Left on St. Truth-Be-Well

by Amy Lane

  The Bird Bates Hotel

  WHO would do this? Who would drive from Chicago to Florida? What in the hell was wrong with him?

  Carson Andrew O’Shaughnessy could not, for the life of him, figure that out.

  He wasn’t even making this drive for love. Or for money. No. He was making this drive because his boss’s pip-weasel little fucktard of a nephew had completely dropped off the map. Please, Carson? I’ll give you two weeks’ pay! If you drive, I’ll give you three weeks’, so I don’t have to spring for the ticket! Carson waited tables, for sweet fuck’s sake! His salary was bupkes, but the fact that Carson being out of the picture would give the pretty blonde with the advantageous ta-tas all of Carson’s shifts?

  For Ivan, that, apparently, was priceless.

  Oh my God! He was such a doormat sometimes!

  But the fact was, he sort of liked Stassy. Anastacio Malinowski, Ivan’s nephew, was blond with adorable dimples and a smile that could pretty much set the stars in their spheres. Unfortunately, Stassy tended to flash those dimples more at guys than girls. Seriously unfortunately, Stassy was, at present, not aware of this. Carson had never met a gay man more unaware of his own closet. Of course, Carson’s rather bold attempt to kiss Stassy might have been the reason he’d bolted in the first place.

  Okay. So maybe Carson wasn’t just chasing Stassy down because Carson was a doormat. Maybe Carson was also chasing Stassy down because Carson felt maybe the teeniest bit guilty for taking Stassy’s flirting seriously. Carson had been with enough guys—and girls—to know whether someone’s signals were intentional. Stassy’s signals had seemed very, very straightforward. The innuendos, the raised eyebrows, the come-fuck-me eye-humping.

  Then one night, after a rush in the restaurant, Stassy walked into a broom closet and Carson followed. Carson kissed the kid—adorable dimples and all—until Stassy ground up against his thigh, and for a whole forty-five seconds, Carson was pretty sure his long dry streak was over, and hey! He was gonna get laid!

  And then Stassy put his hand over his mouth, and even in the dim light of the broom closet, Carson saw the glimmer of tears o’ angst. Stassy stammered, “I’m sorry. I’m so not ready for this!” and then ran out of the closet and off his shift and apparently?

  To Bumfuck, Florida, population snowbirds and surfers, gayness optional.

  Ivan had just said Stassy was on vacation, but as the weeks passed and Carson tried fruitlessly to get ahold of Stassy and apologize or claim complete ignorance or say something that would let Stassy off the hook of his sexual confusion, Carson came to believe the vacation thing was a total lie. He was pretty sure Stassy had just run the hell away.

  When Ivan told Carson he’d been getting regular credit card bills from the Bates Parrot Hotel, Carson was a little relieved. That meant Stassy was okay, right? This place was in St. Aubrey’s, Florida—it was known for its surfing. How bad could the place be?

  But Stassy had refused to come home, and when he went a day without returning Ivan’s calls, Carson allowed himself to be (easily) bullied to haul ass down in Ivan’s electric-blue Honda Element to retrieve Ivan’s wayward nephew.

  Jesus. It had just been a kiss. And honestly, Stassy was pretty, but Carson usually liked his men a little more… well, a little more. Stassy was young and callow and not great with the conversation. All of those innuendos had been made with eyebrows alone.

  But… well. Here he was. Wobbling through a bizarre mix of strip malls, suburbs, and backwoods neighborhood in the middle of the night, led on by his not-so-trusty GPS.

  “Right on Saint Owbrays,” the GPS sang in clipped, soothing tones. “Left on Saint Truth Be Well.”

  “Left on Saint What-the-Fuck?” Because he could figure out that Saint Owbrays meant St. Aubrey’s Street, but he could not see St. Truth-be-Well. He hit Refresh.

  “Left on Saint Truth Be Well.”

  “Oh fuck. I must have missed it.” He could see State Road 312 right there, but that other one—he seriously must have gone right on by.

  It was okay. There was a McDonald’s and a Chevron, and he needed gas and coffee anyway. Time to stop and trade in his man card for some directions that came from a human being and a map.

  He felt a slight chill in the air and a constant breeze as he walked from the car to the minimart, but compared to April in Chicago, it was damned near balmy. The Chevron was almost empty, and the bored girl behind the counter perked up when he walked in. He used the restroom first (and seriously? She couldn’t have used some of that sudoku time cleaning a little? Just for him?). When he came out to rent some more coffee, he asked for directions. “So, uhm,” he said, trying to remember he actually flirted for a living. “The Bates Parrot Hotel, where would it be?”

  The girl wrinkled her nose, and Carson fought the impulse to go after the beauty of a whitehead on the tip of it. Unfortunate place for a blemish, really. “You’re going to stay there?”

  Uh-oh. No one should ignore a warning from a local. “Not me in particular,” he hedged. “I’m looking for a friend.”

  “Good,” she said with a nod. “Because the Super 8 across the street is really a much better bet. Not so close to the surf, right, but crossing the street ain’t no big deal. Anyway, you take this road, and go down ’til it dead-ends. Turn right. Ocean’s on your left. You’ll see the Bates Parrot place by the ocean. Sign’s sortova mess. But you’ll see the parrot. It’s all in green. And blue. And—”

  “I hear you,” Carson interrupted with a hint of desperation. “I’ll see it. Blue and green parrot right next to the ocean. Don’t sleep there. Gotcha.”

  The girl nodded, not bothered in the least by Carson’s internal and external twitching. “Good. You wanna refill on that coffee seeing as you finished it already? They’re free.”

  Carson looked down at the thirty-two-ounce plastic travel mug in his shaking hands. God. Three days on the road. His stomach lining was probably translucent by now, and his eyeballs were starting to throb in time with his heartbeat.

  “Sure,” he heard himself saying and jittered off to do just that.

  STATE ROAD 312 was really dark, but she’d said turn right where it dead-ended, and that was no worries. In fact, for once the GPS and the local intel seemed to be jibing, which was a good thing. Streetlights? Apparently Florida didn’t need no stinking streetlights! In fact, the moon was down below the horizon, and Carson’s only hint of ocean was a certain matte blackness that was more foreboding than liberating. The ocean as devourer—didn’t that make the coffee shivers better!

  And holy shit. There she was. The Bates Parrot Hotel. Carson suppressed another shudder. God, the locals had it right, didn’t they? This place did not look healthy. The lights, which were supposed to be strung around the fanciful fresco façade, were broken in a lot of places, and the parrot looked like a cross between a flower and a sailing ship. The hotel sat on the dunes themselves, and the damned sand had pretty much taken over the parking lot to the left.

  That was okay. No one was trying to park there anyway.

  Carson parked by the street, where, in better days, a fountain might have flourished. Now it was a car bay with oil stains on the pavement, and he eyed the hotel sourly as he killed the engine.

  It was eleven thirty here. Didn’t that make it ten thirty back in Chi-town? Ivan would be up, wouldn’t he? Yeah.

  “Ivan?”

  “Did you make it there, you freaky little leprechaun?” Ivan had a broad Slavic face put together like square slabs of Spam. He did not appreciate Carson’s slight frame or his long oval of a pretty face, and he certainly did not appreciate Carson’s bright brown eyes and soul patch. In fact, Ivan had mostly made it known that nothing about Carson appealed to him except the re
gulars who kept coming in for Carson’s outstanding table-waiting schtick, and that’s why Carson still had a job.

  “I, uhm. Hey, Ivan. You know, there’s a Super 8 across the street. I’ll bet it’s cheaper. How’s about I stay there tonight, and I can look for Stassy in the morning.”

  Ivan grunted. “I made the reservation. I’ll lose my deposit. Don’t be a pussy.”

  Carson suppressed a whine. “Ivan, just looking at this place gives me the crabs. C’mon, I’m doing you a solid. Don’t give me your solid waste.”

  “Funny. You think you’re funny. Customers think you’re funny, you think you’re funny. You know who doesn’t think you’re funny? I’ll give you three guesses. You’ll only need one.”

  Augh! Guilt. Son of a fucking bitch. Goddammit, Stassy, you couldn’t have had your crisis of sexuality at a Sheraton? “Fine. I’ll take my bag. I’ll go up. I’ll check in. If I see one bug, or a shred of wallpaper, or a vapor or a cold spot or zombie or—”

  “What? What are you going to do?”

  And here it was! The ace up Carson’s sleeve. “I’ll call Stassy’s parents and tell them you don’t know where he is. Yeah. I know the number. Stassy was staying there last month, and he called me from their phone. So there you go. If this place is half as bad as it looks from out here, you’re springing for the Super 8, and I can never know what the fuck a bedbug looks like.”

  It wasn’t a grunt this time, it was a growl. “Okay. Fine. But you gotta give it a try first. I hate to lose that deposit. Especially since Stassy is staying there. It might be… what’s the word? Advantageous to have you be there in case he comes back. So you work on making things advantageous for me, you hear?”

  “And if there’s bedbugs, zombies, or weird shit?”

  Ivan’s sigh did not seem to indicate a disbelief in “weird shit,” so Carson thanked his lucky stars. Maybe there would be a raving full torso apparition in his room and he could go stay at the Super 8! It would be worth the years of therapy.

  “Yeah. Weird shit and you can stay in the Super 8. Just find my freakin’ nephew before my sister finds out I lost him, okay?”

  “Amen,” Carson said. He really did want to find Stassy.

  THE inside of the hotel did not inspire confidence.

  “Man, they weren’t kidding about Bates Parrot, were they?” He said it mostly to himself as he threaded his way through the gigantic birdcages and the loud squawking that filled the hotel lobby.

  Well, that and the stench. Each brightly colored bird had his own pyramid-o-crap under his ass. Besides the big black beaks that could probably snap the fingers off a regular adult, that was another reason not to touch the cages. God knew what would happen if the pyramid-o-crap decided to crumble. Carson shuddered just thinking about it.

  He got to the front counter and tried a bright smile at the colorless woman behind it. She had graying mouse-brown hair piled on top of her head, a round fleshy face, and shoulders that sloped inward to breasts that sloped down to her middle. Behind her blue eyes, though, there was sort of a sweet smile, and he played to that. Anyone who could smile in this zoo, that was someone he could charm, right?

  “Heya there. I’m Carson O’Shaughnessy. My boss made my reservation?” He pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and started to pull out his driver’s license to prove he was who he said he was.

  She blinked those faded eyes slowly, and behind him, one of the birds made a squawk that sounded like a car accident and a dying Cthulhu. Carson jumped, his wallet went flying, and he spent the next interminable ten seconds picking up scattered Jamba Juice club cards while a cacophony of twisted metal/tortured Cthulhu sounds erupted behind him. When he’d straightened, the woman—no nametag, which offended him greatly—was still looking at him mildly.

  It was starting to give him the creeps.

  “Uhm. Here.” He gave her his driver’s license. “Carson O’Shaughnessy. My boss is Ivan O’Leary. Uhm. Chicago.” Nada. “Reservations.”

  With that she turned slowly to her computer and started pressing random buttons in an unhurried way. Behind him, the Cthulhu car wreck was bending metal at regular intervals, and he felt his palms break out in a sweat with every shriek. Goddammit, Stassy! It was a kiss in a broom closet! Nothing was worth this!

  “Room 212,” she said between bird shrieks. “Round the corner, up the elevator, down the corridor, to the right. Overlooks the ocean.”

  She handed him a computerized key card, and he took it numbly and tried to remember why he was there.

  “Uhm, hey. Is that anywhere near room 113? Because my friend’s nephew was there for a while, and I was trying to find—”

  “Right above it,” she said, and he looked at the numbers and felt like a dumbass. The hotel was in the shape of a big two-story L. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.

  “Gotcha. Okay. Well. Uhm. Thank you. I’ll move my car to the parking lot—”

  “Any available space,” she said, her voice uninflected.

  “Good to know. Thank you. See you—” squawk “—around,” he finished weakly.

  She reached under the counter and pulled out a little bowl of brown crumbly shit. Or something that looked like shit. “Do you want to feed the birds?” she asked, and he blinked.

  “Not even if I knew they were gonna save my life someday,” he said truthfully and then turned around and fled toward his car.

  The Morning After

  THE next morning, Carson stumbled out of the Super 8 hotel and glared impotently across the street at his unholy nemesis.

  By day, it looked even tawdrier than it had in the night. The stucco was chipping, and the sign, advertising a silverware sales convention, was missing a couple of letters. The bird shit all over the parrot rendered it uglier in the day than it had been at night, when half the lights were out.

  Oh God. If only there was some way he could go back to last night and the cover of darkness.

  He fumbled for the sunglasses in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. It was going to be too warm for the jacket in a few hours, but right now, the heaviness was comforting. And the sunglasses saved his life.

  The parking lot had a long driveway for a hotel, and it sat right next to a rank field of weeds, the sort of place that collected used things: condoms, wine bottles, socks, plastic grocery bags. All of ’em used. But once you got to the end of the driveway and turned left, he saw—as promised—hot coffee, good food, and some folks who knew everybody.

  Fucking A.

  Or, actually, FA. The FA Café. Carson could only pray it lived up to the Fucking Awesome of its name.

  The outside was small and the inside smaller, wood floors and wood walls with assorted surfing kitsch being the predominant décor. Carson didn’t care. Even a little. He was promised coffee. That’s what the guy at the desk of the Super 8 said. Good coffee. Reasonably priced ham and eggs. Please, oh please, let this place put out.

  He looked across the street and shuddered.

  “Heya, can I help you?”

  Carson looked up at the guy behind the counter and then raised his sunglasses to get a better look. God. They sure did make them pretty here.

  His brown hair was curly and sun-streaked, and his stubble was blond. He had hooded blue eyes, sparkling like the ocean should have been, and tanned skin. The neck of his T-shirt and his sleeves were ripped out, so Carson got to see lots of that tanned skin and a sort of rangy, appealing musculature.

  Carson caught himself staring blankly at the guy and made an effort to put his tongue back in his mouth. “Uhm, coffee,” he said, craving it even as he suffered through the headache of withdrawal. “Lots of coffee!”

  Florida guy smiled easily at him and pulled up one corner of his upper lip. “Anything to eat with that?”

  Carson was shaking his head when Florida nodded.

  “Of course there is. We’re gonna fix you up. One breakfast taco platter—sausage, taters, bacon, eggs, fish—you’ll see. You can eat it in a hurry, sinc
e you seem to be a little rushed.”

  The guy spoke s-l-o-w-l-y, each word stretched out, laved, mauled, and sensitized by the indolent drawl of his tongue.

  Carson realized he was twitching his thumb about ten beats per word, and he flushed. “Sorry. Man, coffee. That is one serious drug, you know?”

  Florida nodded. “I’ll have some out for you. You look like crap. You didn’t sleep over there, did you?”

  Involuntarily, Carson shuddered. “No,” he said, his eyes wide and his voice haunted. “But it was a near thing.”

  Florida laughed some more and then, unbelievably, reached across the counter and patted Carson’s cheek. “Tell you what, city boy, you go pick a table. I’ll bring you some real food, and you can tell me all about it.”

  “But—”

  “You don’t like the food, you don’t have to pay.”

  It was like he was one of those bobblehead dolls. He nodded, mouth open, and Florida winked. Carson moved, his autopilot taking him outside to one of three picnic tables covered in red-and-white-checked tablecloths, and he sank down on it gratefully and rested his chin in his hands.

  He must have shut his eyes, because when he opened them, he was staring at a well-endowed crotch in a pair of faded 501 cutoffs, and he flailed backward, almost falling over.

  That syrupy laugh hauled him forward by his dignity, and a thirty-two-ounce Styrofoam cup plunked down in front of him, with cream and sugar packets stacked on top of the lid.

  “So, you didn’t spend the night across the street?”

  Carson met Florida’s bright blue eyes.

  “No,” he said, thinking he was going to have to relive the horror soon anyway. “I checked in, but I did not stay.”

  Florida laughed, a low, dirty laugh that did something melty to Carson’s insides, and Carson hurriedly started to fix his coffee. He did not have this reaction to men, oh no he did not. Women made him melty, men made him humpty. It was usually that simple. But no, this guy’s laugh… it made him melty. It was the brown skin on his shoulders that made Carson humpty, but now was not the time.