NORTHLINE
A Novel
WILLY VLAUTIN
Dedication
For Helen Young
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Circus Circus
Chapter 2 - The Basement
Chapter 3 - The Verdict
Chapter 4 - Safeway
Chapter 5 - Paul Newman
Chapter 6 - The Barbecue
Chapter 7 - Flying J
Chapter 8 - Johnny Cash
Chapter 9 - Sitting Bull
Chapter 10 - T. J. Watson
Chapter 11 - Flying J Flying J
Chapter 12 - Sunday
Chapter 13 - The Eldorado
Chapter 14 - The Lamplighter
Chapter 15 - Leaving
Chapter 16 - Oxbow Motel
Chapter 17 - Three Months
Chapter 18 - Emerald Arms
Chapter 19 - The Busboys at the Horseshoe Casino
Chapter 20 - Crossing the Bridge
Chapter 21 - Cal Neva
Chapter 22 - The Letter From Las Vegas
Chapter 23 - Doc Holiday’s
Chapter 24 - The Bottom
Chapter 25 - Penny Pearson
Chapter 26 - The Track
Chapter 27 - Her Sister
Chapter 28 - The Little Nugget
Chapter 29 - Saturday
Chapter 30 - Dan Mahony
Chapter 31 - Waiting Outside on a Bench
Chapter 32 - Baskin Robbins
Chapter 33 - The Last Drunk
Chapter 34 - The Lunch Counter
Chapter 35 - The Girl in the Checkout Line
Chapter 36 - Dessert
Chapter 37 - The Nightmares
Chapter 38 - Vern’s Tattoo Parlor
Chapter 39 - Bingo
Chapter 40 - The House
Chapter 41 - Phases and Stages
Chapter 42 - The Second Letter
Chapter 43 - A Late Night Conversation
Chapter 44 - Camping
Chapter 45 - The Strip
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .
About the author
About the Book
Read On
Praise for The Motel Life and Willy Vlautin
Also by Willy Vlautin
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Circus Circus
They were above them, the circus people, in costumes, swinging from ropes. A net was below and a small band played lifelessly in the corner, in near darkness. Colored spotlights followed the performers and an announcer introduced them and told the gathering crowd what was to come.
Jimmy Bodie stood watching, drinking a beer while the girl sat near the video games, drunk. She was in her early twenties, an average-looking girl, thin with black hair and blue eyes.
‘I think Warren and Nan got a room,’ he said when the show ended.
‘They did?’ she said and stood. ‘That’s what she said she wanted for her birthday.’
‘I guess she got it.’
‘Was it a good show?’
‘They’re all the same,’ he said.
‘I can’t believe they don’t get scared all the way up there.’
‘It’s practice,’ he said and finished the bottle. ‘Those fuckers probably practice all day long. Let’s go, I need another.’
‘I guess I could have another, too,’ the girl said and they began walking.
‘You’re done for tonight.’
‘I’m not that drunk,’ she said.
‘You can barely walk right. Anyway, you’ve passed out at the last four parties we’ve been to. Everyone thinks you’re a drunk.’
‘I wasn’t that drunk at all those parties. Maybe one or two, but not all.’
They took an escalator down to the casino’s main floor. Jimmy went to the bar and ordered two beers. He gave one to the girl.
‘Just don’t pass out on me tonight,’ he told her.
‘I won’t,’ she said, but she knew it was coming. She tried to count the beers she’d had, but couldn’t.
‘Did I tell you I used to work here?’
‘I’m not sure. I knew you worked at a few places but . . .’
‘I was a maintenance man. Me and this old guy, Turquoise. He was named that when he was a Marine. He always wore a turquoise ring that belonged to his sister who got cancer or something horrible like that. Maybe MS. I don’t know. I never even knew his real name, but I guess that doesn’t matter. He was a good guy, an old timer. He’d been around the casinos forever. He hated Mexicans – man, I never saw a guy that hated spicks as much as that guy. He wouldn’t even eat Mexican food, not even Taco Bell. He and I used to walk back to the kitchen of this fancy restaurant upstairs, he knew the head cook, they were friends, so he would set us up with steaks and shrimp every Wednesday night. Huge steaks, T-bones. They had a table in the back for employees. We’d just sit there and eat and eat. He’d keep bringing us out all this food. We’d be on the clock and he’d be telling me about being in the Marines in Korea, all kinds of crazy shit. Blowing up villages, killing people, friends of his who got their heads blown off.’
‘I don’t think you’ve mentioned him before,’ she said.
‘I’ll show you something,’ he told her and took her hand and they began to walk. ‘I’ll never work in the casinos again. They treat you like shit, they don’t give a fuck if you come or go. The management doesn’t give a fuck because they know you’re going to quit and they know someone else will take your job the next day. I stayed here a couple years then Turquoise retired. He was gonna move to Bullhead City with his wife. He was through with it. Tired of Vegas, tired of training people. We used to go through them. He’d done maybe fifteen years with Circus Circus, and they didn’t give him shit. Not a thanks or nothing, and that guy could fix anything. When he quit, I took his job, but it wasn’t any fun without him. I got sick of it and went back to work at Bob’s shop.
‘Anyway,’ he said and stopped. ‘See that door?’ He pointed to a hallway. ‘It’s not marked or anything, but it’s an executive bathroom. I used to take this cocktail waitress in there.’
‘I don’t want to hear what you did in there with someone else,’ the girl said. She finished her beer. She was beginning to have trouble standing. Her words came to her slowly, stumbling out. She didn’t want to go in there.
‘I’m with you now. Don’t worry. But I used to go with this girl, and she and me we’ve done it in every dump from here to old town. From the MGM to the Plaza, end to end and everything in between.’
‘Who?’
‘You don’t know her. She might not even be in town anymore.’
‘I told you I don’t like to hear about it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said and put his hand around her waist.
He led her towards the bathroom. The girl started to get the spins. All the lights and slot machines, and the people everywhere. She looked at an old man in a wheelchair playing video keno. He was missing both legs, cut off just below his knees. He wore an old brown western shirt, a cowboy hat, his face was red from booze and gray with stubble.
Jimmy opened the door to the bathroom and led her inside.
‘What we gonna do in here?’ the girl asked and tried to smile.
‘What do you think?’
‘What if we get caught?’
A set of fluorescent lights hung from overhead. The walls were pale white. There was a urinal, two sinks, and two stalls. Jimmy took the girl’s hand and led her into the handicap stall and kissed her. He ran his hand through her black hair and kissed her neck. He grabbed her shirt and pulled it over her head. He unconnected her bra and threw it in the cor
ner.
‘I don’t want to get all the way naked. What if someone comes in?’
‘No one will come in.’ He dropped to his knees. ‘If someone does, we’ll just have to be quiet is all.’ He took off her black leather shoes, unbuttoned her skirt, and pulled it down to her ankles.
‘If we’re gonna do this, I need another drink.’
He handed her the beer he’d set on the tile floor.
She took a long drink and finished it.
He kissed her legs. He moved his hands to her thin black underwear, and ripped them from her and threw them on the floor.
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘are you gonna buy me some new ones?’
‘As long as they’re black and G-strings.’ He began kissing between her legs.
‘They’re uncomfortable.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she said and ran her hands through his hair. She wanted it to feel good, but she was drunk. It became difficult just standing. She took a hold of the rails. After a time he stood up. He unbuttoned his pants.
‘You all right?’
‘I think I am.’
He kissed her, then turned her around, and she leaned over the toilet, with her arms stretched out and holding onto the seat.
‘Are you wearing a rubber?’ she asked but she knew it didn’t matter any longer.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not gonna anymore, either. I want you and me to have a kid.’
‘I’m only twenty-two.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that right now. I hate talking when I’m fucking, you know that.’
He moved inside her. He ran his hands over her back, over her tattoos. He put his fingers on the small of her back where there was a silver-dollar-sized black swastika. Just above it to the left was a tattoo of the World Church of the Creator emblem. A circle with a large W inside it. He kept moving inside her. She tried to hold on, to keep standing, but she was beginning to black out. He wouldn’t stop. She tried to focus on the stainless steel pipe that was connected to the toilet, tried to read the words stamped into it.
When she fell, her head hit the metal pipe and cut a half inch line above her left eye, just above the eye lid. Blood ran down her face as she lay naked on the floor.
He pulled up his pants then bent down and moved her so she was sitting up. Blood leaked down her face. He tried to stop it with toilet paper.
‘Wake up,’ he said and shook her. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to leave her there to teach her a lesson. He was ashamed of her, of the way she drank, the way she would just fall apart. He sat down next to her but his temper grew, and then he felt a wetness. He looked down and she was urinating. He stood up and yelled at her again.
‘Get up,’ he said over and over and his voice grew louder. But she didn’t move and he knew he’d have to dress her and carry her out.
He still knew people that worked there. He thought of everyone looking at him, sneering at him, making comments about him and his girlfriend. Maybe security would stop him, maybe the police would come.
He looked at her, at the blood again leaking, dripping from the cut. He saw the small pool of urine around her, and he kicked her. Just once, but as hard as he could, with his steel-toed boots. Kicked her in the leg, above the knee. Still she didn’t move, so he reached down for her clothes and began to dress her.
Chapter 2
The Basement
She woke the next morning in his apartment. It was a studio that had been built in the basement of an old house. It had concrete floors, an unfinished ceiling, and cinder block walls painted white. She could hear the TV in the background. It was still early, just past sunrise, and light was beginning to hit the small window above the bed. She could hear him doing push ups on the floor and could smell coffee brewing. Her head hurt and she could barely sit up she was so sore.
‘What happened?’ she asked when he stood up. He was shirtless, his chest and arms bare, no tattoos. He wore blue jeans and black boots. Sweat dripped from his face.
‘You passed out in the bathroom at Circus Circus. You fell down and hit your head on the toilet. I don’t think you need stitches, but maybe you should check with a doctor. Maybe you have a concussion. I taped it the best I could. I tried to keep you awake but there wasn’t a chance of that. You remember anything?’
‘Not really,’ she said and smiled nervously.
‘I had to dress you after you pissed all over yourself. I had to carry you out the door. Security stopped me. Everyone was standing around, looking at me, looking at you. I had to explain it to them. They wanted to arrest me. They wanted to call the police, but I talked them out of it.’
She got off the bed and stood naked. She looked at her leg and saw the dark bruise just above the knee. She limped into the bathroom.
When she came out he was frying eggs in a pan with bacon.
‘I’m gonna go down to the shop. I don’t feel like being around you today.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said and got back in bed. ‘I really am.’ She sat up with her back against the wall and covered herself with a blanket.
‘I don’t know what happened.’
He walked over to her and stood in front of her.
‘You used to be all right.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t see how you can do that to yourself. You should be in AA. At least you’d have respect for yourself then.’
‘I know,’ she said and tried to look at him.
‘I’m tired of you embarrassing me, embarrassing yourself. And then you apologize. You apologize over and over but it’s still the same old fucking thing.’
‘Did you sleep last night?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know the last time I slept. But I’m not the one that passed out in Circus Circus.’
There was an American flag hanging by the door, and a lamp made from a fender off a 1946 Ford coupé. There was a couch and a table with books about cars, mechanic books, books on guns and self defense, books on tattoos, books on immigration, US history books. There was a framed picture of his mom and dad that hung over the TV, which was sitting on a beat-up stereo cabinet. He had a computer on a metal desk, and a corkboard behind it full of notes and articles he had found. There were records on the floor. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, David Alan Coe, Buck Owens, Chet Atkins. Hundreds of country and rockabilly records.
He stood at the foot of the bed staring at her, then went to the stove, took the pan from the burner, and set it on a table that sat against the wall. He went to his dresser and took a pair of handcuffs from a drawer. He walked back to her, grabbed her left arm, and locked her wrist in the handcuff and locked the other side to the bed frame.
‘This is what it’s like being with you. Last night was like being handcuffed to a fucking bed. Imagine walking through Circus Circus with all the security and people watching, and then all the way to the car with people watching, and the whole time carrying that fucking bed. That’s what it’s like to be with you.’
He didn’t say anything else, he just pulled the blanket off the bed. She lay there naked and began crying. He went to a cupboard, took a plate from it, dished his eggs and bacon onto it, but he couldn’t eat. He left the plate full, poured himself a cup of coffee, and left.
Chapter 3
The Verdict
It was ten hours before he came back. He stood in the doorway and took off his clothes. He was haggard and could barely talk. He came into the room, unlocked her, and collapsed onto the bed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said and closed his eyes. He held her against him and fell asleep. She could smell the speed in his sweat and the alcohol on his breath. She waited for nearly an hour, until his breathing was steady and sure, before she got up. She then found her clothes, dressed, and left as quietly as she could.
It was past five p.m. when she made it to a main street and was able to catch a bus to her mother’s house. When she got off at her stop she walked to a mini-mart and bought a half a pi
nt of vodka and a large fountain 7UP. Outside on the sidewalk she sat down, poured out a third of the soda onto the street, and replaced it with vodka. The sun was beginning to set and the heat was letting up. She took a long drink. She stood up and looked at her reflection in the window of a parked car and tried to fix her hair and clean her face.
Her mother’s house was in North Las Vegas. It was a two bedroom ranch house built in the 1960s and painted white with green trim, but the paint was now faded and cracking. There was a patch of grass in the front and a larger one at the back. Both were brown and dying. A carport with a green plastic roof ran alongside the house and wrapped around the back porch. As she walked up her street she could see her mom’s 1987 burgundy Chevy Lumina parked underneath it.
The air conditioner was on inside and her mother sat on the couch drinking a can of beer, watching TV. The blinds were closed and the only light besides the television came from a lamp next to the couch.
‘Hey,’ the girl said and sat down across from her in a recliner.
‘How was your day?’ her mom asked and then coughed. She was dressed in a worn-out Chinese silk robe. She was forty-seven years old and thin, with black hair flecked with gray. Her teeth were brown and she’d had three pulled that year. She had the face of a woman who drank every day and forgot to eat when she did. She took a Marlboro from a pack on her lap and lit one.
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