by J. R. Helton
I cleaned up. I got back in shape. I stopped drinking, quit smoking, no more crank or coke. I started running again, six miles, every morning, on a dirt road toward Mexico and back. I got all those poisons, all those paint fumes, all those toxins, out of my system. When I returned to civilization, to my apartment in Austin, it was as though I’d been gone for a year, to the other side of the world, rather than just a few weeks alone in the deep West Texas desert.
I had only one message on my answering machine when I walked in the door. It was from Susan. I punched the button. “Hey, babe, where are you? I came by and you were nowhere in sight. What are you doing? Are you out of town? Call me, okay? We need to talk.”
I listened to the message one more time and erased it. I didn’t call her back.
A couple of days later someone knocked on my door at two in the morning, in the middle of the night. I was in a deep sleep, and they really had to knock, banging on the door, until I woke up. I crawled out of bed, opened the front door, and saw Susan standing there in the amber porch light. She seemed shorter somehow, wore a black down coat, and had a worried look on her face.
“Hey,” I said, and she just burst inside. I noticed, beneath her feet, the cream-colored cat running into my apartment right behind her.
“Wait, the cat. Sandy.” I’d forgotten all about her. I felt kinda bad and immediately went to the kitchen, grabbed a bag of cat food, filled a little bowl on the floor for the cat and she started eating as though she were starving, and who knows, maybe she was. Susan had gone straight to my mattress and box springs on the floor in the corner. She sat down on my bed and leaned against the wall. I could just barely make out her full lips, frowning in the darkness. I was very tired and got right back in bed.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” Susan said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Where were you?”
“What do you care?”
“Come on,” she said softly. “I saw your truck here tonight. It’s been gone for weeks.”
Sandy came over and tried to jump up on the bed, but I kicked her off.
“Did you get a cat?”
“No. She just shows up sometimes.”
“Where were you?”
“I went out to the desert for a while, down by Mexico, toward Big Bend. It’s this old hot-springs place. It’s pretty bare bones, but I liked it . . .” I could see she wasn’t really listening.
“Yeah, look, I got this major job offer up in Nebraska and I really don’t know what to do, if I should take it or not.”
“Is that right . . .” I reached for a cigarette out of habit but suddenly realized, I’d truly quit. They were gone.
“I mean, it’s a big feature film. But it’s four months solid in Nebraska.”
“So? That’s good money.”
“I know.” She looked at me pensively. “Should I take it?”
“Hell, I don’t know, Susan. That’s what you wanted right? A big feature film?” I yawned. I was calm, relaxed. “You gonna be a production secretary on it or what?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said and paused. “I think so. It’s just . . . you remember Ian Watt?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“He’s gonna be the producer on it.”
I sat up in the bed. “You’re going to go work with Ian Watt again?”
“I don’t know, Jake. That’s why I came over.” She started biting her nails and talking rapidly. “This time he’s an associate producer, not the line producer like he was on The Cry of the Plain. I’m not working for him or anything and, I mean, maybe you could work on it, too. I know they need a set painter and if—”
“Wait a second, wait a second.” I shook my head, trying to wake up.
“What?”
“You came over here at two o’ clock in the morning after you divorced me and we haven’t seen each other in a month to ask me if you should go work in Bumfuck, Nebraska, with Ian Watt, the lying little prick who broke up our marriage?”
She gave me an exasperated sigh. “Give me a break. You know I didn’t like that guy. This is serious, Jake, this is business. I’m just trying to ask you for the truth, for some honest advice on taking this show ’cuz it’s a long film, this is a big commitment, and you’re right, it’s in Nebraska for Christ’s sake, four months straight in the middle of winter. I’m not sure—”
She was working herself up again, and I stopped her cold.
“Hey, Susan?”
It must have been the tone of my voice. She seemed so nervous, unsure, and vulnerable there in the dark, leaning against the wall. We’d been together, off and on, for more than ten years, since we were sixteen.
“Yes?”
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just listen.”
“Okay. What?”
“I want you to get up out of my bed right now and get out of my apartment. And I don’t give a shit if you go to Nebraska or Alaska, but I never, ever, want to see your face again. Do you understand me? Please just get out of here. Now.”
Her long hair was hanging down over her face, and she didn’t say a word. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, quickly stood up, and walked out of my apartment. As fast as she had come inside, she was gone and shut the door behind her. The whole thing seemed to have happened so quickly, it was like something I’d imagined. Like it never happened. But then I noticed that the cream-colored cat had indeed come inside my home and had somehow snuck up onto my bed. She’d curled around my legs and was purring now, burrowing herself into the folds of the blankets, weighing her body down deep, for good. So I rubbed her head, and I let her sleep. All she was looking for was a little warmth and comfort and a place to stay for the night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank Lora Fountain in Paris and Judy Hansen in New York for all their help in publishing my books. I’d also like to thank everyone at Liveright and W. W. Norton: Robert Weill, my editors Will Menacker and Phil Marino, Bill Rusin, and Gina Iaquinta. Special thanks to UT Austin Professor Emeritus of English Dr. Flowers for her wisdom over 35 years. And thanks again to Robert Crumb for all his personal and professional support for the past 20 years, helping me believe in myself and my work. Most of all, my deep appreciation to Carisa Valentine for her unwavering love and patient ear, listening to the struggles of a worrying writer. Finally, I want to acknowledge my father for making me a hard worker, which has served me well to this day.
ALSO BY J. R. HELTON
Below the Line
Man and Beast
Au Texas tu serais déjà mort
Drugs
Voyage au bout de la Blanche
The Jugheads
Names and identifying details of the people, events, and places portrayed in this book have been changed, and some characters, events, and places are composites.
Copyright © 2018 by J. R. Helton
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Helton, J. R. (John R.), author.
Title: Bad jobs and poor decisions : dispatches from the working class / J.R. Helton.
Other titles: Dispatches from the working class
Description: First edition. | New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032065 | ISBN 9781631492877 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Helton, J. R. (John R.) | Working class men—Texas—Biography. | Man-woman relationships—Texas. | Texas—Social life and customs—20th century. | Working class—United States—Social conditions—20th century.
Classification: LCC CT275.H5667 A3 2018 | DDC 305.38/2309764—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032065
ISBN 978-1-63149-288-4 (e-book)
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