“I can’t believe Ray’s dead,” she said barely. “You must miss him bad?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She tried to say something else but she began sobbing so hard she couldn’t. “I prayed you would come to me,” she said and wiped her eyes on her shirt. “I tried to get ahold of your dad, but you guys kept moving and it was impossible to find you because he hated phones. He never wanted to be found by me.”
“You tried?” I said and tears filled my eyes.
She nodded. “He didn’t want me to be in your life.”
“I did,” I said.
She nodded again, then got up and went to the counter and took a paper towel and blew her nose into it. She sat back down and told me that she was married but that her husband and her were in the process of getting a divorce and he was living with a woman somewhere in New Mexico.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“Of course.”
“You don’t hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?” she said.
“I don’t know. He said a couple things.”
“Don’t believe anything like that. He was just mad at me. I love you, Charley.”
“Can I ask you another question?”
She nodded.
“You’re really my aunt?”
“Yes, you know I am.”
“Then can I stay here with you for a while?”
She wiped her eyes and smiled. “Of course you can.” She leaned back in her chair, set her hands on the table, and looked at me and smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I smiled at her.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“I’m always hungry,” I told her.
She got up from her chair and went into the kitchen and put two Weight Watcher meals in the microwave and we ate them at the table. Afterwards she made me a bed on the couch in her living room. She put a sheet down and laid a blanket over that and left me one of her pillows. She gave me a towel and a toothbrush, and told me she would take the next day off work and we’d spend the day together and buy me new clothes.
That night I lay there in bed for a long time but I couldn’t sleep. I got up and walked back to her room and knocked on the door. A few seconds later she turned on a bedside lamp and told me to come in.
Her room was small but it was nice. There was a double bed and a dresser and a couple paintings on the walls. Next to her was a bedside table that held the lamp, a radio, and an older phone that was off the hook.
“Do you leave your phone off the hook every night?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Why?”
“My ex calls sometimes in the middle of the night.”
“Oh,” I said.
“What do you need?”
“I just wanted to let you know something.”
“What?”
“If in a week or so you don’t like me, you can kick me out.”
“I’m not going to kick you out.”
“But if you do, you don’t have to feel bad about it.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
“I’ll get a job, too. I’m not going to cost you much.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“I had one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it would be alright if I went to school here?”
“You can live here as long as you want, and you have to go to school, it’s the law.”
“Do you think it would be alright if I played football when I go back to school?”
She nodded. “We just have to call Del and figure out what we’re going to do about his horse and his truck and trailer.”
“If I have to go to jail can I still live here when I get out?”
“You won’t have to go to jail.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You can stay here when you get out,” she said and smiled. “Now go get some sleep.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she said and yawned. “Now go back to bed.”
“Alright, good night,” I told her and walked back to the living room and lay down on the couch. But still I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t feel any better. I hadn’t told her about hitting Silver or all the shoplifting or the group home. I didn’t tell her anything that might make her hate me.
When I woke up the next morning she was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I lay there for a while and listened. The couch was nice and the sun was coming through the window and the room smelled like coffee and bacon. The radio was playing quietly.
“I went to the store,” she said when she saw me. “We can’t have you eating Weight Watchers if you’re going to play football.”
She smiled at me, then went back to cooking. I sat at the table and drank orange juice and watched her. We ate together at the table and listened to the radio.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” she said.
“What if your husband comes back? Do you think he’ll want me to leave?”
“He’s not going to come back. It’s the last thing I want.”
“But if he does, what then?”
“I know what you’re doing. You can’t worry so much, okay? And we don’t need to talk about my husband anymore. I don’t like him, and I’ll never live with him again. So that’s the end of the discussion on him. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“The real question is, what if I’m too boring? I don’t have a TV and I never go anywhere. I spend my weekends in bed reading. You won’t leave me, will you?”
“I don’t mind not having a TV,” I told her.
“I’ll get you some good books. You’re stuck with a librarian, you know.”
“I like reading alright,” I said.
“We’ll have a nice time together,” she said. “I know we will.”
After breakfast we left to go shopping, and as we went out to her car I noticed she walked with a slight shuffle. She wasn’t the same lady I once knew, but then I guess I wasn’t the same boy either. We drove to a thrift store and she bought me three pairs of pants and a half-dozen shirts. Then we drove to JC Penny’s and she got me socks and underwear, a winter coat, sweats and shorts, and a pair of running shoes.
When we were done we ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and after I finished my plate she shook her head and laughed.
“You eat faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t help it.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re just hungry.”
“Del used to say my manners were so bad it made him hate eating.”
“He was just being mean,” my aunt said. “Look at my plate. It’s almost empty too.”
“I don’t disgust you?”
“No,” she said, “of course not. But you might enjoy it more if you slow down.”
“I’ll be better,” I told her.
“You don’t have to be,” she said.
“I will though, you’ll see. I’ll work on my manners.”
“Maybe we should both work on our manners,” she said.
When we left the restaurant she drove me around town. We stopped at the high school and walked around. We even went to the football field. We drove past the library where she worked and the old house she’d lived in with her husband.
It was late afternoon when we got back to the apartment. I put my clothes in the wash and she made soup. When the clothes were done I changed into my sweats, put on my new shoes, and went running. I took a road up to the university and ran through the campus and I felt okay.
When I got back to the apartment I took a shower and dressed in my new clothes. My aunt had set three novels on the couch. Two Westerns and a James Bond novel, and I sat down and opened a Western and tried to read it.
That night we had soup, cornbread, and salad. I wanted to ask her about Del, about what she was thinking, or if she’d called
him, but I was too nervous to bring it up and I hoped that maybe the whole thing would just disappear.
Later that night I lay down on the couch but I couldn’t sleep for a long time. When I finally conked out I dreamt that I was in a rowboat and I was in the middle of the ocean. Pete was next to me in the water. I was trying to get him in the boat but I didn’t know how. I kept trying to lift him by his halter but I wasn’t strong enough. Pete didn’t seem that worried at first because he knew I’d figure it out. He trusted me. But time went on and nothing I did worked. I think after a while he knew I wasn’t going to be able to save him. Then morning came and Pete went into a panic. He splashed and screamed and waved his head around. He became exhausted. His head began slipping down into the ocean. I’d try to hold him up but I couldn’t. Then finally his head went under and he didn’t come back up, he disappeared. I dove in after him but I couldn’t find him anywhere. The water was cold. I dove deeper and deeper but I could never see him. I swam to the surface and I was tired and by then the boat had begun to drift. It was maybe thirty yards away and I swam as hard as I could towards it but I could never get closer.
When I woke I was crying and I could hardly breathe. I lay there too scared to go back to sleep. I got up and went to my aunt’s room. Her door was half open and her bedside light was on. She was asleep with a book on her chest and her clock radio was playing. I sat down across from her and leaned against the wall. The night passed and I sat there and waited.
In the morning I woke to her shaking me.
“Charley,” she said, “are you okay?”
“I’m alright,” I said and opened my eyes.
She was dressed in her bathrobe. She had slippers on her feet.
“I get nightmares,” I said.
“They’ll get easier the more good times we have together.”
“You think so?”
“I’m pretty sure,” she said.
“I ain’t gonna be a pain in the ass,” I told her.
“Good,” she said.
“Are you going to work today?”
“I have to,” she said.
“But you’ll come back?”
“Of course I will,” she said and put out her hand. “Now come on, get up.”
Insights, Interviews & More . . .
About the author
Meet Willy Vlautin
A Conversation with Willy Vlautin
About the book
On Lean on Pete
Read on
Have You Read? More by Willy Vlautin
About the Author
Meet Willy Valutin
Willy Vlautin is the author of The Motel Life, Northline, and Lean on Pete, and the singer and songwriter of the band Richmond Fontaine. He currently resides in Scappoose, Oregon.
A Conversation with Willy Vlautin
What kind of extra-literary and extra-musical jobs have you held—anything dangerous or notably mundane?
I’ve had a long series of jobs like anyone else I guess. But my first real job was at a chemical company where I loaded trucks and answered phones. After that it was mostly warehouse jobs and trucking company jobs. I did that for maybe thirteen years. I really grew to hate warehouses and even now when I drive past them I get depressed as hell. After that I became a house painter. I’d always hated house painters, and suddenly there I was one. I did it for years and eventually grew to like it all right, but Jesus, I hope I don’t have to go back anytime soon.
You somewhere expressed a fondness for John Fante and Charles Bukowski. When did you first stumble on their fiction?
I found out about John Fante later in life. A friend of mine gave me Ask the Dust and I plowed through it and then all his others. I think he’s a great writer. Bukowski, on the other hand, I read in college. I didn’t do much in college but hang out in the library, and I read a lot of him there. He’s one of the only things I got out of college. Crazy thing is I was young, and I had no idea about anything but I knew I liked to get drunk, and I knew I thought Bukowski was funnier than hell. I started buying all his books, and let me tell you they’re expensive and you can never find them used. So I had them lined up in my room like a shrine. At the time it was summer, and I was working for my mom. I was helping park planes during the Reno Air Races. I was hung over and sweating to death ’cause it was so hot and it was there I had this revelation: Maybe if I got rid of the Bukowski books I wouldn’t be a loser anymore. Maybe if I sold the books I wouldn’t be sweating to death and hung over. Maybe I’d have more confidence and be more normal. Maybe I’d amount to something. It had to be Bukowski’s influence that was ruining me. So I went down and sold all his books and I thought I’d straighten up and fly right, but then I had almost fifty bucks in my pocket and well. . . .
“I didn’t do much in college but hang out in the library, and I read a lot of [Bukowski] there.”
Your band, Richmond Fontaine, formed over ten years ago. But what came first, Willy the writer or Willy the rocker?
I wrote stories for myself in high school, but I never thought much of it. I wasn’t a very good student and had a hard time in English and just assumed that I wasn’t smart enough to be a writer. So I really gravitated toward music because anyone can join a band, and I loved records, records were my best friends growing up. So I started playing guitar when I was fourteen. I wrote story songs and more than anything I wanted to make a real record and have it be in a store. Have it sitting there next to all the great records of the world. So from when I was a kid up until I was thirty-five or so I just wrote novels and stories for myself. I’d just finish one and throw it in the closet and start another one.
An AllMusic.com review of your album Miles From, admired “the quality of Willy Vlautin’s songwriting; suggesting the clean narrative lines and morally troubling perspective of Raymond Carver, Vlautin’s tales of damaged lives and lost souls are vivid, honest, and evoke both horror and compassion in equal measures. . . .” Do you get that a lot—the Carver comparison?
I started writing seriously when I first read Raymond Carver. He changed my life. There is an Australian songwriter named Paul Kelly who wrote a song based on the Carver story “So Much Water So Close to Home.” I liked the story of the song so much I went down and found the Carver book, and I swear Carver just killed me. I was living in my girlfriend’s parents’ garage at the time, and I spent all my free time beating myself up for what a bum I was. And then I read Raymond Carver. I swear I thought I understood every line. He wasn’t better than me, he wasn’t from Harvard, he didn’t get a scholarship to Oxford, he was just a man from the Northwest trying to hang on. I was never adventurous or smart enough to be Hemingway or Steinbeck, and Bukowski lived too hard for me, but Carver was just a working-class guy with an edge that was trying to kill him. Boy, that time was something. I started writing as hard as I could from that moment on. The stories just started pouring out. I had all this sadness and darkness on my back, and I didn’t know what it was. I was just a kid. But Carver opened it all up. So yeah, I’m always grateful to get compared to him. It’s a great honor, and I’ll take it where I can get it. I know I’m just the janitor where guys like Steinbeck and William Kennedy and James Welch and Raymond Carver are the kings, but for me just trying to be a part of it is enough.
“From when I was a kid up until I was thirty-five . . . I just wrote novels and stories for myself.”
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About the Book
On Lean on Pete
WHEN I MOVED TO Portland, Oregon, I was twenty-six years old. I transferred up from a trucking company in Reno, and I rented a place in a suburb. I moved to Portland hoping to start a band, but I only knew one guy in town and no musicians. I was working a swing shift loading trucks with guys who’d knocked up their girlfriends and spent all their money on cars. Not one of them played music. The Portland I found wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be. I was very homesick. I wanted to move
back to Reno, but, in the end, I was too proud to admit that I couldn’t make a go of it. So, instead of leaving, I began going to places that reminded me of Reno. There was an old man’s bar called Patty’s Retreat (now closed down), a great diner called Tom’s, and a local horse track Portland Meadows.
For years, it was the track that kept my heart in Portland. I’d go every chance I had. I loved the feeling that I was witnessing a once great place that is on its way out. Portland Meadows is a huge complex that can hold ten thousand people; now, it sees fewer than a thousand on a good race day. And the thousand or fewer are the gamblers, the trainers, and horse owners, people affiliated with the track. There are hardly ever tourists or young people at the races. I’ve been going since 1994, and amazingly Portland Meadows is still hanging on. Each year they say it’s the last, but they always manage to open up for one more season.
“It was the track that kept my heart in Portland.”
Within the first month of going to the track, I fell in love with everything about horse racing. I couldn’t get enough. I read novels, gambling books, and biographies about it. During Portland’s off-season, I went to other tracks, and I followed the Oregon County Fair race circuit during the summer.
When the Portland meet would start, I’d watch workouts and would try to get in on the backside, where only people affiliated with the track are allowed. I’d sit near the old-time handicappers and try to learn something from them. I began writing out there and doing my best work there. I was truly in love, and when you fall in love with something you want to learn all about it, you want to dive deeper and deeper in. But, I found out that low-level horseracing is like diving into a river with a rusted out car two feet below the surface.
“Lean on Pete comes from my struggle with horseracing: my love for it and my guilt for liking it so much.”
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