mulch pit, chapter 2

I patted Lucy on the back. “Hey, I gotta talk to this one,” I said as she frowned at me.

“Why this one,” Lucy said, emphasis heaving on the this. She’d watched me turn down woman right and left in this place. “Throwin’ that pussy away!” as a friend of mine said to me at my 20^th high school reunion after I’d turned down a parking lot blow job.

It wasn’t the right time to tell Lucy about her. The woman who took out a rusty screwdriver and plunged it into my heart one night. On the phone. I was weeks from somehow finding a way to propose to her, finally taking the step neither one of us had been able to, but wanted to. At least that’s what I thought.

Instead, one night out of the blue she dumped me. And other than two trips to Florida – the first to try and save it, the second to pick up the scraps of a life – I hadn’t seen her since. And she’d made it pretty damn obvious that she didn’t ever want to see me again.

But there she was, standing by my favorite barstool in the world – since the passing of Nick’s on 2400 Tulane Avenue – with that same damn look in her eyes that made me melt way over a decade ago.

“Hi,” she finally said. “Can I sit down?”

I wanted to say “Fuck You!” and turn around. But I knew I wouldn’t do it. She knew I wouldn’t do it.

“Sure.”

As she sat down I noticed how much skinnier she was than the last time I saw her. But hell, I weighed about 60 pounds less than then too. She had taut calf muscles now. Something she never had before. She also had that cucumber smell. She’d left behind a bottle of that soap she used the last time she visited me in North Carolina. I never thought twice about until she was gone for good. Then I used it, very small dabs, every day. Until it was gone. I told myself when I started that I’d be over her when it was done.

That was the first of many things I did that I said to myself when it was over I would be able to move on again.

It all ended with me masturbating naked in front of a mirror with a gun in my mouth. I was even using a cookie monster hand puppet to stroke with. I’d say that was rock bottom.

More so than when I called my mom with four bottles of pills emptied out on my coffee table/foot locker. More than when I was sitting at a truck stop on the side of I-10 wondering if what was west was better than what was east. Way more than when I told my therapist that I hated the fact that all redheads reminded me of her. They still do.

But now, she’s in front of me. Smiling.

“You look good,” I say with no confidence at all.

“Thank you. You too,” she replies. But I know other than the weight, it’s not true. My hair is gone on my head, growing out of every other spot on my body now. I have early signs of diabetes and my muscles have all but disappeared from living a mostly sedentary life now.

I take a swig of my now warm beer. I figured she’d be the one talking, but she’s not. I order two Shiners, handing one to her.

“Thanks,” she says, drawing on it. “You remembered.”

Ha. I remembered. Every damn time I drink one of these things, I remember. I don’t even like the taste of Shiner. It has a soapy aftertaste that always bothered me. Until it was a way to feel connected, no matter how sad that was.

“Yeah. It’s my brand now too,” I said.

I watched her sit there. She was nervous. And I didn’t understand why. I was nervous, but I’d been building up this encounter for years now. More years than we were actually together at this point. Way more.

My calculations told me this would happen in Virginia. Either on the streets outside where she works – which of course I knew, but not because I sought it out, but because a friend of my best friend worked with her – or at some random place in the Washington, D.C. area. Hell, many times while driving by Arlington Cemetery I thought about stopping at her father’s grave. That went all the way back to when I was going to propose. I took a photo of us there, placed it on his grave and asked for his permission. I left the photo and always wondered if anyone took it away. If she did. Hell, I sometimes doubt she ever went back. Career in hand and all. All she ever wanted, I think.

I looked over a Lucy. She was staring at this redhead. I wondered what Lucy thought of her. I wanted to feel what she was probably feeling. Hatred. But I never could, and certainly couldn’t at this moment.

Finally, I leaned closer to her and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Why are you here?” It was the question that had to be asked. And surprisingly, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted her to say.

“It’s about us,” she said before taking a very long and deep breath. She exhaled and just as she was about to speak again, a loud crash sounded out behind us at the front door.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it was, but my eyes were glued to her. But her eyes were not on me anymore. They were petrified. And looking straight at the door.

I turned around, and didn’t want to believe what I saw.

Pretty Vacant

No Vacancy.

I found it rather amusing. That sign on this shitty hotel. In the middle of the desert. There weren’t any cars in the parking lot. There were no lights on in the rooms. There was a light on in the front office.

I walked up to the door. It was open. There was a squirrelly looking cat sitting behind the desk. He had on a Social Distortion T-shirt that had to be 20 years old. His hair was slicked back with some kind of grease. It looked like it smelled. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.

“You got any rooms?” I asked.

He sighed. Folded up the issue of Penthouse he was reading and looked up at me. For a good 10, 15 seconds he stared at me. It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, just annoyed. I scanned the room. There was a movie poster from “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” on the wall. Right next to a red couch. An old television set flickered in the background. Some public access show was on. The guy looked like he might be funny.

“What does the sign out front say?” he finally said.

“No vacancy.”

“Well, there’s your answer buddy,” he said, re-opening his Penthouse. I noticed his fly was unzipped.

“But seriously, man, there aren’t any cars out there. There aren’t any lights on. It’s 8 p.m. Where is everybody that’s staying in those rooms?”

“They’re sleeping I guess.”

“But no cars? Not even a motorcycle?”

“They don’t drive or ride.”

“They?”

“Yeah, they. And if you don’t leave soon, you’ll get to meet ‘em.”

Feeling a bit like I was in a 1984 horror flick, I decided I’d take his advise and get on out of there.

“Where’s the nearest hotel, then?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never left this place. Now, can ya leave. I’ve got something to do.”

“I guess you do.”

“Hey, a guy’s got to do what he’s got to do to get off,” he said as he whipped his half-hard cock out of his pants. Waving it at me. “Bigger than yours, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. But mine doesn’t have those spots on it either.”

“Well, the hookers here bite.”

That was my cue. I turned around. The sun was just disappearing behind a big butte off in the distance.

“Looks like you’re gonna meet ‘em,” the guy said, hand still on cock.

“If they’re like you, no thanks.”

“They ain’t like me. Hell, they don’t even like me.”

“Can’t understand why,” I said, finally leaving the joint. I felt a cool breeze. Odd. It was 98 degrees according to my dashboard thermometer. The only thing electronic that still worked in my car. But she’d taken me 346,237 miles as of 10 minutes ago when I pulled into this shithole. And I guess she was gonna have to do a few more tonight.

A coyote howled in the distance. Pretty cool, I thought. Somewhere in the parking lot, I heard shuffling. Lots of shuffling. Like the foot steps of zombies in a really low-budget movie. Just sliding on the pavement. The shadows started jumping about too. I decided I didn’t want to see if they were coming to get Barbara.

Back in my car, I started up the engine on the first try. Always a dicey proposition since I passed the 210,000-mile mark a year ago. Man, I’d put a lot of miles on her since. The CD player belted out “Pretty Vacant” by the Pistols.

Two vacant references in 15 minutes. My mind must be playing tricks on me. Just an hour ago I was on my cell phone, an old flip phone by Samsung. I wondered how many people still have them in 2014? I’d had this phone since 2008, well, this brand. I threw my other one against a wall in a hotel room after a drunken night watching Lucero play and a great girl ignore me when I was paying attention to her, only to have her watch me while I was singing along. She was great at teasing me. And she knew she had me in the palm of her hands. Putty, the old romantic novels would call it.

While on the phone, I was talking to my lady friend of the moment. She seemed to be mad at me because I was 1,000 miles away on her birthday. I told her it was better I was here, trying to write my novel than in a cubicle at a dying newspaper. Because that’s where I’d be if I was at home. Working is my addiction. Well, it was. When I loved it. It never loved back. I figured it out one day. Sober, even. On that day, it became a job instead of a passion.

That’s when I started writing for myself. She never got it. She met me before the epiphany. She was a waitress at a Waffle House. I was reading a book. She didn’t ask me what I was reading for, instead, she asked me what I was reading. I told her it was the new Nick Hornby book. She smiled at that, but didn’t say anything.

I watched her the next three hours. She smiled too much for someone working in a Waffle House. Guys were nice to her. Ladies weren’t. It was 3 in the morning. I was driving down Saint Claude when I saw the darn place. Glistening in the night air. I hadn’t ever noticed a Waffle House in the New Orleans area before. So, I stopped. Looked inside and decided I wanted a waffle and bacon.

Her name was Lenore. At least that’s what my ticket said. I stared at it for a good while. She must have noticed.

“Something wrong with the bill?” she said, smiling, of course.

“Not at all. I just noticed your name.”

“It means torch,” she said.

“Kind of a beacon of light in a run down place, huh?”

“That might be pushing it,” she said, blushing slightly.

Wow, I thought. She blushed. I haven’t made a gal blush in a long, long time. I moved to New Orleans to be away from my past. Away from distractions while I washed dishes, checked 20 year old’s Ids at a bar door and write the great American novel.

I ended up a garbage man with two published short stories and a bunch of newspaper clippings three years later. Now I was staring at a waffle waitress, wondering if she’d go home with me.

“Lenore, when do you get off work?” I asked.

“4.”

I looked at my phone. It said 3:57.

While I was doing that, she sat down at my booth. “You want to go somewhere and get a drink?”

“You read my mind.”

She blushed again. We went to Nick’s on Tulane. It certainly wasn’t the same Nick’s from my youth. But I’m sure that’s what old guy who was 45 sitting there when I was 22 said too. I got a Dixie. She a Miller Lite. This seemed vaguely familiar.

“Can I have a quarter?” she asked.

I didn’t reply immediately. I was staring at our reflection in the stained mirror. Randy and Lenore. That sounded strange.

“Hey, goon show, you in there?”

“Huh?” I managed.

“A quarter? For the juke.”

I fished into my pocket. Drew a dime, a nickel, two pennies, and finally a quarter. I looked at it real fast. It was from 1996. Not a bad year. I handed it over.

“Don’t play any bullshit.”

The barkeep looked at me. “Ain’t no bullshit. You made sure of that with your conversations with Albert.”

Albert was the owner. I tried endlessly to get him to hire me when they were rebuilding back in 2011. Wow, that was four years ago. The only thing he wanted to talk about was the jukebox. I told him to get an old AMI Continental. Like the one in “Death Proof” by Tarantino. He hadn’t seen it. I showed it to him on Facebook. He fell in love. Got one. I stocked the 45s. I guess, in a way, it let me live out one of my dreams.

She plunked the quarter in. Pushed some buttons. Walked back over. Just as she sat down, the song started -- “Ooh, La, La” by The Faces. I think I could dig this girl, I thought to myself.

Now, I’m in the desert. Sitting in a car in front of a hotel that apparently only houses vampires. Thinking about our last conversation. It ended with me calling her vacant.

I’m such a fool, I thought as I put the car in drive. Pushed the pedal and pointed it east.

“Time to go home,” I said out loud.

“Not yet,” a voice from the backseat said.