by Adam Berlin
The waitress came with the food. I did all I could not to smash the plate off the table. The mashed potatoes were drowned in heavy gravy and the gravy had leaked under the chicken. The simple dinner I wanted was ruined. Everywhere we went, everything we ordered was loaded up with shit. Extra gravy. Extra cheese. Extra bacon bits. Extra deluxe. Extra large. Extra extra. Fast food. Tacky restaurants. The buffets Gary described would probably be more of the same only on a larger, glitzier scale. It was exhausting. A fat lifestyle. No way to live.
I watched Gary eat his steak dinners. When he was done he signaled the waitress for the check. She cleared his empty plates and asked if I was done with my meal. I said I was.
“You didn’t like the chicken?” she said.
“It was delicious. Especially the gravy. Very subtle. Compliments to the chef.”
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Unless she was the cook,” Gary said. “Were you the cook? Please don’t tell us you were the cook.”
“No,” she said and smiled. “I wasn’t the cook. Can I get you guys some dessert on the house?”
“That depends. Are the desserts better than the main dishes?”
“Not really.”
“Then we’ll take that check.”
The waitress wrote out the check, handed it to Gary. Gary left money on the table, a twenty under the saltshaker for the waitress. The host with the ruffled green shirt watched us walk out and Gary nodded his head at him like we’d had a great dinner.
Gary pulled away from the restaurant and stayed on the city streets. The exit back to the highway was behind us but I didn’t ask where Gary was going. He always had a plan. Gary turned corners, stopped and started on narrow streets. It was a break from the monotony of the highway. The buildings became more run down, the streets darker. It was like he knew exactly where to go. He took a right and then another right and there were the girls, hanging out, hands on pushed out hips, watching the cars go by.
“Eureka.”
“How did you know?”
“Every city has them.”
Gary drove slowly so we could look the line over in all its glory. One of the hookers pulled her blouse down to reveal a huge tit with a wide pink nipple, the kind the guys called a pancake nipple when girls were the subject in the locker room, which they often were.
“See anything you like?” he said.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“You ever do a prostitute?”
“Never did.”
“Plenty of college girls for you, I bet.”
“When I was in college.”
“You never banged a hooker in the city?”
“No.”
“Who was the best-looking girl you did in New York?”
“I don’t know. I slept with a model. Not a big-time model. She was starting out. We went to her place and she showed me her portfolio and then I slept with her.”
“You slept with her or you banged her?”
“I spent the night.”
“One night?”
“That’s it. I wasn’t looking for a relationship.”
“I love those skinny ones. Was she skinny?”
“Model thin.”
“I love them when they have small asses and small tits. Like that one. She’s not bad. What do you think?”
Gary slowed the car and moved it close to the curb. She came over, walking gingerly on six-inch heels. She bent over to look in.
“You guys want a date?”
“I’m not sure,” Gary said. “What are you asking?”
“That depends if I’m doing one of you or both of you.”
Gary turned to me and I shook my head.
“Just me,” Gary said. “How much for a blow job?”
“Eighty bucks.”
“I’ll give you forty.”
“I won’t blow you for less than fifty.”
“Fifty bucks. Hop in.”
“There’s no backseat.”
“Go around the other way.”
I opened the door and moved against Gary. The woman slid in, tried crossing her legs, realized there was no room and closed the door. She smiled at me.
“You squeezed in too tight, sweetheart?” she said.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You are a big one, aren’t you?”
“Sure am,” Gary said.
“Drive to the end of the street and take a left.”
I could smell the woman’s perfume, cheap and too sweet. Her leg was against mine, black fishnets against garage uniform blue. There was an unlit lot at the end of the street and Gary pulled in and parked.
“If you want me to lean over your buddy while I’m sucking you off it’s going to cost you an extra twenty.”
“You into that?” Gary said.
“No thanks,” I said. “Maybe next time.”
The woman opened the door, got out, I got out, and I waited for her to get back in before I closed the door like I had taken their ticket, picked up their car and driven it up the ramp. I almost put my hand out for a tip, just for kicks, just for me.
I walked away from the Jaguar and across the lot to the street. It was dark and dead looking. All the trash cans were filled. There were a few lights on in some of the windows but most of the windows were boarded up. I stood there waiting. A car drove by, slowed, looked me over. A man put his head out the window.
“You working?” he said.
“Not tonight.”
The man looked my body over and drove off. I paced back and forth. I could feel the loneliness everywhere. All the fast food and all the fast driving couldn’t take that away. All of Gary’s talk about gambling made it sound like business as usual. Winning wasn’t always possible, not even probable, not if Gary had to take this trip. Even if he won what he needed he’d still want more, always more.
I looked back at the lot. I could see the shadow of Gary’s body in the driver’s seat and for a moment I thought I saw the back of the woman’s head bob up and then bob down.
13
INTERSTATE 70 OPENED UP. Gary drove faster. I shifted in my seat trying to work the cramps from my legs that came quicker and quicker after each rest stop. I was afraid to sleep. Gary didn’t want to pull over. He kept looking at the speedometer and then the odometer, doing the division, calculating the hours and the miles, figuring the time of arrival, destination Las Vegas.
“What’s the prediction?”
“No prediction,” Gary said. “We’re getting there by Sunday.”
“Why Sunday?”
“I like Sunday.”
“That’s a good reason.”
“That’s why I gave it. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”
The trip was getting to us. I remembered the family trips we’d taken to Florida when I was young, stopping at the border welcome station for free orange juice and to pick up the tourist-trap brochures for the Monkey Jungle, the Parrot Rain Forest, the Alligator Swamp where a man in war paint wrestled real live alligators. The drives seemed to go on forever. While my parents talked in front, Derek and I soon grew tired of looking for license plates, playing rhyme games or twenty questions, identifying the sights on the highway and checking them off on game boards my mom bought us. A telegraph pole. A cow. A locomotive. A church steeple. Eventually it all deteriorated into Sides. There was an imaginary line that ran across the backseat which separated my side from my brother’s. When one of us crossed that line even by a fraction of an inch the punishment could begin. We’d taunt each other, slide a finger over the seat cushion, stick a foot across the border that ran from roof to floor, the hump in the middle of the floorboard a favorite battleground for squashing feet and kicking shins. At first we’d try just to keep each other off our official sides. But as the game progressed it became more brutal. Smashed fingers. Bruised forearms. Black-and-blue thighs. It was a sign of weakness to cry out in pain. Once the game was underway, I’d pull my brother’s whole body to
my side and work him over. Sometimes I let Derek get me just to make him feel like he was in the game and sometimes he genuinely landed a good shot. We’d wrestle around until my parents told us to stop, warned us quietly, then repeated themselves until the warnings weren’t so quiet and if we still didn’t stop my mom would unbuckle her seat belt and turn around and with her beautiful nails, filed to points and made strong with polish, she would grab the offending party and dig in. My arm usually got the nail treatment. I was the big brother and should have known better. I was the one playing rough. I was often too rough with my brother but he never cried out or even complained. When I got the nail treatment, it sometimes took an hour for the marks on my arm to disappear, four half-moon indentations lined in a row. We joked about it now. When my mom wanted to lighten our dinner table discussions, discussions most recently about my life in New York, she would threaten me with her nails.
If we were playing Sides, Gary’s wide body would have been over the line the whole trip. We were tired, exhausted really. The signs kept changing, destination upon destination, Las Vegas still miles away. I wondered if the signs ever stopped or if there was a sign that said this was the last destination, the last official sign in the U.S. before the Pacific, or if there was a sign that said U TURN ALLOWED and then the turn was made and the signs started over going back.
Gary told gambling stories to pass the miles that led to stories about his college fraternity. Gary said he missed those days. I didn’t remind him that he could go back for at least three more credits worth of time.
“My frat brothers were a great bunch of guys,” Gary said. “I’ve lost touch with most of them. Most of them got married.”
“I don’t miss my college days. Whenever people tell me college was the highlight of their lives, it always strikes me as being depressing.”
“Not me. I had a great time.”
“Then you’re admitting it was all downhill from there.”
“Maybe it is.”
“That’s sad.”
“Why? Did you have more fun being the big man on campus, wrestling, doing college girls, hanging out with friends, or did you prefer parking cars for a living? If you want, I’ll try to pull some strings and get you a garage job in Vegas.”
“Maybe you should pull some strings for yourself.”
“I don’t need to pull any strings. I work for myself.”
“So you ordered yourself to get to Las Vegas by Sunday.”
“What’s wrong? You can’t take a few hours on the road? You miss not working for someone? I can pull over so you can practice parallel parking.”
“Parking cars didn’t bother me. I knew it was temporary.”
“It was. You got fired.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll pay you for your time.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“You probably do. I can’t believe your tips added up to more than chump change.”
“They added up to enough.”
“Enough for you maybe,” Gary said.
“I’m not the one speeding away like I’m desperate for money. I was never desperate for money.”
“How do you know what I’m desperate for?”
“Just a lucky guess. Maybe it’s because the whole fucking trip you’ve been talking about how to win money.”
“You have a problem with winning money?”
“No. That would be your problem.”
“I don’t have a problem. I always win eventually. I always make my money.”
“Money. Money. My parents made sure I didn’t have to think about money. So did yours. Or at least they tried.”
“Good for them.”
“It was good for us. They had real pressure so they worked to make our lives easy.”
“Whatever pressure I’m under, it’s my own. I’m my own boss. I’m my own man.”
Gary glanced at the speedometer, the odometer, did the quick math in his head. I leaned back in my seat.
I looked out the side window. I could feel the wide sweep of states and I pictured the squares on the map getting bigger. The squares we’d passed had been mostly brown. The fields had been harvested, plowed under, left to rest until spring, the flat land punctuated by farmhouses, silos, horses grazing on whatever weeds they could find, their bodies silhouetted in the evening. Kansas had taken forever. Colorado was just starting. Open spaces going west. Behind us the sun rose, streaks of pink layering streaks of dark purple layering the gray backdrop, striations filling my side mirror. For a moment, I forgot the trip.
“What makes you think our parents had it so hard?” Gary said.
“They did. They’re the sandwich generation.”
“The sandwich generation. What kind of sandwich? Liver-wurst? Salami? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“They were supposed to become successful because their parents were immigrants. Look at our fathers. Grandpa slaved away in a mattress sweatshop so that his kids could have a better life. He devoted his whole life to that end and his kids knew it. When Grandma and Grandpa were old, our parents were ready to take care of them. It was love, but they knew Grandpa had worked hard all those years and it was their turn to reciprocate. Then there’s us. We didn’t grow up poor. We never saw our parents struggle. We’re not first-generation Americans so we don’t have any burdens like they had. Now it’s completely turned around. Our parents are in the middle of the sandwich. They took care of their parents and they take care of us. They would have paid for my education if I didn’t get a wrestling scholarship. They’re paying for my brother’s education. Your folks paid for your education. We had it easy.”
“I’m their only son.”
“So what? They took care of their parents and they take care of their kids. We don’t take care of anyone.”
“We take care of ourselves.”
“Whose name is on your car registration? I can work in a garage and kill time because I know that if things get too hard I can always go home. Same with you. I doubt you would have started gambling if you thought your parents weren’t going to be there to help you out.”
“They’re not always there.”
“They always have been.”
“Sometimes the help runs out. Believe me.”
“Is that why you’re going to Las Vegas?”
“I’m going there for the buffets.”
Gary turned his eyes from the road and looked at me like he was going to tell me something.
“I’m the buffet generation,” he said.
“All you can eat. Just you. It’s like that joke my dad tells. A man calls up his father after he finally moves out of the house. He says to his father, Dad, you took care of me your whole life. Now I’ve got a good paying job. Take care of yourself.”
“Grandpa had it hard,” Gary said.
“Sure he had it hard, but in some ways I envy him. It must have been nice to have that one goal. It was like he had a plan already set up for him. Come to this country. Make a living. Work hard so that your kids have a better life. Sometimes I wish I had that direction so I’d know what I was supposed to do.”
“So you could flip mattresses all day?”
“So I wouldn’t have to think. And if anyone gave him shit along the way he could take it out on them. He was protecting his family. All the stories I know about him are that. Even the pickpocket story. That was food money. If he had to use his strength, he was using it for a reason. He could do whatever he wanted to do and he didn’t have to feel bad about it after, didn’t have to think about it after.”
“Stop thinking. We’re on the road. We’re driving to Vegas. That’s all you need to worry about.”
“For now.”
The lines of pink faded. The sky brightened. The flat land had been replaced by mountains, fir trees pointing in unbalanced angles off the slopes to get the most winter sun. A small river bordered the road and I saw a fisherman in thigh-high boots standing in the water, clear and hard
rushing from melted snow, casting his pole at an angle that also picked up the sunlight.
“I used to flip my mattress to make my hands strong.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I’m not trying to impress you,” I said. “I wanted to be like him. He was a physical man and I was a physical kid and in my eyes that had been all-important.”
“For all his easy living, I bet you never beat Grandpa at the Hand Game.”
“I didn’t say his life was easy. And I was too young when he died. Did you?”
“He stopped playing with me. I would have beaten him.”
“I don’t know. Even when he was old he was strong. There was a lifetime of work in those hands.”
On his deathbed he had broken an intern’s hand. He was tired of being sick and he didn’t want his family to put their own lives on hold any longer. When he said to my father, Someone’s calling me, son, someone’s calling me, my father said, Don’t answer. My grandfather smiled and then his face changed to his usual stern expression. After visiting hours that evening, after my parents and Gary’s parents had left, the intern tried to change my grandfather’s IV because my grandfather wouldn’t let the nurses do it. He moved his arm away but the intern persisted. My grandfather took the intern’s hand, a young man who had never played the Hand Game, and squeezed.