by Jack Kinsley
Travis didn't think it was Dallas's intention to be funny, but his delivery and the way his beady eyes shot open unexpectedly at Travis put him in stitches. Dallas joined in.
A sudden knock at the door drew their attention. Chef Tom entered with two lunches. "Sorry to break up the party," he said, looking surprised at the two men smiling at him. "I made you lunch, as well," he told Travis.
"Thank you, Chef."
"Much appreciated." Dallas took the Chinese vase and set it down on the stiffly woven Berber carpet.
Chef Tom placed the lunches on the black granite and produced a couple Fuji bottles of water from each of his pant pockets.
"If you boys need anything else, be sure to shoot me a text." He winked at Travis and left them to enjoy their lunch.
Dallas started into his lunch immediately, taking healthy bites of his turkey wrap while Travis sipped his water, grateful for the instant, cooling relief on his dry throat. He didn't feel like eating. The Adderall had robbed him of his hunger and he smiled quietly to himself, remembering a friend who had referred to it as the supermodel diet.
"So, are you a hunter?" Travis asked.
Dallas chewed a bit more and then he pulled a few long swallows from his bottle to clear his throat, his face growing dim. "You know damn well that ain't no hunting gun, and the knife neither." He took another large bite, almost taking it down whole, and chased it with more Fuji.
Travis guessed the last time the man had used was late yesterday, since his appetite didn't show any sign of withdrawal, and the meth surely wasn't repressing it. He was in that small window of time before his body declared war on itself.
Travis pulled the Valium for Dallas from his pocket and set them on the granite. He would have normally only given him one tablet, but the sheer size of Dallas demanded two. The giant acknowledged it with an appreciative single nod and without word ingested them.
"Let's start with somethin' easy. Shall we?" Dallas said and chugged the rest of his water. The girth of his hand dwarfed the plastic bottle and he crushed it like a beer can when he finished.
"Okay. How long have you been doing meth?" Travis asked.
"Ouch! I said easy. That's a damn poke in the eye."
"Well, I didn't think you came here to eat gourmet turkey wraps and drink overpriced water."
Travis often used this technique of pushing his clients out of their comfort zones and regaining control over the meeting. It was something he'd learned from Helen, when she described how her clients would often begin their sessions with a blubbering report of how terrible their life was; the quicker they changed their focus, the more productive they could be.
"We'll start small, but we're going to need to start somewhere, Dallas. There's a long list of what was in those bags. And I figure meth is somewhere in the beginning of your story?"
Dallas finished the last of his wrap and nodded approvingly. "I suppose that's about right. We can start there, but I'm afraid you ain't gonna laugh at any of my stories."
"I never do."
For the next fifteen minutes, Dallas started recounting his tale, but instead of getting straight to how he began snorting meth, he dipped way back into his childhood when he'd been born a bastard. The only recollection of his father's departure was something reminiscent of a scene from the dust bowl era, and Travis was willing to bet these images had been tainted by an obligatory read of The Grapes of Wrath in some middle-of-nowhere high school.
"He left with a strong wind that came to town — blew him right the hell out-a Oklahoma and landed him somewheres in California is what we reckoned," Dallas said as if it were fact. "Left only the three of us — Momma, my younger brother, and yours truly. We had nothin' more and nothin' less than he'd provided us with in the first place. Momma — she cried and cursed, and scratched around in the dirt for two years trying to make more grow and keep food on the table."
He occasionally glanced across the room, back to the paint on the wall, pausing while he found the thread of his story again. Travis briefly considered using these moments to fire another 'cut the crap' question at him, but realized it could only destroy their newfound trust.
"Her heart gave out in her sleep," Dallas continued. "And we were left to petty theft and dumpster divin', but soon enough we become wards of the state — thrown into different foster homes — as you might've expected. And I never seen her again."
Travis was trying to shake a last cat-lick of water loose from his bottle (his head all the way back on the hinge in his neck) when he caught the incongruence. "Her?" he asked. "Your mother?"
Dallas turned into a block of granite right before him. It was as if his t-shirt had gone wet and now revealed every bump and bulge it had barely concealed to begin with. A disturbing intensity shot out from his coffee bean eyes and regarded Travis with contempt. He was either pissed at himself for making the mistake or felt he was being called a liar.
"Ain't you listenin'? Goddamn it."
Was he listening carefully? Travis knew he had drifted at many intervals during the story (Ana's plans pushing back into his thoughts), but he was almost certain he had heard what he did. The Adderall had sharpened his focus earlier, but it was only giving him a headache now.
"My momma's dead. What we talkin' about here is my younger brother." He gave Travis a dark, unforgiving grin. "Never saw him again, each of us thrown into different foster homes — right into oblivion. And let me tell ya, that system ain't got no heart."
"Would you like this?" Travis pushed his untouched lunch in his direction.
Dallas nodded in agreement, but didn't touch it.
"You know what I done to my foster father before I run out at the age of sixteen? I beat that uppity, no good nose of his into mush. I just kept bangin' away at it until it was nearly clean off his goddamn righteous face."
Travis suddenly felt the current of the lazy river double its speed; Dallas had his full attention again.
"That son of a bitch kept me locked up for three days in the basement. Said I needed to be taught a lesson. I was taught all right. Taught to take no shit from no one." And he looked over Travis, almost as if it was him who had padlocked the door. "He'll remember his lesson in the mirror every mornin'. I guarantee ya that," he finished, satisfied.
There seemed to be some kind of therapeutic benefit for Dallas in reliving the story; imagining the man's nose hanging by a strand of cartilage while he had repeatedly pulverized it.
"So when did you start using meth?" Travis asked.
Dallas considered the paint on the wall again, then turned back to him. "So what route you take in gettin' clean?" he asked.
Travis looked down at his empty water bottle. "I took the twelve steps. You want some more water, Dallas?"
The giant didn't answer, but Travis pulled his cell from his pocket anyway and texted Chef Tom for a couple more bottles. Then he turned back to Dallas, who had scooted closer to the edge of his seat and waited for more of Travis's story.
"I didn't care much for AA, but I stayed the course, nonetheless, and followed the steps. I even turned my will and life over to the care of God...well, almost." Travis winked at Dallas. "That Step 3's a bitch. I just couldn't bring myself to hand over absolute control. I suppose I was still pissed at Him for a few events in my life."
Dallas regarded him keenly on this point, as if he was conducting some kind of investigation of Travis, but remained quiet.
"And if The Man wanted full control, he was going to have to demonstrate a better track record. Until then..." Travis met eyes with the giant's, "we'd share the reins."
Dallas slapped his side again in appreciation, and he smiled, but no emotion behind it made it ring true. He was a difficult man to read.
"But I can honestly attribute the success of my sobriety to the AA program. I wouldn't be here without it — in many regards."
Travis then recounted his experience in AA to Dallas - specifically the time when it had sparked his next business venture, which later became
Crystal Heights.
After innumerable times standing in front of a sea of ever-changing strangers and introducing himself, 'Hello, my name is Travis, and I...', Travis began changing his internal speech to: ...really don't want to be up here. My life is already painful as it is and I only wish I could do this privately. Does anyone know of any decent, confidential facilities where I can get some individual therapy? Maybe I should start a facility? I know there are some of you guys out there in the crowd right now who'd jump at the chance to do this differently. Mac, Diana, and Jimmy over there...
"So, you see, AA actually brought me here to this business, made me realize my bigger purpose. Helping people like you. A negative into a positive," he told Dallas.
"A negative into a positive," Dallas repeated. "I like the sound of that."
Chef Tom opened the door and carried in a couple waters. "Here you go." He set them on the table and quickly collected the single empty plate. "I thought you guys might also need a couple of these." He reached into his pocket and produced a couple of toothpicks. They were individually wrapped in cellophane and dropped to the table without a sound.
"Thanks for the magic hand on them wraps, Chef," Dallas said and added, "I'm goin' for round two here in just a sec. And lookin' forward to dinner, too."
Chef Tom looked amused by his easy and jovial comment. "My pleasure. I have something special planned for dinner. We usually eat around six-thirty if that'll work for you?"
"That'll be fine, and thank you much for the water," Dallas said and tipped his bottle at him in a toast.
Travis nodded and the two men watched him leave the room. Both men drank greedily from their bottles before Dallas continued.
"You ever run in to some real trouble?" he asked.
"Let me be straight with you, Dallas. I'm not a therapist. I can sit here and answer your questions, and listen all you want, but I can't really help you in the way you need to be helped. We have—"
"It don't matter," Dallas interrupted. "I'll see your therapist later. See if she can crack this egg. But in the meantime, it's best you be keepin' me company." He began to work on the second wrap and said with a mouthful, "I'm gonna tell ya about that gun and knife in there."
Travis knew the river was getting ready to pick up some serious speed. The current was swift, rapids were forming all around them, and at a distance was the faint but undeniable roar of an impending waterfall. Travis felt as if he was being crammed into a wooden barrel with Dallas, having no choice but to be swept up in its disastrous course.
"Before you tell me anything," Travis warned, "it may be best to leave out any incriminating details. I don't want to feel compelled, or have the legal obligation, to alert any of the authorities." I'm not a priest for Christ's sake.
Dallas sat back and brandished a bright smile. "You associated with any Mexican authorities? You have any devotion or feelin's of responsibility for them assholes? If so, fine, I'll shut my trap right now."
Mexican authorities? If his business was down south, across the border, Travis would be legally exonerated. He could let Dallas spill the beans and the weenies.
"Go on then," he told him, his interest starting to peak.
"I went down to Mexico to die," he started. "Livin' a no-good, lonely life in San Diego — unproductive and downright shameful. Not a thing in my future and no soul to live for." He couldn't look at Travis when he said it. On the outside he was physically commanding, an ideal visual representation that could be found under the search term bodybuilder, but inside the diamond shape Travis sensed pure, raw emotion housing a dilapidated spirit.
Dallas had checked into the Brisas Del Mar Hotel in the small but popular beach town of Rosarito. He'd convinced himself it would be his last stay on the planet, during which he would drink himself to death. Every day, he made a trip out for his supplies, passing a sweet, timid girl named Melinda who worked the front desk and greeted him each time. At first his drug of choice was tequila, but when he grew tired of that, he switched to vodka, and when that grew old, he moved to whiskey, but that also quickly lost its appeal and he ended up going back to tequila again — chugging half bottles at a time.
What he discovered was that drinking himself to death was a laborious process, bloating his massive frame and spinning his world without actually ending it. It was going to take more than alcohol to stop his clock. So, he decided to introduce sleeping pills into the mix. When he didn't emerge from his room that day for his regular purchases, Melinda's concern and her sense of Catholic duty proved his salvation. From there, she took pity on the Gringo, and became his intermittent bedside nurse when she wasn't needed at the front desk. Eventually, it was Melinda who brought him back to the living.
"The poor girl fell down in love with this stupid bastard," Dallas said, gesturing to himself with a thump on his massive chest before he finished the last bite of Travis's lunch. "I tried convincin' her it was...whatchu' call it...that Florence Nightingale effect. You know, the ones they put in the pictures. Where they's only love ya because they's saved ya. And darn tootin' she did. Saved and converted me, for a stretch of time anyway. She got me believin' in a higher power again and who couldn't with an angel like that. When I thought I was just about gone, I'd hear her sweet voice comin' in like drips of honey into my ear, one after the other, and all I could do was lie there and let her fill me up with hope. And when I finally did see her face, I was damn certain she was my angel."
As Travis listened, he thought how Ana had once fueled his wretched soul and brought his dreams to life. He saw her touch everywhere in the room: the Romanian bath rug poking out of the bathroom, the unique lamp shade bought to match the duvet cover, and the one hundred percent Egyptian cotton towel Dallas had hung over the bedpost. The evidence of her care and consideration were everywhere, but now she was going to rip his life from him and steal his little girl; it was the only reason he had built Crystal Heights — for Bella and a shot at a family.
"Melinda was just a pup, nearly two decades younger than me," Dallas continued and regained Travis's full attention. "But I reckon age has no place when you find a heart that beats the same."
Travis shared a delicate smile with Dallas. It was captivating to witness the burly block of lead in front of him talk about such tender matters; an oxymoron who was turning into less of a moron by the minute.
"Let me tell ya," Dallas sat at the edge of his seat. "Before then, my luck was so bad I could have fallen in a bucket of tits and come out suckin' my thumb." He roared with an infectious laugh and slapped his flank once again.
Then his face tightened and the laughter ceased as quickly as it started. He leveled his sight with Travis and asked, "What would be your meanin' of true love?"
A burst of laughter nearly split Travis in two — the thought of his friendly giant asking about true love — but he held it back, seeing that the man was dead serious.
"You're asking me?"
He nodded.
Travis seriously considered the question. "When you love someone more than you love yourself?" He knew it was a bit generic, but couldn't ponder the silly question any longer.
Dallas looked at him stupidly, as if his cheesy Hallmark answer had deeply insulted him. "You fuckin' kiddin' me with that crap? Huh? You want to hold my hand while we's sittin' here together? Next you'll be tellin' me you're the spoonin' type after a roll in the hay and cuddlin' her for all of eternity. For Christ's sake! You soft California boys with your tans and light feet. I ain't talking about romance, even though I got some of that in me too." He powered half his water and then shot his two BB gun eyes at Travis. "I'm talkin' about when you'd kill for it."
Suddenly Travis felt himself crookedly stuffed back in the wooden barrel with him, suffocating, thinking it could very well be Niagara they were rapidly approaching.
"Turns out Melinda was mafia family," Dallas said, stripping the plastic from a toothpick. He began to pick at a row of his piano keys. "Turns out they was runnin' most of the insurance p
olicies around them smaller hotels, protection money, and I'm assumin' a good chunk of what drug market there was. And let me tell ya — she comes from a big goddamn family too — them people ain't believin' in birth control and having a litter at a time. Her brothers came in the wee hours of mornin' one night and up and stole her from me. I wake up and see two barrels of a shotgun starin' right back at me. And they tell me if they see my face again, they be buryin' my head two feet away from my body."
Travis unwrapped the second toothpick and started sweeping its sharp point firmly under his damaged fingernails; a painful pleasure he didn't understand. Just when he felt he needed to ask Dallas a question to keep the story going, the giant leaned forward and drew his brow low and tight. He was all business now.
"I wasn't gonna leave that be, that was for damn certain." He snapped the toothpick in his sausage fingers. "I found where they was hidin' her and made my plan. First got myself a big ol' bindle of meth, probably compliments of their own organization, and then collected them weapons you're currently holdin' for me. I wasn't leavin' my angel with them dirty peso-cheatin', Tijuana donkey zebra-paintin', Third World country mother fuckers. I staked the place a good stretch and when the time was right, I went in there slicin' and dicin' and shootin' my ways back to her."
A big bindle of meth... Travis wondered. Could that do the trick in helping a person to step outside one's self and commit an otherwise unthinkable act? Was there some twisted formula he, himself, could follow? Get to some distant place, away from his conscience, where he could run on autopilot for long enough? If it was possible, Ana could hide behind his black sock for eternity.
"So what happened?" Travis asked, less out of morbid curiosity and more from a growing hell-bent desire to learn a trick or two. He was now pushing the toothpick harder under his nails, nearly drawing blood.
Dallas considered sharing the details as he leaned back, then made a fat steeple with his fingers. "I'm thinkin' it'd be best to keep you clear of the particulars," he said thoughtfully. "I'm starting to like you."
