by Clark Hays
Chapter 11
The next morning I woke up alone, the way I had woken up most of my life, only this morning it nearly broke my heart in two.
Dad asked me how I was doing and I said not very damn good, so let's just get going. He drove us by the Sagebrush for breakfast. Hazel brought us my favorite, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and coffee. My body felt half starved from all the healing it was undergoing, and since this might be the last decent food I'd have for a while, I savored every grease-laden bite.
After we finished, we strolled out into the parking lot and I give Rex the piece of toast I'd smuggled out in a napkin, after first balling it around a piece of pain pill.
The air was crisp, but the sunshine was warm enough to leave the windows down for the drive to Jackson. It was beautiful and it looked like winter was already making an early appearance. The trees were starting to turn golden and crimson. The uppermost peaks of the Tetons had a light dusting of snow and looked about as lonely as I felt. Wasn't a whole lot to say, so we just listened to the same sad old country songs on the radio. I knew Dad's pride was hurting because he couldn't come along to New York City, but he'd get over it. Life without Lizzie didn't seem too hopeful for me, but there wasn't no sense getting Dad hurt on account of my tragic love life.
At the airport, I smiled at the clerk and checked my bag on through like it wasn't full of World War III. I coaxed Rex into one of them little dog carriers I had rented. He didn't like it much, but the pain pill had made him limp and willing. He licked delicately at my hand through the wires and then curled up and went to sleep. His sides were moving slow with each breath and I watched him roll down the conveyor belt out of sight. Dad waited with me at the gate until the plane arrived. The heaviness of both our thoughts kept us quiet and staring out the windows. Finally, he looked at me and sighed. "You find her, boy. Find her and bring her back. "
"I aim to. "
He reached into his jacket and pulled out an aged and weathered silver crucifix trimmed in brass. The middle of it was worn smooth by use, and seeing it brought a lump to my throat, for I recognized it well. "Thought maybe this'd help. It belonged to your mother. Her and God was real close. "
I tucked it into my pocket and give him a hug. He hugged back tight and then slapped me on the shoulder, turning away without another word. I watched him walking down the terminal. His shoulders was slumped and his whole body looked as tired and sore as mine felt. I wondered what it would feel like losing a child, even one grown up and more or less able, like me. "I'll call when I get there," I hollered, and he raised his hand without looking back.
"Hey, Dad," I yelled, "one more thing. Could you see to Snort?"
"'Course," he yelled back. "Consider it done. "
Seems like I'd barely been on that little plane long enough to finish my reinforced coffee and that little bag of honey-roasted nuts before it started its landing run in Salt Lake City. As it shimmied and shook, I thought about Lizzie and the Vampires I was going to have to go through to get her. Just to reassure myself, I took the crucifix out of my jacket, closed my eyes, and held it.
About that time the stewardess tapped me on the shoulder. "Are you feeling okay, sir?" she asked.
"Hell, no," I said, looking up in surprise. "Not since the Vampires come for her. " Obviously that was too much information for her. I put the cross away and gnawed off a little more pain pill.
On the ground, I had a layover and stood in line for fifteen minutes to buy a ten-dollar hamburger, changed my mind and made my way to the bar where I paid five dollars for a beer that tasted suspiciously like what they serve at the Watering Hole for seventy-five cents. My head was so full of hurt and anger that I couldn't even finish it. I just sat and stared out the window at all the concrete and airplanes coming and going. Deeply involved in my reverie, I almost missed my boarding call, but heard the final one and made a dash for the gate. As I clattered down the hall, I hoped that Rex and the guns had made the connection.
For the life of me, I can't understand how airlines stay in business. What they call chairs I wouldn't even use as a footstool, and by the time they lowered that little matchbox-sized TV for a movie no one paid for the first time, my legs felt like they was broke in two. Between that and being sat in the crying baby section, I pretty soon had a tension headache and dried-out sinuses. The voice come on to say buckle up, we'd started our descent into New York where the temperature was 59 degrees under a light drizzle. I raised up the little window slide and took a peek, curious and expecting to be inspired with an immediate sense of awe from my first glimpse of New York. But all I could see was a swirling mass of rain clouds, or maybe it was smog. I slid the window shut and prepared for landing by imagining giant fireballs of shattered metal pinwheeling down the runway, exercising my grip on the armrest until my knuckles turned white.
Once on the ground, it was so far to the baggage check that I wished I had Snort along for the ride and that made me sad and even more anxious to get at Rex. At the baggage claim, there was a little chute special for pets so I waited until a guy in coveralls come out and looked at me fiercely. "Your dog the one that threw up on everything?" he asked.
"More'n likely. Flying don't agree with him," I said.
Just about then, his little carrier came sliding down the ramp. The front of it, the wires and the door, was covered with has-been kibbles and Rex was sitting stiffly in the back, solemn and dignified, despite the wet evidence otherwise. He stood up when he seen me, give a little bark, and wagged his stump of a tail. I hoisted the carrier off and set it down, opening the door. He stepped forth gingerly, licked at my hand, and looked around the terminal at the new place we were in. What I meant to say was that I missed him, but instead I swatted him on the butt and said, "Look at this. I ain't cleaning it. It's ruined. You and your weak stomach. " He jumped on me anyway, nuzzling his face under my coat until I had petted him enough and he could jump down and stretch. I just left the carrier behind, rent be damned, and walked over to the main carousel, shouldering through the crowd of disgruntled fliers, to wait for the duffel bag. Rex seen it first, sniffed at it, and I hoisted it up to my shoulder, confident by the weight that it was still intact.
Outside there was a line of taxi cabs clean out of sight around the corner and a line of people waiting even longer. A fellow in a uniform blew his whistle and motioned cabs up and people in, flirting with the women. He flagged us down a cab without flirting with me at all. The driver didn't speak much English, but didn't seem overly concerned about Rex, just grinned and motioned us in.
The first thing I learned about New York is that all cab drivers honk. It's the part of their job they seem to enjoy the most. He even honked at people that hadn't done nothing. Despite the ill effects it was having on my headache, it got us soon enough on a six-lane highway heading toward New York and, I hoped, Lizzie. The second thing I learned is that cabbies make significantly more than cowboys. That meter kept on ticking away dollars until by the time we came to the city proper, the ride itself had cost as much as a good used car.
As much as it pained me to admit it, New York was a hell of a city. If a town was gonna be a city, then it ought to do it right and be a goddamn big city. New York sure seemed to have that part down. Skyscrapers tall as mountains and the whole skyline jagged with them and lit up. There was a certain sense of history in all that stone work that was hard to explain, but felt solid.
And the air was heavy, too, with a strange smell of exhaust fumes, frustration, and garbage. Despite my preconceptions, I found it impossible not to be interested. I pressed my face against the window, trying to take it all in, and Rex did the same on the other side, somewhat relieved that in spite of all the people, there didn't seem to be any alpacas.
The cab rolled right on through Times Square, which looks a lot different by the light of day than it does on New Year's Eve on a black and white TV after several beers. The whole pla
ce was bustling with people and I got the sense that it was like that no matter the hour. Most of them were dressed like movie stars, which is to say the men were all in suits and the women were in as little as possible. Seeing that mass of people I realized how comfortable I'd gotten living in a town where I knew everyone by name. Here I was surrounded by something like twelve zillion people, people not really that different than me. All of us busy living and working and dreaming and struggling like everybody else in the whole world. And yet, here there was so many dreams it seemed easy to get lost in the mix of it. Out West, a man is judged by not being part of the crowd, which ain't too hard given that the crowd is so damn small. That might explain, however, why so many people out East seemed to be trying so hard.
An hour and fifty-six dollars later, the cabby hit the brakes without warning and sat there smiling and pointing at the meter. I only hoped we were in the right place as I sadly peeled three twenties from my now seriously threatened cash reserve and slid them into the little drawer in the window. If there was any change left over, he wasn't talking about it, just roared off. I stood in the middle of street and took a good look around. There was a fire station to one side and on the other was Lizzie's apartment building. Rex drifted over to the sidewalk and I hunched over in a doorway, slipping on the shoulder holster with the Casull riding inside. After checking to make sure no one was looking, like anybody cared, I loaded up the shotgun too and stuffed it back in the bag.
Loaded and ready as I could be, given the jet lag and the effects of them insidious horse pills, I stood at the front door to the
building, wondering what to do next. It was locked, and although there was a buzzer, there wasn't no one inside who would let me in. I put in a chew and hoped for a lucky break. The way my luck had been running, I reckoned I'd be here close to fifty years.
