Family shit. I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in ages.
“You were his best friend,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”
“I’m not up to it.”
“One of the other guys, then.”
We turned to look in the window of the doughnut shop, at everyone hanging out. “Who?” Whitey said. “José? The man has a goddamned tear tattooed on his cheek. Ray Ray? You think I’m going to trust this to a dude who forgets to put his teeth in half the time? Or Bill?” At that moment Bill was standing in the corner, doing math problems in midair and laughing to himself. “Get up in the morning, shower, shave. I’ll spring for a haircut and gas,” Whitey said.
I turned back to the nightclub, thinking again that I should have been there instead of at the doughnut shop. I didn’t dance, but that wasn’t a problem. You could sit at the bar, buy a girl a drink. It worked that way, too. Whitey put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. The booze felt like it was chewing a hole in my stomach. When the traffic signal switched to green, everything started moving at once.
I LEFT BUD’s ashes in the trunk of my car that night. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but after splitting another pint with Bill, I got a little squeamish. My grandma used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid. Then, after I was asleep, she’d sneak into my room with a sheet over her head and scream bloody murder. I peed my pants once, she scared me so bad, and everybody died laughing. She was trying to teach me something, I think, but the dark still gets to me.
When I went down to go to work the next morning, the trunk was wide open. Some asshole had punched out the lock. My spare was gone, my jack, and the urn containing the ashes. The sun can seem so cruel in a moment like that. And the trees, the way they just stand there, and every dog in the neighborhood snickering at you. Your own skin feels like a punishment.
ALL KINDS OF people came into the U-Haul place. Happy people, sad people. We entered their names into the computer, checked their credit cards, and led them out to their vehicles. You were entitled to a bonus if you could talk them into extra insurance. The boss was always on us about it. “Push the cheese,” he’d say. “Push the cheese.” He was a young black guy. Cedrick. Very ambitious. But all I could think about that morning was Bud’s ashes and what an idiot I’d been for leaving them in the trunk. I wanted to hurt the person who’d taken them. I wanted to hurt myself.
The man with the funny teeth had a million questions, but his grin made it obvious that he already knew the answers and was just fucking with me. Certain types get a kick out of doing that to people who work behind counters. All my life I’ve had to deal with them.
“How much gas is in the truck now?”
“It’s full, sir.”
“And what if it’s not full when I return it?”
“We’ll fill it up and charge it to your card.”
“How much a gallon?”
“Five dollars.”
“Do you really think that’s fair?”
My hands began to sweat so much I could hardly hold the pen, and the neck of my T-shirt tightened across my windpipe. The man with the funny teeth grinned even wider, so that his mouth cut his face in half. I excused myself and stepped into the back room. My tongue wouldn’t lie still, and I was terrified that I’d swallow it. Someone out front said “refrigerator,” and someone else said “who.” The floor seemed about a million miles away. It was Denver all over again. I didn’t want to cry, but that’s usually how it went.
Cedrick found me with my arms wrapped around the watercooler, my head resting on top of it. There was such kindness in his voice when he told me to take a break. On my way out I dropped my nametag onto his desk, because I knew I wouldn’t, couldn’t, come back.
THERE WAS QUITE a selection of urns at the mortuary. They were displayed on shelves in a room full of caskets. An old woman with hair like a puff of smoke tried to steer me toward the high-end models, but I stood my ground. The basic copper container cost me sixty dollars.
I borrowed my neighbor’s hibachi and dumped in half a bag of charcoal. After it had flamed and crumbled and cooled, I scooped the ashes into the urn. It was the only way I could think of to make things right. Bud would have approved, I’m sure. He always enjoyed a good fake-out. I took the urn up to my apartment and opened a can of chili. It was the first food I’d eaten all day. Sleep didn’t come any easier, but I wasn’t expecting miracles.
THE HOUSES IN her neighborhood all looked alike: square, flat-roofed little bungalows the color and texture of after-dinner mints. I drove around the block a few times, smoking and noticing the bars on the windows and how some people pulled their cars right up into their yards. She had a lawn, though, and there was a waist-high chain-link fence to separate it from the sidewalk. I made sure to latch the gate behind me.
I could hear the TV through the door when I rang the bell. It took a while for her to answer. Her dark hair was cut short and combed like a boy’s, and she had green eyes. I thought maybe I had the wrong place. There wasn’t much of Bud about her.
“Yes,” she said, like she was expecting trouble.
“I’m looking for Kate, Bud Herman’s daughter.”
“That’s me.”
“He . . . he died last week.”
“I heard.”
She opened the screen door. A little girl with the same green eyes came up behind her and peeked at me around her legs. I wished I’d worn nicer clothes, maybe my tie.
“I was asked to deliver these. His ashes. He wanted you to have them.”
Kate glanced down at the urn, then looked back up at me with a smile.
“Is that ridiculous or what?” she said.
I smiled, too, and shrugged. A car alarm went off a few houses away. “People put them on their mantels,” I said.
She laughed out loud at that and brought her hand up to cover her mouth. There was a ring on every finger. “The mantel, huh. Well, all right.”
I wanted to keep her laughing. The sound had a sweetness to it that cut through everything. The little girl stared up at her, puzzled, as Kate took the urn.
“Thanks,” Kate said. “Really.”
I turned sideways and pointed at the grass with my thumb. “Nice yard.”
“It’s a little shaggy.”
“Do you have a mower?”
I don’t know what Bud had intended by having her take charge of his ashes, but it suddenly seemed to me a very weak gesture. It took a few minutes of convincing, but she eventually led me to the garage. I fired up the lawnmower and went to work.
There were two squares of grass separated by a concrete walkway that ran from the gate to the house. I cut one square, then the other, then started over. Sweat ran down my face, and I thought about taking off my shirt but decided against it. The little girl stood on the porch the whole time with her fingers in her ears, watching.
When I finished, Kate gave me a 7 Up. We stood in a sliver of shade between the garage and the house. She uncoiled a hose and watered the flowers planted there. A hummingbird flickered above us like some strange gift, and I thought, “Summer. Wow,” remembering yards and hoses and cold drinks that had been lost to me for years.
“Tell your husband the mower needs gas,” I said.
“He left months ago,” she replied without looking at me. “But you already guessed that.”
She was right. I had.
BILL CUT HIS finger scrounging cans from recycling bins. He kept taking off the gauze he’d wrapped around it to show all of us in the doughnut shop the flash of bone that could be glimpsed when he pulled the edges of the wound apart.
“It’s my pussy finger,” he said over and over. “Ain’t that a bitch.”
“You best look after that,” José advised.
I joined the circle gathered around the table where Whitey was taking on a walk-in. It was a ten-dollar blitz match, five minutes on each clock, and Whitey already had his opponent’s queen and both bishops. The chess played there was a million
miles away from the solemn, sedate pastime I’d always associated with Persian rugs and smoking jackets. The doughnut shop crew had picked up the game in jails and psych wards. You didn’t take pieces, you killed them, the object being complete annihilation. Kamikaze assaults were the norm, and there was always money at stake, even if it was just the price of a cup of coffee.
Whitey darted in and out, eating pawns just for the hell of it and foiling every attack his opponent mounted. The walk-in was a gigantic Samoan who scowled down at the board as we urged Whitey on. “Whack that fucker,” someone yelled. “Off with his fucking head.” In the end, the Samoan’s king stood alone, surrounded by black marauders. The Samoan reached across the table and shook Whitey’s hand, then left without a word.
The guys drifted outside to smoke or to the counter for refills, and Whitey motioned me into the empty chair across from him while he arranged the pieces for another game.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Nice girl,” I replied.
“She cry or anything? Was it a scene?”
“Not at all.”
Whitey always knew the right thing to do or say, but only because he’d spent his whole life making mistakes. It seemed a high price to pay for wisdom — a ruined liver, a bullet nestled against his spine, a family broken and lost along the way. I hoped I’d somehow stumble upon a shortcut.
The Dodgers were on the radio, ahead by two in the bottom of the eighth. It was still hot outside. I could feel it when I pressed my palm to the window. The smell of freshly mown grass clung to me.
“Ready for a lesson?” Whitey asked, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his neck.
Bud had been teaching me the game before he died. Every night he’d walk me through a match, slapping my hand when I reached for the wrong piece. I had the basic moves down and a few dirty tricks under my belt, but it never meant as much to me as it did to Bud. I just liked to see the light in his eyes when I finally picked up something he’d been drilling me on.
“Sure,” I said to Whitey.
“I’m a different breed of player than Bud was, a little more tactical. I actually read a few books.”
“So I’ll have the best of both worlds, right?”
“That’s right. Good. Why don’t we start with a few openings.”
Outside, Bill poured whiskey on his finger and howled and jumped up and down like an angry coyote in a cartoon.
THE NIGHTCLUB ACROSS the street from the doughnut shop opened at nine o’clock. I arrived at 9:05 in order to beat the line. It was just me and the bartender for the first hour. Louise, originally from Nebraska. She didn’t want to talk about it, though. She didn’t want to talk about anything. The place was smaller than I’d imagined. The walls were painted black, and there was no door on the bathroom stall.
I stuck to beer as more and more people showed up and the music grew louder. The bass bounced in my chest like a second heart. It was difficult to get a good look at anyone, the way the lights flashed and wobbled. Faces bloomed and faded and dropped away before I could draw a bead. I kept telling myself something good would happen, but wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting. The thing I was most afraid of was appearing desperate. A girl danced alone in a dark corner of the club. She knew the words to every song, even the Mexican ones. I came up with fifteen ways to introduce myself to her, but all of them turned my stomach.
Last call came as a shock. I wanted one more drink, but when I reached into my pocket, I discovered I was out of money. It was useless to ask Louise to cut me some slack. She’d given away my stool when I’d gone to the men’s room, and to get it back I’d had to mad-dog the squatter, who turned out to be her boyfriend. The girl in the dark corner, though, we’d exchanged a few glances, so I walked over and offered to write her a check for double the cost of a shot and a beer. She made a sort of clawing motion at my eyes and then put her hands over her ears and yawned. Sirens wailed and the house lights came up and bouncers started throwing people out. Everybody looked like they were about to cry.
LUCKILY, KATE SMILED when she came to the screen door and saw me standing on her porch. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t. Such presumptuousness was out of character for me, and I hoped my showing up unannounced wouldn’t frighten her.
I raised the tray of pansies I’d picked up at Home Depot and said, “It’s freaky, I know, but I thought these might look good in your yard.”
“It’s freaky,” she confirmed. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts and a red tank top, under which I could see a scallop of black bra strap.
“I can just leave them, or if you want you can show me where, and I’ll put them in for you.”
Her bottom lip slid up over her top one, and she furrowed her brow for an instant before opening the screen and calling over her shoulder, “Hey, guys, ready for some gardening?”
I could see past her then, into the living room, where her daughter and a big balding man about my age were playing with Barbies on the couch. The man held up one of the dolls in my direction and called out in a high voice, “Just a minute. I’m not dressed yet.”
His name was Heinz — that’s what he went by, anyway — and he and Kate had met at the supermarket or some such place. He had all kinds of suggestions about where to plant the flowers, but Kate ignored him and let her daughter, Monica, decide instead. While the girls placed the dog-faced blossoms in holes they scooped in an empty bed at the edge of the front yard, I leaned against the fence with Heinz.
He tried to get the lowdown on me and Kate, but I sidestepped his gentle probing. He’d have to come right out into the open if he intended to cock-block me, and I didn’t think he had it in him. Someone had gone after every tree on the street with a can of spray paint. The loopy blue letters circling the trunks didn’t make any sense at all. The house next door still had a Christmas wreath in the window and a plastic jack-o’-lantern on the porch.
Heinz’s earring sparkled as he flexed his thick biceps, showing me how he once reeled in a shark he hooked on a day boat out of San Pedro. His pale eyebrows were almost invisible against the pink expanse of his sunburned forehead.
“Hey, Kate, you fish?” he called out.
She was on all fours, but raised herself to her knees to shoot him a sarcastic look. “Oh, yeah. Love it.”
Monica, bored with the flowers, walked over to stand between me and Heinz. A man in a wheelchair passed by, rolling himself along the buckling sidewalk. Monica hooked her fingers through the fence and closed her eyes. “Don’t stare,” she hissed at us. “It’s not polite. You have to peek.”
KATE INVITED ME to stay for dinner. Heinz sold steaks door to door and had brought along some samples. If my continued presence was a disappointment to him, he didn’t let on. We moved to the backyard, and he started the barbecue while I helped Kate set the picnic table and mix tiny canned shrimp into the salad. Crickets began to chirp as day folded smoothly into night. I was finally able to relax a bit. The sharp edges of everything lost their gleam, and you could feel the dusk, like a feather, on your eyelids and the backs of your hands.
After we’d eaten, we dragged chairs onto the grass to watch the stars come out. The sky soaked up so much light from the city that only ten or so were visible, but that was all we needed. Monica, in her bathing suit, skipped to and fro through a sprinkler that hissed quietly in a corner of the yard while Kate told us funny stories about the lawyer she worked for, a man so reviled that someone once shit in his desk drawer while he was out to lunch.
“I love her,” Heinz said when Kate took Monica into the house to get her ready for bed.
I nodded, staring at the distant lights of a plane headed for LAX.
“The first time I saw her . . . you know what I mean?” he continued.
A dog barked in the next yard, and both of us flinched. It seemed only fair that I leave before him. Kate walked me to the gate. She said I should call first next time and gave me a business card with her home number written on the back.
Her lips on my cheek turned me inside out.
“DIDN’T THINK I’D find a white man for this job,” Frank said. He hired me without even reading my application. There were not even any questions about why I’d left U-Haul. According to him, the Oasis was the last American-owned motel in the city. I liked it because it was within walking distance of my apartment. I worked nights at the front desk, “fighting off the zombies,” as Frank put it. The lobby was locked after ten, so I dealt with the guests from behind a sheet of bulletproof Plexiglas. Money and keys were exchanged by means of a sliding drawer.
People didn’t plan to stay at the Oasis; bad luck and lack of options forced them to. They arrived angry or in tears or so fucked up they had to lean against the window to pull their wallets out of their back pockets. I treated them all the same. You got a smile at the beginning of the transaction, a smile at the end. The porno channel was five dollars extra.
As far as jobs went, I’d had worse. Things usually calmed down around three or so, enough on some nights that I actually got in a nap before the maids came on at six. Either that or I listened to the radio. There was this crazy show where people called in to talk about UFOs, ghosts, and the Book of Revelation. Barricaded in the office, watching ambulances rocket past and helicopters flush suspects from the alleys, I couldn’t understand why anyone would search for new things to be frightened of.
One morning, as I was hosing down the parking lot just after dawn, a man came out of a room on the first floor, got into a car, and sped away. He left the door to his room wide open, and I stood there waiting for someone to close it. When that didn’t happen, I walked over and peeked inside. A naked woman lay on the carpet, her face and upper body covered by the bedspread. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, you.” Her toenails were painted black, and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t realize what I was seeing until it was too late, until one more bad thing had sneaked in and taken up space I’d been saving for the good. The police hypnotized me afterward, but I was no help at all.
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