by Kim Fielding
He drank all the beer, then went to the market and bought more. He didn’t eat lunch.
Sam wasn’t coming. Probably he didn’t take Jack’s threats seriously. Probably he shouldn’t. Christ, Jack didn’t want to ruin Sam or anyone else—not even Benny Baxter. Jack understood what Sam meant when he said the industry was a business, and Jack had always been well aware that Sam took business very seriously. You didn’t get the fancy houses and the Oscar nominations if you acted like an amateur.
But all Jack wanted was a chance, dammit—the opportunity to prove he had that enigmatic star quality. Give him a good role with top billing and the camera would love him, the fans would love him. Everyone would love him.
The worst of it wasn’t that Sam had promised him a chance—people broke promises all the time. And it wasn’t even how Jack had earned it—if he focused on how he’d paid Sam, he’d feel cheap and dirty and used. No, the worst of it was that without his shot at stardom, he was nobody. Nothing but a meatpacker’s son from Nebraska. Not special or desirable. Just… empty. He’d go back to Omaha and reclaim his job among the blood-and-shit reek of the plant. He’d rent some crappy little house, spend his nights watching TV and drinking, occasionally meet up with a stranger for a quick and furtive fuck. He’d grow old and die and never matter to anyone.
He drank the second batch of beer.
Somewhere nearby, a baby was crying. A woman spoke in low, angry bursts, and Jack couldn’t tell whether the voice came from another guest or someone’s television. He thought he heard the crunch and groan of two cars colliding, followed by the echoes of a scream, but when he looked out the window, the families at the pool were as jolly as always.
If he stood in exactly the right spot in his room and pressed his cheek to the window glass, he could watch the sun setting behind a faraway bluff. The earth would spin, and soon, five hundred miles away, that same sun would sink into the Pacific. Those lucky few who owned houses in Malibu and Santa Monica could stand on their balconies and watch as the sky turned fiery orange and the sea swallowed the light.
He was sitting in the darkened room, holding the almost empty whiskey bottle in one hand, when someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t Sam—Jack would have heard his footsteps. For a moment he considered pretending he wasn’t there. But the person knocked again, more insistently this time, and Jack rose slowly onto his bare feet. The floor sloped as if his whole world had tilted.
“Hello, Jacky.”
Doris Richards wore sunglasses despite the hour and a long fur coat, although the air had barely begun to cool. She smelled like Jack’s mother’s lilac bush, and her hair was done up in a new style—short but glamorous, with smooth curls. “You look like Grace Kelly,” Jack said, stepping aside so she could enter.
“Grace Kelly’s mother, maybe.”
As confidently as if she had lived there for years, Doris crossed the room and clicked on the light. Jack stood at the door a few seconds more before closing it. “Sam sent you?” he asked.
“My husband doesn’t send me anywhere. He and I talked, and we agreed it would be best if I came.”
“Best.” He leaned back against the door and scrubbed his face with the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle.
“Baby, I thought you were smarter than this.”
“’M pretty, not smart.”
She laughed as if he were being very clever. “It’s possible to be both, you know.” She picked up an empty beer can and frowned at it for a moment before setting it down again. “You’re far too young for this.”
Muzzily, he misunderstood what she meant. “I’ve been drinking since I was twelve.”
“Not that. This.” She waved her arms in an expansive gesture that seemed to indicate the entire world. “Too young to know what you want.”
“I want to go swimming.”
“Jacky….”
“I want to go swimming in my own fucking pool in my own house in Beverly Hills! I want my boyfriend swimming with me and he loves me and we don’t fucking care who knows it because I’m so goddamn famous it doesn’t matter! I want people begging for my autograph and girls fainting when they see me. I want my face on movie posters all over fucking Omaha and when everyone sees them they’ll say, ‘There’s Jack Dayton. Look what our boy has done for himself.’ I want to get so many goddamn Oscars that after a while, every other fellow in Hollywood gives up even trying ’cause they know they won’t win.” He cradled the bottle as if it were a gold statuette.
Doris shook her head. She fumbled in her purse until she found a small oval box with a mother-of-pearl lid, then opened the box and pulled out a pill. “Here,” she said, stepping closer and holding it out. “You’ve got yourself all worked up. This will calm you down.”
He didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to rage, to kick and scream and punch until his throat and fists were raw. But he took the pill and swallowed it with a swig of whiskey. So did she, but she took hers dry.
“Have another,” Doris ordered, so he took that one too.
She walked across the room to inspect one of the ugly paintings. “You don’t understand,” she said with her back to him. “You’re just a kid and you’re so sure about the ways things are… but they don’t have to be that way. When you get a little older, you’ll see you had so many more possibilities, only now it’s too late and those chances have slipped from your fingers.” Doris turned to look at him. “But they haven’t slipped from your fingers yet, Jacky. You still have so many ways to be happy.”
Jack lurched across the room and collapsed into the chair. “I’m not happy.”
“Not now, no. You’re disappointed and your feelings are hurt. But that’s just today. Tomorrow… who knows what will come along?”
“Nothing will fucking come along. I’ll be standing in congealed blood, hacking at chunks of dead animal until my hands cramp and my knees lock.”
“There are other options.”
“What? Bending over for some goddamn car salesman and his pervert non-nephew? Maybe I should just sell myself on the streets.” He’d seen the hustlers, the hungry, feral-looking boys who gave it up for a few bills.
“Baby,” Doris breathed. When she gave him more pills, he took them with quick gulps from his rapidly emptying bottle.
Doris sat on one of the beds—the one with the unmussed comforter—and frowned at him. The light made her blonde hair glow like a halo, and giant wings unfurled from her back. They weren’t feathery and white, but gray and furry, like her coat. “Like a myth,” he said to her, or at least tried to say. His tongue was stupid and slow.
“Jacky, did you mean what you said to Sam last night?”
He couldn’t answer; his thoughts were too jumbled. “I didn’t have a script. Didn’t know my lines.”
“You threatened to go to the press and tell them Sam’s secrets. You didn’t mean that, did you? You’re a good boy, Jacky.”
“Not a good boy. Never have been. Ask Dad.”
“But you have to understand—if you talk to the press, Sam will be ruined, but not just him. Me too, honey. And all those people who work for him. Some of them are your friends.”
“No friends,” he snarled. He tried to drink more whiskey, but the bottle was empty. Maybe there was more somewhere. Hadn’t he bought beer? If the light wasn’t so glaring and the air so thick and fuzzy, he could see. He could see, goddammit.
Doris’s wings brought her over to him. He struggled not to cry; she was beautiful, but she wasn’t what he wanted. He couldn’t… couldn’t remember what he wanted. “I wanted to swim,” he croaked. “Like flying.”
“Here. These will make it all better, Jacky.”
He swallowed what she gave him. Like candy, but bitter. “Nobody wants bitter candy.”
“But you want—”
“I want to swim, Doris. Please?” He was small and young and helpless and the world was far too big and difficult.
She stared at him for a million years. A million million years, so t
hat while he waited, the Grand Canyon eroded away and was reborn. He got tired of waiting and struggled to his feet. “Swimming.”
She took his arm and steadied him. He should take off his clothes. But that wasn’t allowed, not without a suit, and the suit was from some other boy Sam fucked. Maybe Benny Baxter.
When they got out on the walkway, he could see the pool below, lit up and sparkling like a jewel. It wasn’t California blue, but it would have to do.
He started to climb over the railing, but Doris tugged him back; he fell, landing hard on his ass. It should have hurt, but right now nothing hurt. Nothing and everything, and the world was all cotton wool and jagged glass. “I was going to dive,” he said when she helped him to his feet.
“C’mon, Jacky.”
With Doris’s help, he made it to the end of the walkway. There were stairs, which scared him. They reminded him of going down into the basement when the tornado siren went off, and he hated the basement because it was full of spiders and broken bits of things and there was a scummy green drain in the middle that might—might—be hiding something beneath. Something that caught at the ankles of little boys and dragged them down down down and they couldn’t breathe anymore and their family forgot they ever existed.
“What’s the matter, Jacky?”
He collapsed heavily onto the cement at the bottom of the stairwell and tried to keep the whimpers from escaping his mouth. “Doris,” he whispered.
She gave him more pills. One or two or three or four. Couldn’t count and didn’t count, spinning around and whirling like a top. Didn’t make the pain go away. Didn’t make everything all better. “Bad medicine,” he said.
“Let’s get in my car, baby. You can lie down in the back and sleep and I’ll do the driving. I’ll take you back to Iowa—”
“Nebraska.”
“I’ll take you back to Nebraska and your family will be happy to see you again. You can get some rest. Make the big decisions later.”
“Won’t go.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Going to swim to LA.”
He had to lean against the wall to stand up, and even then everything spun. But he knew where he was going—to the water that glimmered like false promises, and the water was a lie too, appearing blue only because the plaster was tinted. Doris took his arm, either to stop him or guide him, but he pulled away. Didn’t need her. He was on his own.
He made it to the very edge. But he couldn’t bring himself to face the water, so instead he stood with his heels hanging over the pool’s lip. When he looked up, he could see right through the glare of the motel lights into the heavens, and the sky was a deep pool too. Deep and dark, with tiny stars floating at the surface.
“The stars like to swim,” he told Doris. “It’s what stars do.”
“Jacky….” She reached out for him.
Her fingertips touched his arm. The touch of an angel. He fell backward and he hit the water with a splash that was too loud for him to hear whether she screamed.
The water closed over him and he was so heavy. Not immune to gravity. A tiny chunk of dying star caught in the heavy grip of the earth and falling down, falling down.
Five
2014
“HOW MUCH have you had to drink tonight, sir?”
Tag Manning blinked blearily as the cop directed the flashlight at his face. “None. Nothing. I haven’t touched alcohol in days.” That was true. His last beers had been—when? Six states ago. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Drugs?” asked the officer.
Tag pointed at the cup holder. “Just caffeine.”
The cop was silent as he directed the beam of light around the car’s interior. He illuminated the front seat detritus of a road trip: fast-food wrappers, empty cups and water bottles, badly refolded maps. The backseat was crammed with all the bags and boxes Tag hadn’t been able to jam into the trunk.
After a few moments, the flashlight focused on Tag’s license, registration, and insurance card, which the officer held in one hand. He read them carefully, as if they gave him important instructions on how to proceed, but Tag was pretty sure the guy’s shoulders had relaxed a little.
“Where are you heading, Mr. Manning?”
“Grand Canyon. Always wanted to see it, but I never have. Except once from a jet, but that’s really not the same thing, is it? Doesn’t really give you the full sense of the place, all the smells and sounds and little details.” Tag realized he was babbling and shut his mouth with an audible pop.
“Canyon’s still a couple of hours from here, and there’s not much to see in the dark anyway. You might as well wait until morning.”
“Uh, yeah. I mean, I was gonna watch the sun rise over the rim.”
The cop shook his head. “You were weaving all over the road, Mr. Manning. Maybe you don’t worry about dying in a wreck, but believe me, son, bleeding to death in the middle of the desert with a ton and a half of crumpled metal parked on your belly is not a nice way to go. Or maybe you’ll swerve into someone else and kill them instead. State of Arizona frowns on that.”
Tag didn’t want that on his conscience either. “Fine. I’ll stop for some coffee.”
“Nothing’s open for miles, not this time of night.” The cop bent and leaned his forearms on the open window frame. He was younger than Tag had first thought, maybe in his midthirties, and handsome enough that he would have stirred a few porno fantasies in the back of Tag’s brain if Tag hadn’t felt edgy. The trooper’s face was very tan, and he had deep crow’s-feet and a square jaw. He smelled of cigarettes. There was something odd about him, something Tag didn’t have the wits to identify. The darkness and the flashlight glare kept Tag from seeing him very well.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do, son. Take the next exit. It’s less than five minutes from here. Nice, quiet spot. Pull over and have yourself a couple hours’ worth of nap. That’ll still get you to the canyon by sunrise and without killing anyone on the way.”
With a noisy yawn stretching his jaw, Tag had to admit it sounded like a good idea. The road had become a blur and his eyes very heavy before the flashing lights had appeared behind him.
“Okay,” he said. “I will.”
“Good man.” The cop straightened up, returned Tag’s documents, and gave the door a few friendly pats, as he might give a horse. “Keep safe, Mr. Manning.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“It can be a really rough journey sometimes.”
Tag waited for the cop to walk away before he rolled up the window. He tucked away his license and papers, checked to make sure his seat belt was on properly, and started the engine. As he pulled back onto the freeway, the headlights of the cruiser were right behind him. Great. Officer Friendly was making sure Tag didn’t make a run for it. Tag kept the speedometer poised at exactly seventy-five the whole way.
The sign said nothing but EXIT. No name, no number. After Tag glided down the off-ramp and onto a bumpy road, he saw a few buildings hunkered in the dark, but no lights. For a moment he was tempted to get right back on the highway. But although the cop had disappeared into the night, Tag suspected the guy might be hovering close by, waiting to swoop in and pull Tag over again. A little rest really was a good idea.
The headlights shone on a large sign: MOTEL. POOL. The sign was unlit, the paint faded, the edges rusted and worn. As far as Tag could tell in the darkness, there was no building at all. Just a big, empty lot. But it was as good a place as any to stop. He turned off the rutted pavement that might have been part of the original Route 66, rolled to a stop after a few yards, and cut the engine. When he turned off the headlights, the night seemed huge. He made sure the doors were locked before he reclined his seat fully. After grabbing his denim jacket from the back footwell, he draped it over himself like a blanket. The desert got cold at night.
“Just a short nap,” he said as he closed his eyes and fell asleep almost at once.
THE CRICK in his neck woke him just as the sun was tinting the sky a
delicate peach. His Camry made a fine vehicle but a crappy bed. And he was missing sunrise at the canyon. He disengaged the locks, opened the door, and nearly tumbled out of the car. He had to lean against the frame for balance while his legs regained feeling.
One of the plastic bottles contained a few ounces of water. He swished a mouthful around before spitting it onto the sandy gravel, then ran fingers through his tangled brown curls. He had a comb and toothbrush and razor somewhere but didn’t have the energy to dig for them. Instead, he took a short walk around, his footsteps crunching on the ground. When he pissed against a small boulder, the noise of urine hitting the rock seemed to echo.
He’d been right the night before—the motel was long gone, not even the imprint of its foundation visible any longer. A few buildings remained, but they were in terrible shape. The pastel-colored Bluebird Café was missing windows and doors and was covered in graffiti. The roof of Bob’s Chevron had caved in. A couple other structures were in such ruins that he couldn’t tell what they had once been.
Although the rutted old pavement of Route 66 ran alongside the ghost town, the freeway was maybe a quarter mile away, hidden by a low ridge. Maybe there was a good reason the freeway engineers had decided that stretch of desert was so much more desirable for road building than this one, but they had murdered this little settlement. It was sad. Maybe there’d been nothing special about this nameless collection of businesses, nothing to interest anyone aside from travelers wanting a night’s sleep, a meal, a fresh tank of gas. But people had lived here, people with hopes and dreams. Where had they gone when the town died? Did they find jobs elsewhere—Flagstaff, Williams—or did they simply retire? “Where do Arizonans go when they retire?” Tag asked out loud.
Nobody answered him, of course. But he regretted speaking, because now he had an odd feeling that someone was listening. Watching him. But aside from him and some scrubby plants, there was not a single living thing in sight.
