Bill Warrington's Last Chance

by James King

  “I know,” Mike said, staring at the ceiling. “For sure.”

  But as the years passed, Mike began to doubt his certainty, although he never expressed these doubts to Colleen. Every now and then, when a family event would remind Mike of his own childhood and send him into a funk, Colleen would urge him, for the sake of his own peace of mind, to fly to Ohio, sit down with his father, and have it out once and for all.

  Maybe now, Mike thought, thanks to the circumstances that had brought him to this crappy hotel room, he finally knew his father’s side of the story. Maybe he had known and understood it all along but could never admit it to himself: that he didn’t have with Colleen, or with any woman, what his father had had with his mother. That he was incapable—physically, mentally—of having it. And that he didn’t have the other thing his father had and needed—courage? selflessness? love?—to make what suddenly struck him now, in the terrible, antiseptic loneliness of an overpriced flophouse, as a truly selfless decision, no matter what the price.

  He heard a woman call out.

  “You in there?”

  Three sharp knocks on his door, three hammer shots to a spot just between his eyebrows. Colleen? No. Couldn’t be. Had to be the maid. But this wasn’t one of the cleaning days. He’d been very clear with the front desk: maid service every other day. Why can’t anyone get even the simplest things right?

  “Not today,” he called out.

  The effort upset the precarious balance in his stomach and his head. Hot waves of stale booze churned, threatening to shoot clear up to the heavy block pushing against his eyeballs. If only he had an instrument of some sort, a special scraper that could clear away the crap that was cementing his brain to his skull. An invention like that could make millions. Colleen would beg him to let her back in his life. The kids could have bigger rooms, more space for still more electronics to keep them from even a semblance of socializing with their parents.

  Three more knocks. Time to let them know of his displeasure. Tear ’em a new one, as his father might say. He stood slowly, determined not to puke. He tried to cough away the phlegm from his throat, but that only increased the pounding in his head, echoed now on the door.

  “Mike?”

  A male voice. Who in the hell could that be? A supervisor. Front-desk clerk. Someone who knew his name. The manager? What the hell did he want? He’d been paying his bill.

  “One sec,” Mike called out.

  With his first step, he nearly tripped over the empty bottle by the chair. It rolled partway under the bed. That’s the last of it, he told himself, just as he’d told himself the night before.

  He made it to the door but had to balance himself against the jamb before he opened it. Nick and Marcy stood before him. Talk about your bad hangovers.

  “You don’t look so good, bro,” Nick said.

  Marcy just stared.

  “How?” It was all Mike could manage.

  “Colleen,” Nick said.

  Mike nodded. That was all it took. He bolted to the bathroom and puked until he thought his head would fall off. He hoped it would.

  When Mike next opened his eyes, Marcy was standing over him holding the nearly empty fifth of Jack Daniels she’d obviously retrieved from beneath the bed. Nosy little thing, he thought. Good thing I’m not into cross-dressing. He felt something cool, a bit clammy, on his forehead. A damp washcloth.

  “Turn it down, Nick,” she called as she examined the label.

  “It’s practically on mute,” Mike heard his brother call back. “Believe me—he won’t hear a thing for a while.”

  Marcy nodded, still looking at the empty bottle. “Probably not,” she said softly.

  Mike saw her look down at him.

  “Well, hello there,” she said. “Riding the pink elephant, are we?”

  “Time?” he asked. He wasn’t sure the word made it past the burning sensation in his throat.

  “Seven thirty,” Marcy replied. “Night, if you’re not sure. You’ve been out a couple of hours. Got a bit of an early start, didn’t you?”

  Mike nodded. His eyeballs felt like dry snot.

  “Well, I’ll say this for you,” Marcy said, turning the label toward him. “You picked a tried-and-true brand.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Bill decided he needed a reporter’s notebook. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? It was important to keep track of the details, and they were becoming more and more elusive, just as that dimwit doctor had predicted way back when. Bill couldn’t remember the quack’s name, couldn’t remember what he looked like. But he remembered what the pompous ass had said: nothing to be done; the process might go fast or slow; there’s medication that might help slow things down.

  Be damned if I start popping pills.

  “Let’s stop at a stationer’s,” he said.

  April glanced over at him. With her right hand at the top of the wheel, her left elbow jutting out the window—he’d relented and let her open it—she looked as if she’d been driving for years instead of . . . how long had it been?

  “What’s a stationer’s?” she asked.

  “Hell in a handbasket. You don’t know what a stationery store is?”

  “You mean like where they sell cards and stuff?”

  “Yeah. Is there one around here?”

  April laughed. “Look out the window, Grandpa. There’s nothing around here.”

  Bill saw that it was true. Highway nothingness. So what had he been looking at while they were driving? What had he been doing? Sleeping? Daydreaming? What had he been thinking about?

  Marcy.

  The name popped into his head, even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t been thinking about his daughter. Or maybe he had—but about what, exactly?

  Yes. He’d spoken to her not long ago. And afterward he had immediately set about making plans. But somehow he’d stopped making those plans and had started thinking about other things. Clare. That was it. He wanted to go back to thinking about Clare. But first he had to think about the plan.

  “What’s the next big city?”

  “You asked me that about ten minutes ago. And ten minutes before that.”

  Bill felt the familiar warm wave pass from the back of his head to the front. It didn’t hurt. A surprising but pleasant tingle of sorts.

  “I don’t care if I asked you two seconds ago,” he said. “What’s the next big city?”

  “Geez, take it easy, old man.”

  “Don’t you dare call me old man!”

  April had to jerk the steering wheel back to her right to stay on the highway.

  “What have I done to you that you should treat me like this? Would it kill you to treat me with just a little bit of respect? Is it so much for you to call me Dad? I’m sick of old man and Billy Boy. It’s not funny. It’s . . . distrustful. I mean . . . the other word . . . dis—”

  “Disrespectful,” April said.

  Bill stared out the window for a while, trying to restring his thoughts. Why was her voice wavering?

  “I was just kidding, Grandpa,” April said after a while. “But you’re starting to scare me. You’re getting me confused with all sorts of people. Like my mother. It’s me, Grandpa. April. My name is April.”

  Her voice had evened out. Bill smiled. She was tough. He liked that.

  “I know your name as well as my own,” he said, forcing himself to sound cranky. “So tell me, my name is April, what is the next big city?”

  “Salt Freaking Lake City,” April yelled.

  “Thank you!” Bill shouted back.

  April shook her head. After a few minutes she said, quietly now, “I’m serious, Grandpa. You are starting to really scare me.”

  Bill guessed that this was one of the moments where he should reach over and pat her knee and say something that would make her feel better. But his hand felt heavy. Cement.

  “Just get us there, April,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Okay? Just drive. This is all going to work out.”

/>   The same words he had used with Clare when that other idiot doctor told them, in so many words, that it was definitely not going to work out.

  The same words he had used with Mike and Nick and Marcy after all the guests had left and they were still in the clothes they had worn to the service and the three of them were sitting at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, the silence suffocating them.

  Words. Useless words. Useless. Useless. Useless.

  He closed his eyes. Clare was nearby. He could feel her. He tried to bring her features into focus. He remembered a news story about a debate when a stamp of Elvis Presley was going to be . . . what was the word . . . minted? The debate was between “Young Elvis” and “Old Elvis.” Which one had won? The young one, Bill thought. That’s the one he wanted. Young Clare. Young Clare with the smooth skin and bright eyes and thick, beautiful brown hair. But these were just words: young, smooth, bright, beautiful. He didn’t see any of this, didn’t feel any of it. He saw, instead, the old Clare, the sick Clare. The sallow skin, the sunken eyes, the limp hair.

  “You’re not looking at me anymore,” Clare had said to him one day as he settled her back into bed after helping her in the bathroom.

  “What do you mean, I’m not looking at you anymore,” he asked, adjusting the sheet and blanket and then carefully lining up the prescription bottles on the nightstand, marines in formation. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Remember when you couldn’t stop looking at me, when you first started coming around? You reminded me of Buster, waiting for a treat.”

  Bill grunted as he moved her cup of water away from the edge of the nightstand. “I hated that dog.”

  “He hated you,” Clare said, laughing. “I think he knew that you were the one who was going to take me away.”

  “Turned out he was right,” Bill said, looking just over his wife’s head, at a design in the bed board. “Stupid dog.”

  “Look at me, Bill,” his wife said. Bill tried to focus on her eyes, not on the pallid skin or beads of sweat or on the red veins lining the yellowish whites of her eyes. “You’re going to have to do it again.”

  “Do what again?” he asked. He grabbed a tissue—floof—and reached for the small line of perspiration above her thin, colorless lips. She grabbed his hand. Her strength surprised him. Her eyes were wide, pleading.

  “You’re going to have to take me away.”

  The wind woke him. April had done what she always did when he dozed off: opened the window all the way, stuck her arm partway out, and grabbed the steering wheel in a way that he assumed she thought made her look “cool.” But the noise the wind created in the car never failed to remind him of the cold wind blowing through his helmet as the rest of his body froze. That sound was worse than the whistle and moan of incoming mortar. Mortar wasn’t playing with you. It was just trying to find you, kill you. The wind always knew where you were, and it never promised a quick death. It never promised anything. It just taunted. Death itself taunted. It taunted in Korea; it taunted in Woodlake.

  “Close that damned window, will you?” Bill wiped a small fleck of spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. He hadn’t meant to sound angry.

  April did as she was told without protest. A passing semi drowned out whatever she said.

  “See? I can never hear you when that damned window is open. What did you say?”

  “First I said I’m sorry,” April said, making Bill feel ashamed, “and then I said we’re getting close.”

  “Close to what?” Bill asked.

  “Salt Lake, remember?” April answered after a glance. “You wanted me to tell you when we get close.”

  “Guess I kind of dozed off there.”

  “Only for, like, two hours,” April said. “Do you need to stop?”

  The nap had done him good. Things seemed sharp, in focus. He remembered why he wanted to stop here. That feeling alone energized him—the sensation of being connected to things, not grasping about for a hint, for a clue, for a word that would somehow click everything back into place. He remembered his conversation with Marcy. He knew what had to be done.

  “Take one of the exits that say ‘Downtown,’ ” he told April. “I don’t care which.”

  April opted for the first one they encountered, easily switching lanes and slowing down smoothly to handle the sharp turn of the exit ramp. At the end was a list of gas stations and restaurants.

  “You want the McDonald’s?” she asked. “You said they’ve got the cleanest bathrooms.”

  “Just turn and drive a little bit.”

  “Which way? Left or right?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  April turned right. Bill was surprised at how quickly the highway had been replaced by broad avenues. He told April to make a few more turns, to drive toward the city center.

  “How do I get there?”

  “Just aim for those,” Bill said, pointing at a cluster of buildings on their left.

  “This is random,” April muttered. “You want to give me a hint?”

  Bill concentrated on the streets. People hurried along much as they do in any other city. Most were talking on their cell phones; even people walking in twos or threes were chattering away simultaneously. “Worst invention yet,” he said.

  “What is?”

  Bill sat up. A woman was pushing a baby carriage down the street, window-shopping. She looked to be in her early thirties. At one point she stopped and raised her face to the sun. She smiled.

  “Pull over,” Bill said, rolling down his window. “Quickly.”

  April checked the lanes before pulling over.

  “You’re going to get us killed,” she said.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Bill called out to the woman.

  The woman looked over. She pulled the stroller closer to her. She was no longer smiling.

  “Can you help us?” Bill asked. “We’re trying to find the Greyhound station.”

  The woman seemed to relax a bit. She looked around her as if the station might be near and she’d be able to point to it. But then she shrugged apologetically and walked on.

  “Why are we looking for the Greyhound station?” April asked.

  “Sir!” Bill called out to another passerby. “Can you help us?”

  The man, whom Bill had picked because he didn’t have a cell phone attached to his ear or appear to be in a hurry to solve the world’s problems, was well dressed and carrying what Bill realized, too late, was a Bible.

  The man walked to the passenger window and, maintaining a respectful distance, leaned over. “Ohio plates,” he said. “You’ve come a long way.”

  “We sure have,” Bill said. “But it was worth it. You got yourself a beautiful city here.”

  The man smiled. “That’s true, thank the Lord. How can I help you folks?”

  “We’re looking for the Greyhound bus station.”

  The man frowned. He stood and looked around, much as the woman with the baby stroller had.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I do know that Amtrak is over by Pioneer Park.”

  “That’s what I meant, Amtrak,” Bill said quickly. “Don’t know why I was thinking of the bus. My granddaughter says I’m losing it.”

  The man smiled.

  “Kids today,” Bill said. He winked. “No respect. You know what I mean?”

  The man leaned over and smiled in at April. “I’m sure your granddaughter is a fine young lady,” he said. Still talking to her, he said, “Just follow this street to Fourth and take a left. You’ll see Pioneer Park on your right. Amtrak’s there, too. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you,” Bill said. “God bless you.”

  “God bless you!” the man said. He waved as April pulled away from the curb.

  “Goddamned Mormons,” Bill said as he rolled up the window. “Trying to convert everyone. Did you get that? Go straight to Fourth and take a right.”

  “He said left,” April said. “I got it. But why are we going there?”
/>   “Car’s been acting up,” Bill said. “It’s old and unpredictable. I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. A bus will be safer.”

  “What are you talking about? The car’s running fine. And do you want to go to the bus station or the train station? What’s going on, Grandpa?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  When they got the station, Bill got a baggage cart and loaded April’s backpack and his suitcase onto it.

  “You’ve got my credit card, right?” he asked her.

  “Since Chicago,” she said.

  “Good. Go inside and buy two tickets for the next train to Seattle. Then wait for me by the ticket booth so I’ll know where to find you. I won’t be long.”

  “Where are we going? And you mean San Francisco, don’t you?”

  “Just do as I say,” Bill said. “Give me the keys.”

  April had been holding the keys by the key chain, but now she closed her hand around them. “You’re going to drive?”

  “Taught you, didn’t I?”

  Bill held his hand out. April hesitated.

  “Don’t start,” Bill said. “You want to get to . . . where we’re going?”

  “See?” April said. “That’s exactly why I don’t think you should drive. You can’t remember something I said two seconds ago. Grandpa, let me—”

  “Give me the goddamned keys,” Bill yelled. “I got you this far, didn’t I?”

  A few people unloading cars nearby looked over. Bill saw April glance at them.

  “Everything okay over there?” one man called out from a minivan.

  “Mind your own,” Bill snapped back at him.

  “It’s okay,” April said. “It’s my grandfather. Everything’s okay.”

  Resisting the urge to flip the guy off, Bill took the keys from April, got in the car, and drove off. He felt light, almost jubilant. He knew what he had to do. Everything was clicking today. He had a plan, he knew how to execute it, and now he was doing it.

  “Not totally gone, Clare,” he said out loud.

  He drove a few blocks, looking for a crowded parking lot. Settling on a twenty-four-hour supermarket, he parked the car between two SUVs. His toolbox was in the trunk, as he knew it would be. Knowing it would be there, remembering that fact and finding it to be true, encouraged him. He was doing what needed to be done. Marcy had made it clear she’d call the cops. Ditching the Ohio plates might buy some time. He grabbed a screwdriver, checked to see if anyone was looking, and then removed the license plates from the car and put them in one of the plastic shopping bags April had left in the backseat. There was a garbage can near the entrance to the supermarket, but he felt that wouldn’t work. Instead, he’d get rid of them later—maybe even take them with him and dump them somewhere in . . . wherever the hell they were going. Yes, that was the right decision.