In her driveway, about to hop in the front of her new Bonneville, I tossed my duffel on the back seat. “Nope. No way, mister,” she said. “My dog rides in front. You ride in back.”
Oh my God, I was pissed off—absolutely furious at this mean woman—but she already had my money. On the way out of her driveway, she looked in her rearview mirror and told me, “I’ll drop you off two blocks before Oakland, so I can turn my car around.”
I wanted to call her an evil bitch, but instead, I palmed my knife and leaned over the front seat to pet her dog. While diverting her attention, talking loudly to her fluffy white dog, I quietly flicked my knife open and slashed the back of her new vinyl seat. Tore it up good, too, in long strips like the mark of Zorro.
. . .
Nowhere on Earth could be as perfect as Hawaii. Yet, I don’t like it here. I don’t like it anywhere. The maintenance man spilled gasoline on the concrete floor near my bedroll, and now the fumes are getting to me. Good, let them get to me.
Twelve hours after leaving Ft. Lauderdale in perfect weather, the bus dropped me off in Ft. Walton on the upper Gulf Coast. Ft. Walton had seemed like a nice place to live when our bus stopped there the previous week, but now, it was ten o’clock at night, cold and raining. Not having a warm coat or raincoat, I sat inside a Waffle House eating pecan waffles, drinking coffee and reading Dostoevsky. It stopped raining at midnight. I put on my sweatshirt and went outside to explore the area on foot.
Santa Rosa Sound between Ft. Walton and Okaloosa Island was only a few blocks away. I crossed US Highway 98 and trudged through an empty field of tall grass and mud ruts to the water’s edge. Across the sound, I could see a marina with a bar on top, people drinking and laughing on the veranda. I stepped out of the moonlight into a coppice of banana trees, and not having anything else to do, unzipped my pants and thought about a girl from high school. On my left, cars crossed Okaloosa Bridge. Below the bridge, a small white sailboat passed between concrete columns. When I finished jacking-off, the cold weather got to me, and something else too, because I became heavy with dread and had to sit under a banana tree.
At midnight I heaved my duffel bag across my shoulder and set off looking for a place to sleep. Below Okaloosa Bridge I found a dry, secluded spot near a clump of bamboo canes. For a pillow, I filled a t-shirt with clothes, and to keep my hands warm, I stuck them inside a pair of socks. What I kept thinking about was my father: What happened to him? Did I thank him for coaching my baseball team?
After spending three nights hidden in canes under the bridge, I was beginning to smell and had bug bites on my face and neck. Standing outside the Waffle House, I dropped my bag under the payphone and finally made the call:
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Hey, me, how are you doing?”
My grandmother was happy I called and wanted to know if I was okay. Did I find a job? “What’s your apartment like?” she asked.
I told her I was working on all that. She gave me an update on what everyone was doing in Palm City. Before hanging up she told me. “I’m confident you’ll find your way.”
Inside the Waffle House restroom, I washed my face and shaved in the sink. At the Bluefish Motel, I rented an apartment, and the next day, found a job waiting tables at Barnacle Bill’s seafood restaurant.
My apartment didn’t have a heater, so instead of sleeping in the bed, I slept on an old vinyl couch beside the oven, door open, heat on. Overall, it was the perfect little apartment, affordable and close to the Gulf. On the first warm day, I put on my favorite pair of green shorts, slung a t-shirt over my shoulder and ran barefoot down the sandy white beach. I ran as fast as I could, sprinting through waves and charging over massive sand dunes until the beach ended at the jetty five miles away. I wanted to keep going, keep running. All of this was a long time ago, when I was a young man standing on top of a jetty in Florida with a lot more running to do.
. . .
I’m through running. It never solved anything. After getting off work, I drove my Impala to Lele Point. It’s pretty high up. In one direction you can see the city lights and identify the major streets. In the other direction all you see is black ocean.
My father bought jewelry for my sister, bought me a boat, bought Mom a new house, and when she wanted new dresses, he bought those too. At Christmas one year, my uncle told him he was spoiling his family. Dad said, “I’m doing it now, while I can still afford it.” We all knew he was spoiling us. We also knew he was drinking too much, but back then, we didn’t know Jack McAllister’s successful run would soon be over. Apparently, he did.
After 1976 everything changed. Dad’s drinking began to cycle back and forth between the highs of too much and the lows of not enough. One sober afternoon he wouldn’t get out of his lounge chair. He remained in front of the television staring at the Daytona 500, sound blaring, cars going in circles. He gradually stopped working and had to sell his boat. Two years later we lost our house and moved in with Mandy’s family. Dad moved to an apartment. There were times when he almost rallied, but mostly he continued on his downward path of self-destruction—just like his father before him, and me after him, as if the fate of one determined the fate of us all—I guess it had. We were teammates, and our misunderstood loyalty was something we accepted without question, like it was the only thing that mattered.
As a young boy, lines were drawn, decisions made, and mothers were not allowed on a father and son team. Despite her exclusion, Mom proved her wisdom and proved her strength. After the divorce, she stepped up to the plate and started hitting homeruns. She worked a full-time job, supported her family, and continued on without complaint.
In high school, I didn’t get it, didn’t consider her loss. She lost her lifestyle, her husband, and her son. The only thing I cared about was helping my father, and in countless mean, hurtful ways, I erased Mom from my life. Ours was a quiet war, deep and spiteful, her trying to move forward, me trying to hold on. She said to let go, find my own way. She told me, “Mitch, he’s a good man, but there’s nothing you can do for him.”
Mom had deserved better, and so did my sister Tracy, who proved to be as unbreakable as our mother. Tracy fell in love and graduated from LSU, while at the same time, struggling to understand a father who abandoned her. She took it all in stride, and when Dad was too drunk to attend her wedding, she accepted it along with everything else, always moving forward, never allowing the past to undo her future.
. . .
Earlier tonight, something remarkable happened. Complaining a little, my Impala inched up the steep, circular driveway to a parking spot opposite a valet stand. Most of the valets are friendly. Robbie, my boss, sends them a free pizza now and then. Instead of embarrassing myself in front of attractive girls at the reception desk, I took an outside glass elevator up to room 526 where Donald Hanson answered the door.
“McAllister! What the fuck?”
“Wow, hey Don.”
“Man, I’m in shock. Get in here,” he said.
Trapper was blending margaritas at the bar, tilting the blender. “McAllister, Fuckn’ A!” he called out.
Grady Myers stepped from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, shaving cream in his ears. He rushed over to slap my back and shake hands. “Never thought it would happen,” he said. “You actually left Galveston.”
“Left one island for another,” I said.
Trapper’s bushy hair was tamer than I remembered. He eyed my pizza shirt in disbelief. “Goddam, Mitch. You’re dressed like one of those French Quarter characters selling Lucky Dogs.”
“Let him catch his breath,” Grady said and tried to give me fifty dollars for the pizza. I told him not to worry about it. Don poured everyone a shot of tequila to celebrate our reunion. They wanted to know what happened to my bookstore, and did I sell the building? What happened to Allison?
“Cheers,” I said.
Once the questions were no longer aimed at me, we started in on the pizza. I asked if anyone knew what happe
ned to Renée Reynolds.
“She graduated from Tulane and stopped dating men,” Don said. “After Tulane, she went to grad school in Virginia, met some debutante and crossed over to the other side.”
“We made-out behind Skate Town in seventh grade,” I said. “Even got my hand up her shirt and felt off her little peanuts.”
“What! You felt her nuts?” Trapper asked.
“Not her nuts, her tits. She didn’t have nuts back then.”
Trapper thumped the rim of his glass. “Listen up everyone! I have an important announcement to make. You all have surely noticed how happy Don has been recently. The good news is—Donald, I’m sure you won’t mind if I share this among friends—anyway, the good news is, Don discovered he’s not gay. He sucked a dick and didn’t like it.”
Grady Myers almost spit-up his pizza laughing so hard.
“What? Why didn’t you like it, Don?” I asked.
Grady said, “McAllister, it’s been years since I asked this question. You wouldn’t answer in high school. So, tell me the truth, did you ever get in Connie Sinclair’s pants?”
“What happened to Connie?” I asked, “I haven’t heard anything about her in years.”
“Come on, McAllister, answer the question,” Trapper said. “If you’ll be honest about Connie Sinclair, I’ll be honest about your cousin Mandy and admit to giving her the python on numerous occasions.”
“You wish!” I said.
“Connie married a doctor in Baton Rouge,” Grady told me.
“Good for her.” I went on the balcony to check my Impala. In two days I’ll owe Paula two-hundred and fifty dollars for rent. I don’t have it. “Two days,” she told me this morning, knocking on the storage room window, holding up two fingers.
Trapper mixed another batch of margaritas, tilting the blender to the side, showing us his technique for chopping ice. The telephone rang and Don answered it. It was Robbie.
“Shit, man, your boss is on the phone. What should I tell him?”
I picked it up, “Robbie, keep my last paycheck. I quit.”
Grady looked over at me in shock. “What was that about?”
Don paced along the carpet, talking with his hands, spilling his margarita. “McAllister, whatever happened to that Samantha chick, the one you tried to set up with Myers?”
“She wouldn’t screw him,” I said.
“First I heard about this?” Grady said and raised his drink. “Thanks for trying.”
Don said, “The pitiful young thing thought she was making a real connection, met the love of her life or something, and Mitch treated her like a slut.”
“The girl only wanted my money maker.”
“Then why did she get so upset?” Don rolled a towel like he might try to pop me with it. “Who else have you screwed over, McAllister?”
Grady suggested we hit the outside bar. Don put on a Panama hat. Grady loaned me a t-shirt and pair of green shorts.
“Hey, these are my shorts,” I told him. “I loaned ‘em to you the last time you were in Galveston.”
“Sorry, hope I didn’t stretch the package out too much.”
“Myers, you’re lucky,” I said, gripping my crotch with both hands. “You don’t know how exhausting it is lugging around a huge penis every day of your miserable life.”
Trapper came out of the bathroom slapping his face with aftershave. “Hey limpdicks, let’s go get laid!”
The pool had an oval shaped bar in the middle that appeared to float on top of turquoise water. We jumped in and swam out to it. A group of school teachers from Tucson were celebrating spring break. Nicole was my pick, a brunette wearing a burgundy bikini I couldn’t stop staring at. “Look at that, Trapper. I’m attracted to her karma and positive energy radiating from her chakras.”
“Not bad,” he said. “Go try it on her, see if she buys that Buddha shit.”
“Nicole,” I said, after getting her alone at the bar, “I’m not saying this to impress you, but rather, I feel the need to begin our relationship on a foundation of truth.” I paused before saying, “I deliver pizzas for a living. It’s my job.”
She had a puzzled look on her face and waited to see if I was kidding. I crossed my arms across my chest and proudly declared, “It’s not a big deal. Sure, you make a lot of cash delivering pizzas. And sure, everyone respects you. Yes, I’ll admit, women are attracted to the red and white uniform—but there’s also a lot of responsibilities involved, high pressure stuff, serious business . . .”
Here’s what I closed with. “Nicole, delivering pizzas is not all glitz and glamor like most people think.”
Something I said worked. She ordered two fuzzy navels, and while the sun dipped below the ocean, we sat on the edge of the pool, dangling our legs in the water. She told me about Tucson and her teaching job. I told her about Galveston, Mardi Gras, and O’Malley’s bar. “O’Malley’s is the perfect bar. Great jukebox, hot bartenders, and a Betty Davis poster.” I also told her about Allison.
Nicole changed the subject and asked if I knew any good jokes. All I could remember was Krystal’s monkey joke from ten years ago.
“I’ve got one for you,” she said. “It’s about a pig. I hope you like it.”
“Try me.”
“Well, this guy is stranded on a deserted island. He’s been there several months and he’s lonely as heck.”
“Lonely as heck? . . . Poor guy.”
“All right, how about this?” she said. “He’s a tormented soul, lost in a cruel world he doesn’t understand. Better?” she asked.
“That’s it! Tormented soul! Now you’re telling the perfect joke.” We clacked out shot glasses together and downed them.
“So the guy’s stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with a pig—no native women, no Playboy magazines, only an ugly pig. And the more he thinks about the pig the more he wants to have sex with it. So he starts planning a way to catch it.”
“Hold on, the guy wants to drill a pig?”
“Exactly,” Nicole said, “and for several months he tries everything he can think of to catch it, but he never does. He could be enjoying a gorgeous tropical island, but instead, he spends all his time obsessing over something he can’t have. Are you following this?” she asked.
“Keep going,” I said.
“One day, while reclining in the sand, he hears screams coming from the ocean. He jumps up and spots a beautiful woman drowning in the surf. He swims out to her and carries her to the beach. Her clothes have been torn away and she’s lying in the sand naked. She gazes up at him and says, ‘My hero, you saved my life. I’ll do anything you want. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’ The guy says, ‘Anything?’ The naked lady answers, ‘Oh, yes, anything at all.’ The guy thinks about it then asks, ‘Can you help me catch a pig?’”
Nicole grinned. “Did you like it? Did you get it?”
I leaned back on my hands. “Yep. Got it. I’m laughing on the inside.”
Nicole placed her ear to my chest. “I don’t hear any laughter in there. I’m sorry about Allison,” she said.
“It’s nothing.” I jumped in the water and pulled on her feet, stretching her legs out into the pool. “Feel like dancing?” I asked.
We danced around the shallow end to soft Hawaiian music. Her bikini strings were tied in a looping bow behind her neck. She eased in closer, standing on her toes to whisper in my ear, “After being with you for only an hour, I know everything you’ve done and everything you’re going to do.”
“Oh yeah, what have I done?”
“As they say in the movies, you done met the woman of your dreams.”
“Okay,” I smiled, “and what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to fall in love with me, Mitch.”
I placed my hand behind her neck and kissed her. “You may be a little too inebriated,” I said, “but what about you? Are you going fall in love with me?”
“Madly,” she said.
I caressed Nicole’s lower back, circ
ling my hands around to her flat stomach, and hooked a finger in the front of her bikini. “If you abandon me,” I told her, “you’ll have to do it with only half a bathing suit.” She inched backwards, stretching her bikini so I could see the soft hair between her legs swaying as water flowed in. “Nicole, you’re trying to seduce me.”
“It certainly could happen,” she said. “Let’s swim to the bar and get a drink first.”
Grady bought a round of buttery nipples. Trapper did magic tricks for Nicole’s friends.
Grady pulled me off to the side. “Hey, man. You quit your job.”
“It’s not important, I’ve wanted to quit for a long time.”
Nicole grabbed her friend Tanya, and the two of them followed a winding slate pathway to the hot-tub. Knowing my eyes were glued on her, she turned around just long enough to curl her finger.
“Our services are needed at the hot-tub,” I told Grady.
Bubble gum scent rose from the swirling water. A drooping tree with tropical foliage offered privacy. When a cheerful Hawaiian woman approached with hibiscus flowers, Nicole draped one over her ear. Grady was beginning to get that familiar happy-drunk sparkle in his eyes that I’d seen so often, and before long, he was telling jokes in his crazy Puerto Rican voice. The girls laughed at his antics. They talked about taking off their tops, daring each other. Grady stood up and attempted Trapper’s quarter trick. “The hand is quicker than the eye,” he said, before fumbling the coin into the water.
Nicole plopped her legs across my lap and gazed at the tree limbs. “So what kind of work do you really do? I know you don’t deliver pizza.”
“Oh, my real job? I write epic poems of love and squalor.”
She laughed and used her foot to push on Grady’s back. “Your friend won’t be honest with me.”
“I can’t find my quarter,” Grady said, feeling through the water.
Leaving Allison Page 16