nest of animal fur and pubes at the base of the toilet. Lane’s not going to have time to crush it up, so he blows the hair off it and pops it into his mouth. At least it will help him with the emotional aftermath. He gags, chokes it down without water and then starts running a finger along the tiny gap between the edge of the carpeting and the wall.
“Hurry up, Lane,” she says. “I’m trying to get a clear image on Channel Five. We only got a minute till the fireworks.”
“I’m coming . . . wait, which people understand you better?”
“Parole officers. Bosses. Coworkers. I also gotta look proper for this legal situation I got with Jordan.”
“With whom? The state? No, wait, those ‘Aunties’ you mentioned before? You trying to make a ‘children deserve a mother and father’ point to the judge? Evangelical family-values stuff?” he ventures.
“What’dya think this is? The ’80s? Alabama? The judge already hates the Aunties . . . They’re Californians.”
“Californians?”
“Yeah, they brought up a lawyer from LA or wherever. Musta paid a ton of cash. The judge—he’s old-time Seattle, and I have no idea if he’s religious or not—but he took one look at all that tanned, frost-tipped, bleach-toothed California bullshit and ruled for me.”
Lane gives up on his search. He’s not sure there was a second pill in the first place. Back to the business at hand: he grips the pill bottle.
“I’m worried about my mom, that they’re not taking good care of her. That all of the doctors are off for the holiday.” Inez raises her voice over the sound of Lane flushing the toilet. “For all of her faults, I still feel guilty when she needs me and I’m here having fun. Breaking my sobriety.”
“Family . . .” Lane says, looking at round pills through the side of the plastic cylinder. He reaches for the door.
“My mom and Jordan. I wish I could give them so much more.”
He pulls his hand back from the door handle and wipes the sweat from his palms onto the front of his jeans. He should have taken the pill before he went to her place. He’d been too optimistic. Too confident in his ability to follow through. He wants to pace the bathroom, but it’s too small. He takes another breath, squeezing the bottle until its sides start to buckle.
The host on the TV starts counting, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .”
“C’mon, dude,” Inez shouts. “You’re hella slow.”
He starts to leave the bathroom again, then stops, turns to the sink and shakes out all of the pills into the drain as he fake-washes his hands. The water carries them down past the chrome ring and away into the black pipe below.
As he steps out of the bathroom, he bumps right into her. “I’m happy you came over tonight.” She smiles, then closes her eyes and gives Lane a long kiss on his mouth. He doesn’t react, not externally anyhow. She turns to the TV screen for the countdown. The host gets louder and louder: “Four, three, two, one . . . Happy New Year.”
Inez throws her arms around Lane and tries to jump up and down, but he stands flat-footed, anchoring her to the floor.
“I’m—I’m sorry to do this. It’s for the best. You’re gonna have to trust me.” He kisses her on the cheek and walks out the front door.
TWENTY-NINE
“WHAT’S YOUR RESOLUTION THEN, BIZ?” Cheese and Rice asks, tucking his blond bangs up under a hairnet and spraying the countertops with disinfectant. “You know, for New Year’s.”
Lane loads chicken-strip-and-jojo combos into a line of six foil containers, readying them for the lamps in the hot case. He doesn’t answer. They’ve discussed the nickname too many times. He’s been asked about his New Year’s resolution too many times.
And he’s still riding the Oxycodone Express. His brain feels as if it has a cool rush of extra cranial fluid lifting it up off the hardpan of his skull. Like those Japanese trains that levitate on reverse magnets. His wrists radiate a tingling, soothing heat into the palms of his hands.
“What? No resolution?” the kid tries again.
Lane wants to tell him that although some sixteenth-century pope decided on the Gregorian calendar, there’s no real reason why the year starts January 1 and not on the Summer Solistice. But the greater point is: he doesn’t need some marker to announce to other people about how he plans to reinvent himself, to make himself a better person. Lane wants to explain these simple truths to him, but he’s sure that kid wouldn’t understand. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. He adds two ketchup packets to each of the foil trays and makes sure they’re all straight, the logos all facing in the same direction.
“Anyhoo.” Cheese and Rice faces Lane, inching toward his personal space. “I was thinking, I know what Lane should do . . .”
Lane stays focused on his work. He snaps off the grease-slicked latex gloves and shrink-wraps the containers with plastic film. He gathers the plastic in a wad on the bottom of the tray and melts it to the point where it seals and doesn’t burn on the hot pad.
“You should go to college,” the clerk states. The result of some spectacular deli epiphany.
“Thanks. Great idea, dude.” Lane overheats the plastic. It contracts too much and holes yawn open where the film meets the foil corners.
“You seem like a smart guy. It’s never too late to seek out God’s path for you.”
Lane promises to think about it. He tries to put an end to the conversation, but the kid won’t l
et it go.
“You see, that’s my resolution. I want to show people that there’s a plan for them to—”
They both pause as the phone rings in the back.
Cheese and Rice picks back up. “God has a plan for you to—”
“OK, you know what?” Lane gives in. “I’m a fucking PhD student at Columbia.”
“That’s super cool, bro. The F-bomb is totally unnecessary but . . . Columbia . . . That’s like down in Oregon?”
“No.”
“OK, ’cause I went to a Bible camp in Prineville once, and my dad drove me across the Columbia River to get—”
The phone continues to ring.
“Can you get that?”
Cheese and Rice keeps talking.
“Get the goddamn phone, you fu—”
“I’m serious, though. Let me know if you need any other like advice or anything,” he says, jogging into the back. “And I still want you to come with me to the Hill. It’ll change your life—or not ‘change’ because all is predetermined—but you know what I mean.”
Lane leans against the counter to shore up his balance and considers sticking his head into the deep fat fryer.
“It’s for you, Lane.” The guy shouts from the back.
“Who is it?”
“Hold on.” Cheese and Rice spends a few more moments on the phone and then comes back up front. “Somebody named Mia. Super nice. Says you know her.”
“HOW’D YOU, UM, HOW’D YOU get this number?” Lane labors to get each and every syllable off his tongue and into the Fred Meyer deli phone.
“Some guy at your mom’s house. Charles?” Mia says.
The words hit him like seagulls into plane engines. He can’t believe that she knows he’s working as a near-minimum-wage employee in a superstore deli. She has to know.
“Can we start this conversation over again? Please, Lane,” Mia asks, her voice familiar again, comforting. Almost. “How about: ‘Hi. Happy New Year.’”
“Is it?” he asks.
“A New Year? Yes, last I checked.”
“But is it happy?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Not my finest. You?”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, things are still challenging here too,” says Mia. “I’ve had a tough few weeks. My dad’s been—”
“Tough, like mental health stuff?”
Mia tells him that there’s some truth to it. She’s not proud of it and she had always wanted to tell him, but she didn’t want it to define her. Didn’t want it to scare him off. She hasn’t seen the legal paperwork, but she assumes that it’s made to sound worse than it is.
“But do you want it?” Lane asks. When she doesn’t answer, he adds, “The divorce. The annulment. The whatever it’s called.”
“I—I don’t know. My dad, you see, he’s having some—he doesn’t want me to make any mistakes. He’s worried about my inheritance. For my own good. For the long run. Until I feel better. But I do feel better. So—”
“Buy me a ticket to New York.”
“He’s keeping me on like a tight allowance. I don’t even have my own—I’m calling you from someone else’s phone.”
There is a pounding on the loading dock door.
“Hold on,” Lane shouts to the door as the person pounds again.
He stretches the phone cord as far as it will go, leaning to unlatch the door.
Nina stands in the doorway, picking through her handbag. “And?”
“Hold on a second?” Lane asks Mia, placing his hand over the receiver to be sure she can’t hear.
“I can’t. No,” Mia says. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you back.”
“What? Wait.” Then he turns to Nina. “Can you hold on, then? Gimme a minute?”
“No, I need to talk to you right now, Lane.” Nina leaves no room for negotiation. She drops her voice to a whisper. “Who’s that? The crackhead?”
“No. Nobody. Please, hold on. Two minutes. Please, this is important.”
“Nobody?” Nina walks up to him and disconnects the call.
“DONE DONE? LIKE TOTALLY DONE?” Nina lights a smoke as they step out into the loading dock.
“Done done. Totally done.” He drops his voices and tries to straighten a stack of flattened cardboard boxes with the toe of his shoe. “You didn’t have to hang up my call like that. You coulda—”
“C’mon. Give me the details.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Not here. It’s not—I’m not proud of it.”
She tells him that he should be proud. That he did the right thing. Especially for Jordan. Successful people are not afraid to fight for what they believe in. To make a hard decision. To overcome their doubts.
Lane asks for a favor in return. Not a favor so much as the completion of an earlier promise.
“I don’t know how or when you’re planning to do what’s next,” he says. “But I need you to wait a few days. Until I’m out of town. So she doesn’t know it was me. You gotta take me at my word that I did it. And let me go.”
“Take you at your word?”
“I gotta get back to school. I can’t be waiting around here for half of January.”
“Second semester doesn’t start until January 19. Columbia’s schedule is on its site.”
“Yeah, but you said—you promised—you’d take care of the rest when I was already back, figuring out my life or whatever. That was the deal.”
“The deal . . .”
“I left early. Left school, I mean. Because of 9/11. One of the greatest tragedies in American history. Remember? I have to get back to tie up loose ends. Be ready for the beginning of the semester.”
Nina tells him what she does know. That he went over to Inez’s last night. That she saw him enter the trailer. Saw his cheap-ass bottle of champagne. She knows that they were hanging out until midnight. Everything short of seeing Inez violate her sobriety and probation.
“I’m feeling—how shall I put it?—guardedly optimistic.” She stubs out the cigarette butt and lights another. “But I don’t work off of optimism.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“You better be. Because of the holiday, the time of the year, this is all going to have to wait a few days anyway. Hold tight a bit longer and we’ll get this sorted.”
“I took a big risk for you.” Lane locates his John Baggs Jr. His Doc Maynard. There has to be an angle to stall her. Tables will be turned. “Don’t let me down, Nina. I know you’re a legit businesswoman who stands by her word. Not another Inez.”
THIRTY
OLD PATCHEYE CONTINUES TO YELL from his wheelchair about towelheads and the impending apocalypse. Fox News graphics and their parade of blow-dried muppets dance across the TV screen at the Rimrock.
“I need your help now. I need you to talk to Nina,” Lane begs Lonnie across the corner of the bar. “Tell her Inez has been buying oxy like every day. That it’s a guaranteed fact that she’s off the wagon.”
“I don’t sell pills.”
“How’d Nina get ’em then?”
“That was a special favor.”
“Do me a special favor too.”
“It’d still be weird if I call her out of the blue to say that.”
“So, say Inez owes you money, and you’re looking for her.” Lane stands up on the rungs of his barstool thinking of how he was unable to find Inez that day in the store. “Yeah, that’s perfect, ’cause she’s gonna leave town for a few days, long enough that it can’t be proven whether she stayed clean or not.”
“You know, for a fact, she’s leaving?”
“I’m gonna make sure of it.”
Lonnie runs his finger around and around the rim of his pint glass, considering.
Lane has no idea how he’ll get Inez out of town for multiple days, but he’ll figure it out. He always figures it out. “What about her dirtbag ex-boyfriend?” he asks Lonnie, fishing.
“Yeah, Kevin. Kevin from the islands?” Lo
nnie rests his pale, hairless arms on the corner of the bar. “I thought we were talking about a different dude before. I know Kevin.”
Lane finishes his Rainier. “Piece of crap, right? He’s like violent, huh?”
“He’s a good enough guy. Used to have an ill vinyl collection before he got more into drugs. But even before, he was the kinda dude who’s never got gas money or can’t find his wallet when it’s time to pay.”
Connie, the bartender, asks Lane and Lonnie if they want more drinks.
“I’m still waiting for my paycheck. Any day now.” Lane puts his palms up to Lonnie. “I mean, I’ve got my wallet, but . . .”
Lonnie nods to Connie while finishing his pint and then puts two fingers in the air to signal the order. “Did I tell you about me and Brenda?”
Lane shakes his head and pretends to be distracted by the TV for a moment.
“Brenda, the girl I’m seeing. Since Christmas.”
“No. Or, yeah, you did. Cool. So, Kevin . . . what? OxyContin too?”
“Yeah. But so what? This whole country. This whole war in Afghanistan.” Lonnie points up at the TV screen. “People say it’s about freedom or oil, but it’s about smack. Dude, the Taliban shut down the world’s largest poppy fields. New World Order can’t be having that.”
Lane rolls his eyes.
“I’m telling you, dude. The Tripartite—or Trilateral? Trilateral Commission. Kissinger. The Rothschilds. They’ve all been in the drug game for years.”
“Why do all conspiracy theories lead back to the Jews?”
“OK, how about Astor, you know Astor? Like Astoria, Oregon? Like Astor Place in New York. He was a Freemason.”
“Or Freemasons.” Lane reminds himself that this is the price of doing business, or arranging favors as in this case, with Lonnie. “And he was like a fur trader or some frontier shit like that.”
“Fur and opium. Astor realized that people don’t pull out their fillings or turn tricks to keep buying more and more beaver pelts. Dude was selling shiploads of opium to the Chinese . . . by the ton, son. And how was he punished? What was the moral of his story? He made so much loot that he bought half of Manhattan. No punishment at all—he was straight-up rewarded. Later, the German company that manufactures aspirin sold heroin as a cough suppressant in pharmacies across the US. And now the shit’s peddled as non–habit forming time-release pills by Connecticut pharmaceutical companies with sales reps in suits taking doctors on all-expenses-paid golf trips and handing out branded pedometers and fishing hats. So, Kevin . . . he’s the bad guy, right?
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