by Tyler Keevil
‘I don’t think I can do coffee,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got to get going.’
‘Yes,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘You’ve got to get going, baby. Fast.’
I was a bit disappointed – disappointed that she didn’t sound disappointed.
‘Why fast?’ I asked.
‘Men came here looking for you.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ I said. ‘Bikers?’
‘Yes. But I didn’t say anything – not even when they threatened me.’
‘Holy shit.’ She hadn’t been laughing behind my back. She’d been watching my back all along. ‘I owe you, Sunita. Big time.’
‘They don’t scare me. They’ve come here before. The one idiot – he always wants to fuck in the ass.’
‘But you don’t let him?’
‘Of course not. None of us do. Except Marcy.’
I should have known that the guy was a total liar – just like his brother.
She asked, ‘What did you do to him, baby?’
‘I stole from him. And knocked over all their bikes.’
‘You’ve got to be careful, baby, or he might fuck you in the ass.’
I told her I’d be careful. Then it sounded as if somebody was talking to her. Her boss, maybe. She had to say goodbye and hang up. I stood for a while, resting the receiver against my shoulder. I wanted to call the old couple at the gas station. I’d say, I told you I was being chased by a crazy biker. But I didn’t, obviously. I didn’t even know their phone number.
Back at the hotel, I dropped off the key at the front desk. Everything else was ready, except the cat. She still wouldn’t let me pick her up.
‘I’m going,’ I told her. ‘You can stay here if you want.’
I walked out to the car. I sat behind the wheel, pushed open her passenger door and waited. She took her time. She tiptoed outside, sniffed the air. She crouched and peed in the parking lot. She paraded around for a bit. Then – finally – she stepped up into her seat, like a queen ascending the throne. She sat over by the door, as far from me as possible.
‘I’m not proud of myself, okay? So cut me some fucking slack.’
On the way out of town, I saw a pet store and pulled over. I thought I could buy something for the cat, as a peace offering. Worming tablets, maybe. Or kitty treats. But the store was closed. It wasn’t just closed for the day, either. It was closed forever. The rabbit cages in the window were abandoned, still spotted with droppings, and the water in the drip feeders had gone all scummy. I trudged back to the Neon and slumped in my seat.
‘Sorry, cat,’ I said. ‘They didn’t have any worm stuff. It looks like this is our lot in life. You’re wormy, and I’m impotent, and that’s just the way it’s going to be for us.’
The cat mewled at me.
chapter 50
The I-80 ran southwest from Winnemucca. I hadn’t driven on an interstate since Seattle. I’d forgotten what they were like. The traffic flow was thick and fast. Vehicles throbbed past us, as if everybody had a place to be, some vital purpose. We didn’t. We stuck it out in the slow lane, doing about forty klicks, chugging along like a wagon through quicksand. Other drivers laid on their horns and shook their fists and screamed at me through the broken window. ‘Learn how to drive, you fucking Canuck!’
The licence plates tipped them off, I guess. I was giving Canadians a bad name, but I couldn’t get the Neon to go any faster. We’d entered some kind of industrial region, full of metal refineries and chemical plants and factories. Thin chimney stacks picketed the horizon, leaking ochre smoke that turned the sky the colour of burnt toffee. The air had a nasty smell of tar and melting plastic. Mileage signs crawled past, counting down the distance to Reno.
‘Reno, baby,’ I said, trying to psych myself up. ‘Reno!’
The cat winced when I shouted. She’d been having a nap. A catnap, I guess.
‘Hear that, cat? We’re going to Reno, and we’re going to win big.’
She yawned, as if to say, How is that going to make any difference?
‘Because then we’ll be winners, not losers, okay?’
The cat didn’t seem too convinced. She crawled into the back seat and sprawled out with her head on her paws. She wasn’t paying any attention to the scenery, or me. She just lay there and occasionally licked her belly or rolled over. I felt as if I’d become the chauffer of a listless and particularly unfriendly invalid.
‘Look, cat,’ I said, glaring at her in the rear-view, ‘I know you think I’m just driving around aimlessly, doing all these irresponsible things, but there’s more to it than that. This is about a girl, okay?’
The cat perked up. For a change, she actually seemed interested in what I had to say.
‘That’s right. The person I mentioned before. Her name is Zuzska.’
It seemed like a long time since I’d said her name. The foreign syllables sounded strange to me again, like when we’d met. I repeated them a few times, savouring the taste.
‘She’s got red hair – that shiny copper red. I don’t know about cats, but in people that’s pretty rare. She’s a bit skinny, maybe, and wears fairly bizarre clothing – the kind of clothing that shouldn’t look good but somehow does. Like those Russian fur hats and huge sunglasses and rubber gumboots decorated with pink polka-dots. Plus, she has nice ta-tas.’
The cat yawned, unimpressed. She didn’t care about whether or not Zuzska was sexy or any of that superficial kind of shit.
‘Okay – forget all that. It doesn’t matter what she looks like. I’ll tell you about who she really is. You’d probably like her. My other cat did.’
That got her attention. When I said ‘cat’, her head popped back up like a periscope.
‘For one, Zuzska made me believe in love at first sight. I’d always thought it was bullshit. Then I walked into that Czech class and there she was at the front of the room in her teaching uniform – this weird maroon T-shirt that the school made them wear – and I was in love with her. Instantly. I was so in love with her that I sat at the back of the class and hid behind my textbook and tried not to stare at her because I knew she would be able to tell.’
I took the time to light a cigarette, for dramatic effect. My cat was watching me, wide-eyed. She still seemed to be listening.
‘Then one day we had to partner up to do an exercise. I hadn’t met anybody yet so I didn’t have a partner. I was that loser who gets to work with the teacher. I had to sit with her and repeat all the things she was saying. The first thing she taught me was how to introduce myself and say my name. It was as if she gave me my name. Before her, I didn’t have one. I didn’t exist.’
The cat sort of snorted, and shook her head, as if she thought I was getting a bit overdramatic. She was a tough audience, my cat. I flicked ash out of the window, thinking.
‘Okay, whatever, right? But here’s the thing, cat. Zu grew up in a tenement in this shitty suburb, with her mum, who doesn’t get out of bed, and her dad, who’s a dedicated alcoholic. She still lives out there, looking after them, and only comes into the city to teach her language to idiot expats like me, with time and money to burn, who are looking for life experience or whatever. She’s paying her own way through school. A psych degree. She has focus. I guess what I mean is that she’s a real person. And being with her made me feel real too. My life up until then had been so easy, see?’
The cat had lowered her head on her paws and started to doze off. She’d lost interest, but I kept talking anyways. I told her about any memory involving Zuzska that came into my head. I told her about how she’d rescued me from some Czech skinheads on our first date, and I told her about carrying Zuzska to the First Aid hut after she’d broken her leg skiing out of bounds. I told her about the night Zu got drunk on Becherovka and took a swing at me, and about the time I’d leapt off Charles Bridge into the Vltava to prove my love. And I told her how my other cat, just before it died, had crawled into Zuzska’s arms and started purring.
I must have talked for at least an hou
r. Maybe more. I guess I was hoping it would be cathartic or something. By the time I finished my cat was snoring away on the back seat. I tapped the brakes, just to mess with her. The shift in momentum made her flop over. She gripped the seat with her claws and leapt up, totally disorientated.
‘I know you don’t care about my romantic history,’ I told her. ‘All I really meant to tell you is that Zuzska is the reason I’m out here. Or why I originally came out here.’ I took a long, steadying drag on my cigarette. ‘I don’t know why I’m out here any more.’
The cat made a chirruping sound, as if she agreed with me. I guess she didn’t know why we were out there, either.
chapter 51
I drove beneath a big arch, with a sign covered in flashing lights. The lights spelled out Reno – The Biggest Little City In The World. On the other side of the sign, the street was lined with casinos. There was Fitzgerald’s, which had a rain-stained marquee advertising nickel and penny slots, the Golden Phoenix, which was boarded up with sheets of plywood, and the Horseshoe, which had been converted into a jewellery and loan store. There were others, as well, all equally run-down. I didn’t know if Reno had a strip, in the official sense, but apparently this was its equivalent – this cluster of dilapidated casinos.
It was two pm and stovepipe-hot. I felt as if I was melting into my seat. I pulled over in front of a food joint that sold ninety-nine-cent tacos. For a while I sat with my hands on the wheel and my foot on the gas, as if my whole body had cramped into that position from driving for so long. The cat was still flopped on the back seat. I riffled through the glovebox and found the notes I’d written back at the border. That guy Shooter had told me to try the Nugget.
‘You stay here,’ I said to her. ‘I’m going to the Nugget, apparently.’
I pulled myself out of the seat. The upholstery peeled painfully off my back, as if it had taken a layer of skin with it. I didn’t lock the car – there was no point, since the window was broken. On the back seat, in plain view, was the rat’s nest of refuse I’d built up en route, but most of it was worthless, anyway. The only thing that looked even remotely alluring was my bottle of mezcal, glittering among the rest of the garbage. Whoever wanted that was welcome to it. There was also the cat, but only an idiot would take a mangy cat. I threw a handful of food on to the seat for her, and splashed some water in her beer-can saucer.
‘Guard the car, cat,’ I told her.
She hissed at me. Half-heartedly.
You couldn’t walk through Reno. You had to wade through it. The heat had softened the asphalt, so your shoes seemed to sink into it. The gutters were lined with litter: napkins, chewing gum, chocolate bar wrappers, waxed paper, condom packets, coins, leaflets, pamphlets, parking tickets, everything. The sky was glazed with smog, the air noxious with exhaust fumes. On one corner, some city workers were tearing up the sidewalk to repair a burst sewage pipe, which made the entire strip smell like a cesspit, or a swamp.
The year before, Zuzska and I had gone to the real strip – the Vegas strip – with Beatrice and her then girlfriend. It had been on the same road trip that began in Oregon. After the sea lions and dune buggies and Redwoods, we’d meandered down the 101 and swung through Santa Cruz, Monterey and Salinas, then blazed a trail across the Mojave Desert to reach Las Vegas.
When we arrived, it was forty-two degrees Celsius and so humid that Zuzska burst into tears. Being Czech, she wasn’t accustomed to that kind of heat. Luckily the hotel – a Motel 8 off the strip – had air-conditioning. We locked ourselves in there, basking in the AC cold and sucking on Coronas and playing cards and taking naps. When it got dark, we emerged from our refuge to test the temperature. It was still warm, but cooling. We set out for the strip – me and Zuzska and Beatrice. Bea’s girlfriend had food-poisoning, and stayed behind.
It was peak season. The strip was packed with people and pumping with noise and all lit up with Day-Glo glamour. There were Texans in tuxedos, pensioners in Hawaiian shirts, strippers in sequined bikinis. There were frat boys and glamour girls, cowboys and Indians, Venetian gondoliers and Roman croupiers. There were pro wrestlers, Elvis impersonators, and this group of guys dressed like Mötley Crüe – or maybe it actually was Mötley Crüe.
Despite all those characters and distractions, we were the ones people noticed. That was nothing new with Beatrice. People always noticed Bea. But there was also something about Zuzska that night. She’d been too hot to wear anything but a black slip that clung to her like a shadow. It was the contrast between that slip and her moon-pale skin that set her apart. Her hair was still ruffled from the day’s sleep. She wasn’t wearing any make-up. She wandered around looking bewildered, wondrous, wild. She reminded me of a wide-eyed sleepwalker, or an escaped madwoman.
Outside the MGM Grand we passed a team of basketball players. They were all seven feet tall, with hands as long as my thighs. They were laden with bling: gold chains and rings and pendants in the shape of dollar signs. But even those giants fell silent and stepped out of our way, deferring to us. To the ladies, at least. I was just along for the ride. People must have assumed I was very gay, or very lucky, to be walking the strip between women like that.
It was hard not to think about Vegas as I wandered alone through Reno. The street simmered with heat. There were flies and gnats in the air, buzzing everywhere, feeding off the litter. I passed a few other people – mostly old men who had their pants pulled up to their sternums – but none of them looked at me or acknowledged me in any way. Reno had that effect. We were all a bit embarrassed to be there.
On the next block, I walked by the Cal Neva hotel, a Chinese restaurant called Hong Le’s, and the Arch of Reno Wedding Chapel. In the window stood a mannequin of a bride, wearing a wedding dress. She didn’t have any head, and her bouquet of roses had wilted in the heat, dribbling petals at her feet. It was fairly creepy. A little further on was a discount liquor store that had been closed down and gutted. A For Lease sign hung on the awning. In the doorway sat a guy wearing a top hat and coat-tails, and nursing a forty of Old English.
I asked him, ‘You don’t know how to get to the Nugget, do you?’
‘Of course I do, son. I’m the mayor, after all.’
‘Could you tell me where it is, Mr Mayor?’
He took a swig, and burped. ‘The old Nugget, or the new one?’
‘I didn’t know there were two Nuggets.’
‘There are a lot of nuggets, if you know where to look.’
He said that the new Nugget – the Golden Nugget – was a big casino complex on the outskirts of town. The other Nugget was just down the strip. I thanked him and gave him five bucks and headed that way. It was exactly where he said it would be: near the big Reno welcome sign, between a place called Lucky 7 Gifts and another discount liquor store. I must have driven right by it on the way in. A sidewalk sign out front advertised something called the Awful Awful – this huge half-pound burger that came with a pound of fries. Above the doors, jutting out from the awning, hung a giant nugget, gilded and golden. The paint was tarnished and in places had started to flake away. Underneath, the nugget looked dull and brown, like a dried-up dog turd.
chapter 52
I lingered just inside the entrance, checking things out. The casino was small and cramped and had a strange smell, like a stagnant pond. I couldn’t see any gaming tables, but in one corner they had a single roulette wheel that looked new. Other than that the floor was filled with video poker and slot machines. All the slots had a spin button, so gamblers didn’t have to pull a handle or move in any way. They could just stand there, swaying like marsh plants, with one hand permanently affixed to the front panel. The diner was at the back. Over the doorway to the diner was a plastic sign: 9 out of 10 Vegetarians Don’t Eat Here.
A white-haired lady with a cane hobbled past me, on her way out. I asked, ‘Are there any better casinos around here?’
I’d envisaged myself in some high-end joint, throwing money away on craps and blackjack, with one o
f those hot hostess-bunnies at my side and a crowd cheering me on.
‘What do you mean, better?’
‘Not so terrible.’
She frowned. ‘Probably. But this isn’t Vegas, you know.’
I figured Shooter must have meant the newer Nugget. I could have gone looking for it, but that seemed like a lot of work. Instead I trudged over to the bar. It looked like the counter at a convenience store. They sold hotdogs and popcorn and candy. They even had a slush-making machine. On a stool behind the counter sat a guy with one arm. His other arm had a prosthesis, which started at his right elbow and ended in a steel pincer instead of a hand.
‘You got any drinks that pack real punch?’ I asked.
‘Well, there’s the Asskicker.’
I could tell he wanted me to say, ‘What’s the Asskicker?’ So I did.
‘It’s four shots of tequila,’ he said, using his pincer to point at a chalkboard above his head. It had the prices of various drinks scribbled on it. ‘A thirty-two-ounce margarita, for five bucks.’
‘Hit me with it.’
He picked up a big plastic cup, designed specifically for Asskickers, and swivelled towards the slushie machine. He worked the lever with his pincer. The margarita mix came out thick and slow and reddish-brown, like rusted sludge. He filled the cup and gave it to me. It had a yellow lid and one of those bendy straws. On the side was a cartoon decal of a mule kicking a cowboy in the ass, above the word Asskicker.
‘Do I get to keep the cup?’ I asked.
‘Sure. It’s a souvenir.’
I tested the Asskicker. The slush was smooth, and went down easy. The ice hid the taste of tequila. I sucked it back, pausing to squint and wince whenever I gave myself a brain freeze. It hit the spot, that Asskicker. I plonked my empty cup on the counter and ordered another. The guy refilled it for me, took my money, and gave me change. ‘Might want to pace yourself,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason they call them that.’
