“It’s kind of like a dorm, but you don’t have to be students. It’s only a few dollars to stay there.”
The man glances at his wife, still clutching her elbow. She looks at him, and then down at her son. She puts her hand on the boy’s head and draws him tighter against her leg. She angles her thin face away from the man and her jaw stiffens, a shift which seems to freeze the man. There is something about the word hostel, Ralph sees, which has stopped her, become a stumbling block.
The man sighs and turns back to Ralph. “We’ll go on and look for a motel, I guess. You know anything cheap? It don’t have to be nothing fancy.”
“I haven’t lived here too long myself, but we can look through the Yellow Pages. Most things are kind of expensive in this town, though.”
As he reaches under the desk for a phone book, a sheet of pink, lined paper flutters out; he glances idly at it for a moment, and then stares in amazement at the columns of writing. He slips the sheet of paper under his sweater into the top pocket of his shirt and pats it to secure its position, as if the paper is some treasure of great worth.
The man stands at the front desk, thumbing through the Yellow Pages and making his calls from the desk phone. He stumbles over his questions, his brow furrowing as if he can’t quite figure out what people are telling him. With each call, his voice quavers more; sweat springs out on his forehead and his blunt stubby finger makes mistakes dialing. Ralph eases the phone away from him and makes a few calls himself, but it is a football weekend and the motels are either full or too expensive.
Because he can’t bring himself to offer his apartment, he says instead, knowing the inadequacy of the offer, “May I buy you all a cup of coffee? And a hot chocolate for your son?”
The man, who has gone back to calling himself, holds the phone to his chest, momentarily stunned by the offer. The boy’s eyes brighten as he looks over at the coffee machine against the wall. The woman moves away from the man’s side. As if it’s a way of saying yes, she wraps her arms around herself, gives an exaggerated, friendly sort of shiver, and says, “It’s cold here.”
Ralph makes change in the register and goes around the desk into the lobby. The boy follows him to the machine. He takes hold of Ralph’s pant leg and stares silently as the cup drops down and fills. The woman wanders over to the green vinyl chairs, set in a circle around a worn coffee table, and sits down. She lifts a magazine and crosses one slim leg over the other, frowning at the no smoking sign on the wall. Ralph distributes the coffees and hot chocolate. As the few remaining members drift out from the locker rooms, the woman, unlit cigarette in mouth, stares at them with narrowed eyes. The boy follows Ralph as he makes a quick tour of the offices in back, making sure doors and windows are locked. The boy slips his hand into Ralph’s, and as he holds the tiny, cool little hand, he wishes he could do some finer thing.
***
With his ribs taped tightly, Ralph rises stiffly from the examining table. The doctor and nurse help him back into his shirt, and the nurse kisses him on the cheek and ushers him into the waiting room where a small entourage rises and cheers him as he wobbles forward. They offer to see him home, but what he really wants is tequila, he tells them. His request is greeted with a chorus of approval and he is taken up by his new friends and escorted to a cantina near the square, where he drinks icy Tecate beer and shots of José Cuervo, and his newfound best friends embrace him again and again.
Later, he will dimly recall making fervid offers to take his friends to a ranch in Montana where they would live off the land and practice medieval chivalry. “You will need English lessons, Juan,” he recalls himself saying to one particularly affectionate but incoherent man who kept putting him in headlocks and lowering his nose to the bar.
A bloody sunset glows over the ancient mountain town as he stumbles out the swinging cantina doors; he is on the march again with his entourage, this time slipping through the barricades back into the square where the bulls, at last thoroughly pissed off, have gone into higher gear and are managing to hook a few overconfident young campesinos in the seats of their jeans.
For what seems like hours then, but what must have been, in reality, only a few glorious minutes, he experiences what feels like saintliness. The bulls cannot hurt him. They charge at him and he stands motionless; at the last moment, he gives a sweep of his hands and sends them veering away. When he sees anyone in trouble, a bull moving in, he glides over and with a light touch on the rump turns the bull aside. The townsfolk scream his glory, a great roar rising from behind the barricades. They scream the only name they know for him: “gringo! el gringo!” Sombreros fly his way, coins, roses; a beer can bounces off the side of his head.
But back at the Y, saintliness is in short supply. The man is running out of motels to call and it is nearing midnight. The Y will close in ten minutes. Only a diehard weightlifter or two remain somewhere in the dank bowels of the building.
It is time for the nightly closing announcement, which Ralph amends from night to night. Over the intercom system, his voice echoes back at him, “Another night at the Y is fast drawing to a close. Prepare to go forth, repaired of body, mind, and spirit.”
The man pauses with his finger on the Yellow Pages and gives him a pained smile. Turning, the man signals to his wife, who rises wearily from her chair and joins him. The boy, who has been staring mesmerized through the plate glass doors at the silent blue swimming pool, comes over and leans his sleepy head against his mother’s legs. The man closes the phone book and says to his family, “Looks like we’ll rest up in the truck tonight.” His voice is a dry whisper. “We can run the engine enough to keep warm.”
The woman nods, her lips forming a tight line, and Ralph notes that she is not blaming the man or trying to make him feel worse, which somehow makes him feel sorrier for them. He thinks again of inviting them to his home for the night, but is silent. The boy presses himself tighter against his mother’s legs. The man shuts his eyes for a long moment, rubbing the back of his neck and swinging his head like a tired old bull. When he opens his eyes and stares across the front desk at Ralph, he looks amazed to discover himself here, at this moment in time. Slowly, he sticks his hand out across the counter and Ralph grasps it. The man’s hand is dry and rough. He shakes without force. “Thank you, sir. You were real helpful. We thank you.”
“I wish I could help, but—”
“We’ll be okay.” The woman’s blunt tone silences him. She kneels, pulls her son’s hood up and ties the drawstring. Though he is old enough to walk alone, she cradles him and hoists him to her chest.
Ralph comes around the desk and follows them toward the front door. They are halfway through the lobby when a tall shape appears on the other side of the glass doors; a man, clutching his jacket to guard his neck from the cold, lurches in from the snowy night, followed by a stream of frigid air. He shivers, stamps snow from his shoes, and glares wild-eyed at Ralph and the little family. He charges forward.
Ralph moves in front of the family. “May I help you?”
“You work here? You’re the one I’ve been talking to?” His head bobs on a long neck. He glowers. His face is flushed, and his breath reeks of whiskey.
The family shrinks back behind Ralph as the stranger points his car keys at Ralph’s chest. “I drove all the way through the fucking snow and ice, pal, to personally chew out your ass, and I’d better get some straight answers this time. Where is my son’s soccer game? Where, dammit?”
Ralph stares at the man. Then he reaches under his sweater and whips out a pink sheet of paper. “Which team?”
“What’s that?” The man blinks. “The . . . Rockets. Yeah, the Rockets.” He squints at the schedule Ralph is holding.
“El Centro Elementary. Folsom Street. 8 am.”
The man rocks back on his heels as if someone had struck him, then tips forward, pressing the points of his keys to Ralph’s chest. The astonishm
ent in his face turns to rage, “Why did you make me go through hell to—”
“Easy,” Ralph says. “Easy,” and he takes the man by the arms. Ralph walks, almost waltzes him the few steps to the coffee table. He pushes the man down in a chair, and takes his car keys. “I’ll call you a cab.”
The man tries to rise, but Ralph puts a hand on his chest. The calmness of his own voice startles him. “It’s that or I can call the police.”
The man stares up at him drunkenly. He stiffens as if to fight and then collapses. He sinks back in the chair and with a defeated expression he looks about the lobby for someone to make his case to; finally, his eyes light on the wall photos of the Y board members, and to their smiling, broad faces he protests, “What a fucked up place this is.” But he stays put, shivering, letting out disgruntled sighs and groans as a puddle of melted snow forms around his shoes.
Meanwhile, Ralph sees that the family has slipped away. He rushes into the night and sees them trudging across the parking lot in the snow, the boy over his mother’s shoulder. “Hey!” he calls, running after them. “Wait!” They glance back, but hurry on for their truck.
Catching up with them, touching the man’s elbow, he talks quickly, getting the offer out before he can stop himself. “You can spend the night with us if you like. It’s not much. We’ll have to put out sleeping bags on the floor. And we have a baby who’s been crying a lot. But it’s warm. You can stretch out. Have a shower in the morning. Breakfast . . .”
The man’s eyes widen and he looks in consternation from Ralph to his wife. She holds her boy tighter to her breasts, and Ralph speaks to her now. “It’s all right. Really. It’s no problem. I want you to stay with us.”
Her face hardens, and for a scary moment he thinks she is going to tell him to shove his offer; then, in an instant, her face softens and he sees something more frightening: he believes she is going to cry. She squeezes his hand and nods.
“Okay,” Ralph says. “Okay. Great.”
His shoulders relax and drop, his chest expands; an adrenalin-like thrill rushes through him. Turning, he lifts his face to the shower of snow and starts back for the Y. The family follows close behind him, as if they are afraid to lose him.
And twenty years in the past (though, given the vast and inexplicable discoveries of modern physics, who can say just what the past is) he is seized by two policemen. One of them screams in his face, “Out of the street, cabrón! You want to get killed?”
They give him the bum’s rush out of the square. Then he is weaving home through the cobblestone streets, followed by his loyal entourage and a ragged mariachi band . . . weaving his way home through the last bloody rays of the sunset, weaving below the flowered balconies, a beautiful woman waving from a window . . . the bugles serenading a young man home as he takes a glorious walk toward the future, toward a long wintry night at the Y.
THE HELLRAISER
It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m raising hell. I’ve driven my truck into town and tried to call the boys together. But each year there’s more guys settling down, getting married, dulling out, and this year I’m down to Leon and his tag-along little brother, Sam.
We’re at a topless bar, sitting a few feet from the stage where these not-too-gorgeous girls are shaking their stuff with a certain enthusiasm, if not beauty. A disc jockey plays hard-edged jungle rock and strobe lights flash. There’s red and silver streamers hanging from the ceiling to give the bar a holiday spirit, but the crowd’s small and quiet and seems more interested in the popcorn than in the girls.
Old Leon, who used to be crazy, always ready for fun, keeps checking his watch and saying we ought to go. He told his wife, Beth, that we’d be back after one drink out, to spend New Year’s Eve with her and their kid. Leon’s my best old buddy, though he’s not much of a hellraiser anymore. He’s starting to get as dulled out as everybody else. When I come into town now, I feel like he doesn’t even really want me here. Or he partly does, but he partly doesn’t, too. It’s too hard for him to fit me in. He needs to have everything planned out, like he’s always running on a time clock. It drives me crazy.
A dancer bends over with her legs spread and grabs her ankles. She lowers her head and stares at us upside down from between her legs.
“Look at that flexibility,” I say, but the boys don’t seem very impressed. “Go baby!” I encourage her. I grab one of the noisemakers that the waitresses have passed out and blow it. “This is fun,” I say.
“I’ve really got to get going,” Leon says.
“Yeah, the smoke is destroying my sinuses,” Sam says.
He keeps snorting nose spray every few minutes. For a guy who’s only twenty, ten years younger than me and Leon, he sure is acting dulled out.
“The hell with your nose,” I say. “Let’s have some real fun.”
Leon and Sam are both short, well-built guys. In fact, none of us is over five foot seven. “Look,” I say, “let’s go up on stage and tell people we’re a short men’s wrestling team and challenge anyone to come up and wrestle with us. We’ll find out who the real men are.”
I start standing up and Leon grabs me by the wrist and pleads, “C’mon now, Rhino.” That’s one of my old nicknames. The Rhino. I’ve sort of let that one slide. Mostly now, people call me Scooter.
I sit back down. Blow my noisemaker. Leon checks his watch again. It’s getting harder and harder to raise hell these days.
All afternoon as I was driving in from Irving, I was getting in a crazy mood, wearing my hat with the deer antlers, honking my horn at any girls I passed on the highway. Sometimes the girls would laugh and wave. It seemed to take the chill out of the day. For a while, I was thinking maybe I’d meet a girl at a roadside park, at a gas station, the Stuckey’s, the Colonel’s Kentucky Fried, you never know. But mostly it just seemed like the cows were watching me, standing behind the barbed wire fences, wondering if they were going to get rained on. Cows always look depressed and lonely and like they’re hoping you can do them a favor. I grew up in the country. I hate the country.
When I got to San Antone, that seemed pretty bad, too, with all the freeways. God, freeways are ugly. Leon’s neighborhood is boring, with the nice, one-story pink brick houses and white shutters. There seems to be exactly three trees in every front yard. Everybody looks thirty here, except the kids, who ride around on bicycles with tall, red flags on the back so that people will see them and not run them over. Their dads thought of the flags. I don’t think I’d want a kid and have to worry about that kind of stuff. I drove into Leon’s driveway honking my horn. Some guy was next door washing his car, and he looked at me, noticing my deer antler hat. “How you doing there, pistol?” I called, wanting to liven up his evening a little.
“Okay,” he said, but he sounded kind of dulled out.
Beth opened the door and said, “You’re here.” It could have been meant a lot of ways. Leon was sitting on the couch with his four-year-old, Ron. They were watching a show about animals. Ron threw a plastic astronaut at me and said, “You’re Darth Vader.”
I had to get Leon out of the house for a while. I just couldn’t let him sit home and watch TV on New Year’s Eve. I felt like I owed him that much.
Now this Chicana woman is dancing. She’s a big sort of woman. Big everything. I like big, tough-bellied women. And that face ain’t gonna win no awards. Crooked nose, mean eyes, kinky black hair, teeth that maybe somebody took pliers to. But it all comes together into something I like. She’s got soul. I can picture her with a broken bottle taking on a gang of drunken sailors. She leaves them whimpering. She dances without much style, but closes her eyes like she can feel herself in the arms of a lover.
“I’ve really got to go, Scooter. I’m late already,” Leon says. “Beth’s just sitting at home getting mad. I know.”
“You don’t know how to have fun anymore, Leon. If you can’t have a drink with your old buddy on
New Year’s Eve, then I give up. You might as well go to bed and just stay there.”
“I’m having fun,” Leon says, but he doesn’t sound like it.
“And you, all you worry about is your nose,” I say to Sam. “Hell, when I was twenty . . .”
The song finishes and the dancer looks over at the guy who’s sitting behind the window playing the records. She puts an arm over her bare breasts. Then the music starts again, a really fast one. She’s got her eyes open now, and she’s laughing, throwing her head around. Reaching her arms out to the crowd like she’s inviting us up on the stage, she shouts, “C’mon you deadbeats. Somebody clap!” I blow my noisemaker. Somewhere over in the corner another guy gives a half-hearted clap. She’s right. Everybody’s acting like a deadbeat. I bet there’s some real buffaloes in here, too, if they’d just loosen up. Cowboys wanting to ride out with some tough hell-for-leather woman. They just need someone to shake them into life, to help them see the possibilities. And it looks like it’s going to have to be me who does it.
“Watch this,” I say to the boys. “I’ll show you fun.” And with a hop, like springing over a fence, I’m up on the stage with her. I dance, wiggling my rear, sticking my chest out.
“Whoo-oo,” she shouts. “A live one.”
“Whoo-oo,” I hoot. I try to pull my sweater off, but it gets stuck, covering my eyes. I’m blinded. The dancer’s got me by the shoulders, and she’s spinning me around like a top. I hear the whole bar laughing, blowing their noisemakers, clapping. People are having some real fun now, coming alive. Everybody’s got a mission in life. Sometimes it wears heavy. She lets go of me and I fumble out of my sweater and toss it to Leon. I’m unbuttoning my shirt, and the dancer’s grinding away. I can’t hear over the music, but she’s mouthing the words, “Go go go.”
I shout, “Go go go.”
The song cuts off suddenly, and I can hear that she’s saying, “No no no.”
A Night at the Y Page 2
