dmseay

They sat on stools at a truck stop in Wichita. She watched as he poured sugar into coffee and a good dose of cream. The young man slurped his drink while the teenage girl twisted and stirred her Coke with a straw. The girl kept looking at him, almost staring. He just kept on drinking his coffee.

Walter remembered their first meeting as he sat on the couch drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. He remembered the way her hair was down over and around shoulders that were almost frail. The old man thought about how skinny she was; not his type. But the blonde hair and green eyes got to him.

You sure are loud, Thelma laughed. Sounds like you’re inhaling that coffee, she smiled. Are you?

Am I what?

Inhaling it.

No, he said. Just enjoying it. It’s hot. Been driving all night.

Where you heading?

Nowhere. Everywhere. Just driving.

Sounds like you’re running away.

Maybe I am.

That’s what I’m doing. Running away. That’s my bag over there in the corner.

Better watch that.

Waitress said she’d keep an eye on it for me.

That’s not her responsibility.

Maybe you shouldn’t talk about responsibility. 

Walter laughed a little. Maybe you’re right.

What are you running from?

Life. My life. Sometimes, it gets so hard I have to leave. Take off. Just go. One day, I’m in Nebraska, and the next, I’m in Kansas. No maps. No compass. Just driving aimlessly. Following road signs. Seeing what’s ahead, he pulled out a cigarette and offered it to the girl. She took it, and he lit it for her with a lighter that had a bulldog on it and the word Mac.

My son picked that out, Walter said. He liked the dog on it.

You gotta son?

Yeah.

What’s his name?

Bobby.

How old?

Three.

Gotta wife?

Not sure. She might be done with me. Getting tired of the running around. Two o’clock in the morning phone calls from Indianapolis, Chicago, Albuquerque, he laughed.

You’ve been to Albuquerque?

I’ve been everywhere, darling. I might be going there now. I don’t know.

Would you like some company? Thelma asked.

Aren’t your parents looking for you?

They done gave up on me.

So has she.

The old man got up and stretched while holding his beer. Sat back down and started to cry. Memories hurt.

The night is quiet. It is early morning. Still dark. Only noise is the hum of the refrigerator. There are no dogs barking nor cats hissing. No cars without mufflers; just silent and dark. 

Thelma sits on the metal chair in front of the table. She lights a candle, giving off  an orange glow. She places her hands in her lap, then above her head, stretching her lean body. Looks at the few bricks of pot left, one tore open. She touches it and laughs. 

Stems, she says. Twigs. She spies rolling papers on the table as well and proceeds to roll a joint. This reminds her of younger days. Before she met Walter. Back when she hitched rides throughout the U.S. trying to escape something she was never quite sure of. We’re all leaving someplace or something, Thelma laughs. It’s the American way. She lights the joint with the flame from the candle, sits back in the chair, and inhales while coughing just a bit. She blows smoke into the air.

Bobby? Is that you, Bobby? Walter walks into the front room. He can barely see in front of him. Thelma blows out the candle and runs to the door. Turning the handle and stepping outside, she leaves.

Walter fumbles for the light switch and finds it. He notices the door ajar. He looks outside and sees nothing. No dogs barking nor cats hissing. No cars without mufflers. Just a streetlight flickering on and off with footprints glistening in freshly fallen snow.

A rusted Dodge Dart held together with duct tape, and Gorrila Glue pulls up in the old man’s driveway. It is dark. The porchlight is off, and street lamps flicker a hazy blue hue. Bobby gets out of the car. He lights a cigarette and pops open a beer while leaning on the hood. A squad car drives by. 

Bobby breathes in the night air. He pulls a gun from his coat pocket and checks it. He looks it over. There are bullets in the chamber. He laughs quietly as he approaches the trailer’s door. The kitchen light is on. He knocks. 

What do you want? 

Open the Goddamn door. Come on now. It’s cold out here. Bobby bangs on the door again. The old man opens it. He’s in a pair of stained boxers and a T shirt. He holds a cup in his hand that says, Wisconsin Dells on it with a picture of a water slide. When Bobby was younger, the family used to go there. This was before Walter lost his job at the steel mill. Before everything went to shit.

The kid makes his way through the doorway, pushing the old man aside. A faint smell of coffee fills the room. There is a light brown liquid in the coffeemaker. Bobby begins to laugh.

You call that coffee?

I do.

It’s just hot water dad with remnants of grounds floating around. You call that coffee?

Mind your own business.

Bobby pulls out the pistol and points it at Walter. He begins to laugh at the old man. Walter covers his ears and begins yelling nonsense. Bobby laughs harder.

I’m not going to shoot you. Just wanted to show you what I got. Also bought a car for five hundred dollars from a priest over on Broadway.

How is she?

She runs. Not pretty. But she runs. Bobby walks over to the couch and places the gun on the table. He pinches off some pot from an opened package. It’s stale. Crumbles in his fingers. You got to wrap this shit up, Bobby says. Keep it fresh. Can’t you do anything?

I don’t smoke that shit. You must have forgotten. Bobby looks at the old man and continues packing his pipe.

Twigs, the son says. This shit is no good. He opens another brick. Tears into the cellophane and takes a good amount. He bangs his pipe on the table and refills it. He lights it with a torch; a huge flame from a Zippo lighter with a red, well-endowed woman on it who has horns on her head. He calls her devil woman.

She looks like Bettie Page, dad says. The body. Looks like Bettie Page.

Who?

She did teaser movies in the fifties. Real soft core shit. Some say she went off to be a born-again Christian. Others just say she lived a quiet life in obscurity.  Who knows?

You’re not as dumb as you look old man.

How about a little respect.

Bobby looks at him and laughs. For what?

I’m your father.

You’re a bum. You live off SSI. Could never hold onto a job. Your old lady left you. Respect? 

Now. Now, there’s a reason for all that. 

Yeah. Bobby wraps the brick up tight. He picks up the gun and stands up.

Got anything for me?

The kid pulls out a twenty and hands it to him. Then pulls it away. He laughs. Here. Just take it. The old man cautiously takes the bill as Bobby takes two bricks of pot with him. He lights a cigarette and leaves. Just shakes his head and leaves.

A snowblower keeps shutting off and on at seven in the morning. Semis going up and down Highway 41 sound like waves crashing on the beach. A chained up dog barks.

Walter looks out the window at boys shoveling driveways or making a path for cars in their yards.

The bricks of pot on the table are dwindling down; some are sold, and some smoked by Bobby. Walter notices that the scale is off; broken. He sits on the couch and tries to adjust them. He grows more and more frustrated at the busted apparatus. He picks it up and throws it against the wall, breaking it into bits and pieces.

Nothing works, the old man says. Junk. That’s all we have in this house. Junk, he kicks a beer can across the floor. Bobby knocks on the door and enters before the old man can get up to answer. It.

What a fucking mess, Bobby says. He sees the busted scale. What did you do?

Damn thing doesn’t work.

I could’ve fixed it.

Why didn’t you?

Listen. I’m in charge of this operation.  What I say goes. Just don’t touch anything. Hear me? Leave shit alone.

The old man mumbles incoherently. He stumbles around, looking for a cigarette and a small bottle of whiskey. 

Where are my smokes?

Gone.

You took them?

Bobby reaches in his jacket and pulls out a pack. He tosses one to the old man.

A thank you would be nice.

Thank you.

Snowblowers have stopped. The dog continues to bark. Kids are throwing snowballs. Bobby and Walter look at the nearly empty table.

It’s almost all gone. What have we got to show for it?

Bobby shakes his head and pulls out a hundred dollar bill. The old man smiles.

We’re rich, says Walter.

Yeah. We’re rich.

No one is home. No lights are on. On top of the table sits ten blocks of Marijuana tightly wrapped in cellophane. Next to it, scales and small sandwich baggies. Bobby enters the trailer. 

Dad? Hey, dad. Where are you? He turns on a light and sees the pot laid out on the table. Hey, Pop. Come out, come out wherever you are, Bobby laughs. He sits on the couch and unwraps a brick of buds. He smells it, tears off a little, and pulls a pipe out of his jacket. He packs it loosely and lights the green pieces of plants. Dad? He inhales. Get out here. Come on now. Gotta sample the product. Bobby takes another hit. Dad?

The old man comes home. He looks at Bobby, who is still sitting on the couch staring into space.

Boy? Are you stoned? Bobby looks up at him. He nods his head and hits the pipe on the table. Shouldn’t be doing that, Walter tells him. That’s money you’re wasting there, boy. Bobby packs another round.

The old man sits next to Bobby and picks up the remote. He fumbles it around in his hand, drops it, and bends over to get it. Points it at the TV. Damn thing.

Bobby laughs. You’re still trying to make it work, aren’t you? The old man pushes harder on the remote.  It’s broken, dad. The screen is busted. You can’t see that? The old man still points at the screen. I’ve told you a million times.

Bobby, Walter says. If poverty teaches you anything, it’s endurance.

The old man is stretched out on the couch. Sleeping. Snoring. Bobby is asleep on the floor with empty beer cans around him.

Thelma comes in through the front door. She notices both men passed out. The older woman takes a seat on the metal folding chair. Thelma picks up a beer can and examines it. She notices the ashes on the lip of it. Some kind of makeshift ashtray. She laughs quietly. Can’t even afford a real ashtray, she says. She looks again at both her son and her husband. Like father like son, she smiles and stands. She walks to the door and looks back at them. Damn shame, Thelma cries. Damn shame. She closes the door.

She was here, Walter says. I can smell her. He sits up straight.

What’re you talking about?

Thelma. Your mom. She was here.

You dreamt that, Bobby says and lights a cigarette.  Besides. We’ve got something important to discuss.

What’s that?

Aren’t you tired of being poor?

Have been all my life.

Now is the time to do something about it.

What? What are you talking about?

Turning this place into a goldmine. Selling pot.

The old man shakes a couple of Old Style cans and finds one half filled. He drinks the warm beer and points at Bobby. Don’t get any ideas, boy. I don’t want this place turned into a crack house.

No. That’s not what I’m saying. Marijuana is legal in the surrounding states, but illegal here. Folks don’t want to drive to Michigan or Ohio or Illinois to get their fix. They’d much rather buy it from somebody here in town, the kid says. There’s always cops just over the state line waiting to bust these people. If they come here to the trailer, they don’t have to worry about that.

Right. I suppose.  I still don’t want any crackheads around the place. This is my home. Why don’t you do it at your place? asks the old man.

Too obvious. Cops would catch on. The trailer is perfect, Bobby looks at his dad. This is our chance, old man. This is it. I got money saved up for a large purchase.  Good stuff. Grown in a hothouse down in Kentucky. These folks will eat it up.

You gonna advertise?

Spread it by word of mouth. You’ll see. And when we get enough money, we’ll leave this dump. What do you say?

You know. Thelma was here this morning. She was here.

A red rusted Ford truck sits on blocks in the yard. Trailer park cats crawl all over it. Everywhere there are cats, under the hood, on the ripped black leather seat, lying on the cracked dashboard, in the back where the truck’s bed has become one big litter box with weeds growing in it. Holes from BB guns have pierced the side. Kids take target practice in the afternoons. The windshield is broken.

Walter lights a cigarette butt, trying desperately to suck down what poison there still is. He burns the tips of his calloused fingers and places them in his mouth. He sucks on the digits like a baby.

The old man thinks of the other night. Was it real? he asks out loud. Was she really here? He shakes his head and rattles a beer can. Some warm beer is left mixed with ashes from hand-rolled cigarettes. He drinks it down in one gulp and wipes his mouth. Rattles the can a little more. There is nothing left.

No more, he says. That’s that. He walks around the room and picks up empty cans of Old Style, and shakes them. The old man hears nothing. Not a drop of beer in any of them. Coffee, he whispers. I need coffee and about five Tylenol. He walks back to the bathroom where the sound of piss hitting water pleases him. Just like a racehorse, he tells himself.  I still got it. The rug around the toilet is urine soaked. He goes through the medicine cabinet, but nothing is there except a bottle of cough suppressant. He opens it and downs what is left.

There is knocking on the door. He yells to hold on. The beating gets louder. Are you back to haunt me?  Bobby makes his way inside by pushing the door open and knocking Walter to the floor. Bobby laughs.

He walks in with a six-pack and a bag filled with small bottles of Fireball. He holds them high over his head as the old man jumps for the bag and a beer.

Yeah. I got something for you, the kid says. MerryfuckingChristmas. He reaches into the brown bag and tosses a bottle to the old man. Walter opens it quickly. Unscrewing the cap and spilling some on the floor. Don’t waste it,  Bobby tells him. Savor it. Just take it nice and slow. The old man tries but can’t resist. He downs the cinnamon liquid in a quick gulp and begs for a beer.

You want a chaser? Bobby asks. The old man shakes his head. Bobby hands him a can of Coors. It’s Christmas, he says. It’s Christmas.

Thank you.

Sure.

I didn’t get you anything, Walter tells Bobby.

I didn’t expect you would. Now. Let’s get down to business.

Orange, red, and green lights begin to glow through windows on the trailer. They blink on and off to the beat of a dragging muffler. A loud bass beat is heard as well. Boom boom, it goes into evening. A game of basketball is played with a milk crate makeshift basket. No backboard, just a black crate with the words Dairy Fresh on the sides nailed to a pole. Opossums rummage through trash cans.

The old man sits on the couch as Bobby paces the room. Four Old Styles on the table. Each has a beer in their hand.

You telling me she was here last night? Bobby asks. In the flesh? Wasn’t some ghost, was it? Some apparition?

No. She was here. She stood there, Walter points at the wall, looking at your artwork.

This is a figment of your imagination. I’m gonna quit bringing you booze, Bobby sits on the folding chair. It’s that Fireball.  Shit will make you crazy.

No, no, no. I’m as sane as you are. Granted, you’re crazier than ten niggers. But, no. She was here. We talked. Said I hadn’t changed.

Well. That’s true.

She has gray hair now. No longer blonde.

That so? Bobby moves over to Walter on the couch. Why do you have to lie to me? Mom’s either dead or living some place else. Cause she ain’t here. She doesn’t come to visit you. He picks up the four remaining beers and heads to the door.

No. No. Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.

I’m outta here.

Just leave me one, Walter begs. Just one.

Bobby tears a beer from the plastic and throws it at the old man like a fastball. It hits the floor and rolls. The old man gets on his hands and knees and chases it.

That’s your salvation. Bobby tells him. Hold onto it. Might be the last one you get. He exits the trailer.

Walter sits on the floor and opens the foamy beer. He begins to cry.

A cat in heat is heard outside the trailer. Over and over the animal moans. A tall woman with gray hair pulled back in a ponytail looks at the drawings on the wall. She runs her finger over the stick figures and mouths, Bobby was here. The cat is still squealing.

The woman plays kick the can in the living room and looks around the place. A broken TV,  cushions and springs exposed on a couch, nothing has changed since she left some time ago. Everything is broken. She crushes the beer can with her heel.

Thelma left Walter and Bobby behind a couple of years ago. She and the old man would argue till early morning every night. She threw plates at him, glasses, turned over the table. She’d scream out at Walter. Tell him what a terrible husband he was. The old man just put on his hat most nights and went to the local drinking hole where he’d forget about her for a while, only to come back and find her asleep on the hideaway bed with Bobby in her arms.

Down the hall, the toilet begins to run again. The old man yells at it and kicks the base of the commode. He jiggles the handle and laughs. Nothing works, he says. Nothing.

Walter walks into the front room and sees Thelma standing there. They both look at each other in silence as the toilet stops running. The old man holds out his arms. Thelma does not move.

What’re you doing here? Walter asks. You still have a key? Thelma nods her head. You always had the prettiest green eyes. The kind of eyes that catch you. Make you feel something.

Thelma picks up an empty bottle of Fireball off the floor. Some things never change, she tells him. You still running?

Running?

From truth.

I never lied to you.

No. I guess not. You just made things difficult. Drinking made things difficult, she walks over to the door. See you around. Softly, she closes the door. Walter sits on the couch. He puts his hands over his ears and screams, which turns into wild laughter. The cat is still moaning outside.

A cigarette burns in the dark. Orange glow of the butt dances around the room. A beer can is popped open. Foamy liquid drips on the floor. Nobody bothers to clean it up. It is silent and Bobby takes a seat on the folding chair, looking at his dad lying on the couch. The old man drools and tosses under the blanket.

You were never any good, Bobby says. Lazy. Just plain lazy, he whispers. Bobby drinks from the Old Style can and gurgles it in his mouth while walking over to the old man. He then stands over him and spits it out on his face.

What the hell? the old man yells. Bobby laughs like a child on a playground. He takes another swig and spits it out at his pop again. Boy, dad yells. You better stop if you know what’s good for you. The old man sits up and looks around. Where am I? he asks. What are you doing here?

Just thought I’d pay you a visit, Bobby says. Thought I’d see how the other half lives.

What other half is that?

You old man. The local gentry.

Huh. Is that so? Hand me one of those beers. If you would. I always wake up thirsty. Always a dry mouth. Like I got cotton in it.

A cotton mouth?

Yeah.

Like the snake?

I don’t know about that. They both laugh. Yeah. A cotton mouth. Why you think they call them cotton mouths?

Don’t know. Bobby tosses the old man a beer. He clumsily catches it. Looks at the can. It’s sweating. The old man runs his fingers over it.

You could’ve just handed it to me, the old man says. Like a white person.

Bobby laughs. They both sit there drinking. Not saying a word. Light is coming through the windows. A dove begins to sing. Some old frog is croaking. Mice scurry across the floor. Neither one of them  notice.

Let’s talk, dad. Let’s talk about something real. You wanna do that? Talk about something real. The old man guzzles more beer. He looks at Bobby. He drinks more.

Why do you come here? Do you enjoy torturing me? Your mother tortures me.

Tortured, dad. Past tense.

Whatever. She makes me feel like a fool. But, I still love her.

You loved her?

I do. Present tense.