Exit Here.

by Jason Myers

  “No.”

  Why?

  Pause.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. That’s why.”

  Because you know you’ll feel something for me again.

  “Travis, don’t—”

  But I cut her off.

  I thought you told me that nothing was going to change. That you were happy.

  “But everything has fucking changed!” she yells. “Big time!”

  Then Laura hangs up the phone.

  7.

  CLAIRE AND I MEET AT bottoms up bar for happy hour a couple of days later.

  Already there when I arrive, Claire’s seated at the bar in a Wires on Fire T-shirt and a pair of shredded jeans, with a navy bandana wrapped around her right wrist, holding a lit cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other.

  Yo, yo, I smile, walking up to her, and she slides off the stool and goes, “Fuck yeah,” and hugs me and kisses my cheek.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  I’m good. Better now that I’m here.

  “Cool. Want a beer?”

  Yes.

  Claire slams both her hands against the bar and goes, “Two more PBRs.”

  The bartender smiles and sets two in front of her. “Let’s get a table,” she says, handing me one of the beers.

  We take a seat at a small table next to the jukebox.

  “So, thanks for calling me when you were at the party the other night,” she says.

  That was almost a week ago, Claire.

  “Still,” she says. “We should be hanging out all the time.”

  I know.

  Claire takes a big drink of her beer, finishing the one she was working on when I walked in. Then she opens her new one.

  So how are things with you, Claire? How was your semester?

  “It went well,” she says. “I even made the dean’s list.”

  Nice.

  Claire is an anthropology major at Grant College.

  “How was yours?” she asks.

  It didn’t go so well. I definitely didn’t make the dean’s list.

  “That’s okay,” she says. “What are your plans now?”

  Inhale. Exhale.

  I don’t know. My father wants me to go to USC way bad, his alma mater and all. But I was thinking about maybe State or Harrison. I don’t know. My mind’s all jammed up.

  Claire reaches across the table. Grabs my hands. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  You think?

  She smiles. “Of course you will.”

  We should play some tunes on the box.

  “Go for it.”

  You pick ’em out.

  I hand her a dollar.

  “Fine,” she pouts and walks to the jukebox.

  I finish my beer and go to the bar and grab two more PBRs. Back at the table, with Guns N’ Roses ripping “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” I ask Claire if her and Laura still talk.

  Claire scrunches her face. “No. Not really. Not anymore.”

  Why not?

  “She’s a bitch. That’s why. That’s all I can really say.”

  I take a drink. Light another cigarette. Claire does the exact same thing.

  She says, “Maybe it’s cause we went to different schools and lost some ground, but every time I see her out she’s fucking cold to me.”

  Pause.

  “Have you talked to her since you got back?”

  Twice. I saw her boyfriend and met him.

  “His band fucking sucks,” Claire says.

  That’s what Michael said.

  Claire starts laughing and goes, “So how’s it been to see everyone else?”

  It’s been, ya know, it’s like . . .

  I don’t finish.

  “Are you okay, Travis?”

  Pause.

  “Travis.”

  I don’t know.

  “What’s wrong?” Claire asks as Guns N’ Roses slam into the Nirvana song “About a Girl.”

  It’s just that some shit went down while I was in . . .

  Pause.

  I look at Claire, at her beautiful face, her big brown eyes, and I feel so gnarly, so fucked up.

  “While you were where?” she asks.

  I don’t know.

  My hands shake.

  Can I ask you something, Claire?

  “Anything,” she says.

  If something happens, but you don’t remember exactly how it did, or remember it happening at the time, altogether. Then . . .

  Pause.

  My heart is pumping fast.

  “Then what?” Claire asks.

  Are you responsible?

  “Travis, what are you talking about?”

  I don’t say anything.

  Claire says, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  Can I?

  “Yes,” she says as Nirvana fades into the Tool’s, “Pushit.”

  Claire goes, “Is this about you and Laura?”

  No.

  “Good,” she tells me. “Maybe you shouldn’t think about her so much.”

  I can’t help it.

  “Have you tried?”

  Yes.

  “I don’t believe that at all. But you do have a different presence now. It’s like you’ve dropped your attitude and checked your ego at the door. I noticed it the other night at Kyle’s. There’s a different aura to you.”

  I’m trying to fix some stuff and make things right. I think it’ll help me figure some shit out.

  “I like that,” she smiles. Downing the rest of her beer, she looks at her cell phone. “Shit,” she says. “I have to get to work.”

  Fine, I pout.

  “But I get off around eleven if you wanna hang. We can talk some more or rent some movies or something. You have to come over and check out my place.”

  Where are you living now?

  “At this killer space on Kennedy and Morgan. Right above that awesome Vietnamese dive.”

  Sweet.

  “It’s a huge spot. I live there with my friend, Skylar.”

  Sounds all right. I’ll give you a call later.

  “Cool.”

  I slam the rest of my beer and the two of us start heading for the exit, but on our way Claire goes, “You don’t look so hot,” and I say, I’m fine. I think. Maybe I should go home and lay down or something.

  “Maybe you should,” she says.

  So I hug Claire and tell her good-bye, and then I run to my car.

  • • •

  I do not go home and lay down though. Instead I try to get ahold of Cliff. I call him and call him, but he doesn’t answer. I want to talk to him. I need to ask him if what Michael told me was true and about the track marks on his arm.

  I call him again and he doesn’t pick up, so I drive to his dad’s house.

  It’s almost seven.

  His stepmother, Marcy, answers the door. She’s wearing a bathrobe with a red nighty underneath it and is holding a cocktail in one hand and still looks like Susan Lucci.

  “Hi, Travis,” she slurs, wasted.

  Is Cliff here?

  “Cliff,” she sneers. “I haven’t seen him in a few days. Why?”

  I need to talk to him.

  “Is he in trouble again?”

  Not that I know of.

  My eyes momentarily slip down to Cliff’s stepmom’s cleavage. When I pull them back up, she grins at me, then nods her head, then pulls her bathrobe shut, and I wonder if Cliff is still fucking her like he was junior year and in the middle of last summer.

  “I thought you left,” Marcy says.

  I did. I’m back.

  “No shit,” she smiles.

  No shit, Mrs. Miles.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  No.

  She looks behind her, then steps next to me on the porch and closes the door. “Do you have a cigarette?” she asks.

  I slide a pack of Parliament Lights from my jeans and hand her one.

  “How about a light?”
<
br />   Here.

  I hold my lighter out.

  “Be a gentleman, Travis. Light it for me.”

  I do.

  “Thank you.”

  Uh-huh.

  The two of us stand in complete silence for like the next minute until this really nice Beamer cruises by, bumping some good hip-hop beats.

  Well, if you do see Cliff, tell him to call me.

  “I won’t see him,” she says.

  Well, if you do.

  “I’m telling you I won’t,” she snaps.

  Are you mad about that?

  Marcy slams the rest of her drink. “I’m fucking mad about everything,” she sneers, then flicks her smoke all the way to the sidewalk and goes back inside the house.

  I split. I pop in the new Entrance CD and drive to the American Apparel store on Kennedy Street where Cliff supposedly works, but this cute girl at the register tells me that he’s called in his last two shifts and is off the schedule for the rest of the week.

  Cliff was pretty right though, there are a lot of hot girls in the store, and I end up buying a couple of V-neck T-shirts and some short-sleeve ringer Ts and some pocket Ts and some underwear, and the cute girl at the register even gives me a 50 percent discount.

  From the store, I drop by Chris and Kyle’s. I walk up to their crappy one-story, smeared the color yellow, and knock on their red front door and wait and wipe some sweat from my face with the back of my hand. This girl finally opens up wearing a shredded Joy Division top, a cutoff denim miniskirt, a couple of leather wristbands, and a pair of red cowboy boots. Her light blond hair is parted to the left and pulled up tightly in the back.

  “Hey, you,” she grins. “I heard you were back in the city.”

  I know you from somewhere, don’t I?

  “It’s me, April Brown.”

  That’s right.

  “I’m fucking Chris now,” she says.

  That’s pretty cool.

  I walk in the house.

  Chris is lying on the nasty brown couch with a tall can of Bud in his hand watching a DVD of Big Black live shows.

  “Travis,” he says. “Good to see ya.”

  You too, Chris.

  We bump fists and I sit down in the wheelchair that’s sitting next to the couch, which wasn’t there the other night.

  April plops into the blue chair.

  Mounting a wheelie, I ask Chris what the wheelchair’s for.

  “I don’t even know anymore,” he says. “Michael and Kyle bought it from some medical supply outlet in Little Mexico a couple of months ago. They were planning something big with it but I’m pretty sure it never happened.”

  I swing my eyes over to April. She’s flipping through a photo album.

  How was that concert?

  “It destroyed,” Chris says.

  “Yeah it did,” adds April, grinning.

  Where’s Kyle?

  “With his lady,” Chris says. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Looking for Cliff.

  Chris twists his head at me. “Really?”

  Uh-huh.

  “But the guy is gone, dude.”

  Where is he?

  “I don’t know,” Chris says. “He’s just gone.”

  The way Chris says this sends a chill down my spine.

  I’m also trying to get Laura to see me face-to-face.

  “Dude,” Chris snaps. “You shouldn’t do that. It’s not worth it.”

  Shut up.

  “I’m serious, Trav. You should leave her alone.”

  Why?

  “Never mind why,” Chris says. “You’ll just be better off.”

  I light a cigarette.

  Whatever, man. Fuck.

  “Oh, here’s one,” April shrieks, pulling one of the pictures out.

  “One what?” Chris asks.

  “Here’s a cute one of you and Travis.”

  Let me see.

  April hands me the picture. It’s one of Chris and me in probably like sixth grade with our faces painted like a couple of the dudes from Kiss.

  Chris: Gene Simmons.

  Me: Ace Frehley.

  I remember that.

  “Let me see it,” Chris says, sitting up.

  I hand it to him.

  “Yeah, real fucking cute,” he groans, then grabs the remote and shuts the TV off and says that he’s going to bed.

  It’s like nine, man.

  “And I gotta be at work by five,” he snaps. “Some of us have to do that, ya know. Work.”

  Where do you work?

  “I’m laying cement for the new minimall that’s going up over on Linney Street.” He hands the picture back to me. “You staying here tonight, April?”

  “Probably,” she says. “My mom and dad still won’t talk to me.”

  “That’s real nice,” Chris says, then finishes his beer and goes, “Call me this weekend, Trav,” before disappearing down the hallway toward his bedroom.

  I hand the picture back to April.

  She smiles and puts it back. “Do you still have a six-pack, Travis?”

  Of beer?

  “No. Your stomach. Is it still a six-pack.”

  No.

  “In high school, my friends and I used to watch you swim in gym class and thought you were so hot.”

  And now?

  “I don’t know,” she says. “You’re still good-looking and you seem a lot nicer. I don’t think you’ve ever actually had a conversation with me before. You used to blow me off.”

  Sorry about that.

  “No worries,” she smiles. “That was then and this is now.” She stands up. “I’m gonna go fuck my boyfriend now.”

  Right.

  I get to my feet and April walks by me, brushing her fingers against my stomach.

  “It’s still kinda there,” she says, smiling. “Lock the door on your way out, pretty please.”

  • • •

  I leave and drive around and listen to an Ugly Casanova CD. I end up across the city in the Hoffman Addition, parked in front of Laura’s parents’ house.

  Taking one deep breath after another, I smoke two cigarettes and dry the sweat off my hands before stepping out of the car and walking up their winding driveway silhouetted on each side by a row of small trees and lights.

  Nailed above the peephole on their front door is a marble plaque with the name Kennedy engraved into it. I grab the bronze knocker and slam it against the door and Laura’s father, Marc, opens up in a brown sweater vest, looking pretty drunk.

  “Travis,” he exclaims, propping himself steady against the side of the door. “It’s really awesome to see you. Come in. I insist.”

  Laura’s father is a corporate attorney and is very successful, and the only time he’s ever drunk is when he’s home, and the only time he’s ever home he’s always drunk.

  I force a smile and step inside, and right when her father closes the door, Belle, their huge Dalmatian, jumps on me, catching the side of my face with her tongue.

  Jesus Christ.

  And Laura’s father yells, “Yield, Belle! Belle, yield! Yield, Belle!”

  Belle squats in front of me with her tongue hanging down. “She must miss you,” Marc says.

  I wipe my face off and try to smile.

  “I think Laura’s upstairs,” he slurs. “Have you two talked much lately?”

  No.

  Her father rubs his forehead and goes, “I just wish she’d listen to me and her mother. I wish she’d go to medical school like she always wanted to. I really tried to make that happen for her, Travis. And out of the blue, she decided to refuse my help.”

  Jump back to Laura and I coming to her house one afternoon during our senior year, and finding her father and his twentysomething secretary fucking on the living room floor.

  Laura made me promise never to tell anyone about it, and as far as I knew she hadn’t said a word to anyone else either. But she really hated him for it, which was probably why she backed out of the whole med school
deal, to piss off her pediatrician mother.

  Jump back to Laura’s father.

  He asks me about school and I tell him a little bit about Arizona, and then I follow him into the kitchen where Laura’s mother and older sister are. They’re scrapbooking at the table and Laura’s father yells, “Laura!”

  A very loud “What?!” comes from upstairs.

  “You have a visitor!”

  Marc smiles, and Kasey and Laura’s mother nod and say hi and simply go back to scrapbooking as if I really didn’t matter. Then Laura emerges from the doorway in a denim skirt and red tube top.

  “Oh,” she grunts when she sees it’s me standing next to her father. “Hi.”

  Hey.

  Laura turns quickly to the side and Bryan walks in behind her. She whispers something into Bryan’s ear and he nods, staring at me, while her entire family, even the fucking dog, watches intently.

  Placing her eyes back on me, Laura goes, “Come with me.”

  Where to?

  “Just follow me, Travis,” she presses, practically racing out of the kitchen, back through the living room.

  She opens the front door. “Out here,” she says.

  I follow her out and she slams the door shut.

  “Fucker!” She pounds her hands against my chest. “Fuck you! You have no business coming here!”

  Just stop it, Laura.

  I rip her hands off of me.

  I have some things I wanna say that can’t be said over the phone.

  She takes a step back. “What do you want from me, Travis?”

  I want you to listen.

  “So start saying something. Tell me what you want.”

  You, Laura. I want you back. I need you back.

  “You can’t have that.”

  Why not?

  “Why not?” she snorts. “How about the fact that you left for Hawaii the day after Christmas, right after we screwed, and I didn’t hear another word from you until that bullshit front job you pulled at the party last weekend.”

  I pinch my forehead.

  Laura, I’m sorry about that. I fucked up. But you did too. You still called me and told me it was over without even giving me a reason.

  “Oh my god, Travis. Is that what this is about? Your own need of a justification for me ending whatever the hell was even left between us?”

  No.

  “I mean is that all you want . . . a fucking reason?”

  I take a step toward her, stopping like an inch from her face.

  I want you, Laura. I came back for this.

  “Why are you trying so hard for this now? We were together for five years and not once did you ever care this much about being with me.”