Cross Country Murder Song (25 page)

He believed in the science of the game and in the body language of the players who played it, not in luck, the elusive, irresistible magic that some people approached it with, seeking out a higher power to help them out. They thought that winning hung above the table like so much cigar smoke. He'd sneer, but even he started looking for talismans once he started losing. He'd lost before, but this streak was as consistent as the winning one had been. One day, like finding the first grey hair, he realised that things had changed; he stopped seeing the inevitable weakness in the way people played. There was no unknowing semaphore being signalled to him and then he was back to feeling like he'd felt years ago when that first punch had landed. He'd suddenly lose his nerve, just looking for a way out. He couldn't bluff any more, and whether it was paranoia or not, he sensed the other players picking up on his fear. He started to make more and more mistakes. He'd fold too early or he'd hold on until it was too late. He found a quarter and it became his lucky quarter; he'd keep it in his front pocket when he played and he'd pat it for assurance when the game was getting away from him. He started his own rituals before he left his mother's house; the lamp in his room was to remain on while he was out playing; if his father was coming to get him, as he inevitably did, then he had to knock three times and three times only and he had to be the one to open the door to him. His mother, who had been exhausted by her husband's slide into ritualistic madness, was happily ignorant of her son's new-found habits so had opened the door to her estranged husband when he'd come to pick Jack up one night. He came running from the bathroom when he realised what had happened and started to scream at her.

You've ruined it, he shouted. I can't win now, and he ran into his room, slamming his door so hard that it shook the frame of their house. She looked at her estranged husband in the cooling silence and recognised what the father had passed down to the son and she quietly closed the door in his face.

The father watched the son from a distance, knowing the terrible feeling of being found out, of sliding ever backwards no matter how hard you dug your fingers in or worked your legs. He tried to talk to his son one night when he was driving him home, but he looked appalled and untrusting; restless in his seat and over two hundred dollars down. Whereas once he'd enter rooms and other players would look unsettled, they now pushed a seat back and made room for him, toasted his arrival. He was slowly becoming the punchline to their jokes.

I'm not like you, he said to his dad, I'm just playing the odds. You can't be a winner every time. His father took his son calling him a loser quietly.

And then one night on the drive back home from another game without resolution or profit he suddenly shouted out and threw a protective arm in front of his father's chest.

Hey, he said, you just ran a stop sign.

The road was quiet. One car came slowly around the corner and drifted past with its window half-open. The car's driver had the radio on.

What are you talking about? asked his father. What stop sign?

The one you just ran, said Jack, exasperated. His father checked behind him and slowly reversed back on the road they'd just driven down. He pulled over and flipped his hazard lights on and looked around.

What stop sign, Jack? he asked. Jack got out of the car and looked around. It was dark now and the car's headlights only emphasised the bewilderment on his face. He walked to the kerb and looked up and down as if angling his head might cause the sign to reveal itself. He walked back to the car avoiding his father's concerned stare.

I'm okay, he said, but he was scared and that night he slept with the bed-clothes pulled up to his chin like he did when he was very young and was afraid of things not seen, but heard, he imagined, somewhere beyond the window.

When he was a young man, before his son had been born and before the fighting and the divorce, Jack's father had lived for a while in a small apartment block in West Hollywood. Chronic gambling losses hadn't yet shaken his self-belief and shown him the fallibility that underpinned his existence. He was still to learn that the infrastructure of his life was rotten, that it was only a matter of time before the beams holding everything in place crumbled to dust. Ashes to ashes, he'd later think as the debts mounted up and the cards stacked themselves against him. That was later though, he was still carefree and drunk and celebrating the turn of those self-same cards when he was pulled over for drunk driving on the Strip.

I'm a winner, he told the policeman as he was ordered out of the car and stood there smiling stupidly. Cars honked their horns at him as they went by, their headlights washing over him, bleaching his features as he swayed delicately. The officer stood in silhouette, taking down his details in a small notepad. He was given a mandatory fine and ordered to attend driving school. The judge didn't even look up as he told him this. Lyle stood there a moment wanting to state his side of things, how he'd only been celebrating his win, when the court clerk took him firmly by the elbow and guided him towards the door. As he turned to go the judge looked up at him. He was hawk-nosed and looked peevish, though his eyes suggested that they might once have looked kindly on things.

The driving school was in a low squat building that acted as a community college in the daytime, and became a warren of night classes and group meetings in the evening. He passed a half dozen open doors with notes taped or pinned to them, offering everything from AA counselling to wine appreciation, which made him smile. He looked at the people inside the rooms and they looked at him, he wondered what purpose or circumstances had drawn or propelled them there. He found his room at the end of the corridor, it was a prefabricated extension tagged on to the original building by the parking lot that was currently covered in regimented rows of red traffic cones. Out there someone was revving their engine furiously before skidding backwards and crushing some cones and scattering others. The cones regained their shape as soon as the wheels had passed over them as if they were designed with accidents in mind, which, he supposed, they must have been. The car idled to a stop and crept forward again and then a man with a clipboard ran forward and hit the car's roof and hood angrily with the board.

Those kids are just learning, they'll get it, said the man who had just walked into the room behind him. He was the only person in the room wearing a tie and a smile so he assumed he must be in charge.

I'm Mr Lee, he said, turning to write the words traffic and school on the board behind him. Someone in the class – they were seated at desks so it really felt like they were freshmen starting a new year – said Hello Mr Lee and everyone turned to look at them.

Now, said Mr Lee, handing out folders, we're all here for a reason, so let's get you all a credit and then back out on the road.

Lyle looked around the room and decided that he didn't want half of these people back on the road. Some of them looked shifty and dangerous, others looked like the only reason they'd want to get their car back was because it was where they lived. Somebody was sleeping at the back of the class, head hanging dangerously back, an arm dangling by their side. Whoever he was he was in a chef's smock that looked oily and damp, his hair hung back in black strands, a hairnet lay on the floor beneath his seat. Lyle decided he'd find out where he worked so he'd never mistakenly go in there to eat.

Must have been a long shift, said Mr Lee, smiling. Could someone wake him, please. The chef was prodded and came to coughing; he looked surprised to see everyone and then made himself busy with the folder in front of him. To avoid getting points on your licence you had to show the State that the rudimentaries of driving weren't lost on you, you knew at what distance to indicate before a junction, not to chug beer at the wheel of your car, how many feet it took to stop if some crazy bastard in front of you suddenly stood on the brakes.

You never know when a child might step out, Mr Lee said on more than one occasion, conjuring up a world where a child waited hidden on every corner for a racing car to crest the hill so that they could throw themselves bodily into the headlights. The State wasn't worried about children in wait though, Lyle thought. It was like the church; all it wanted was an admission of guilt and penance paid. Driving drunk, speeding, letting parking fines pile up, they were all sins to be absolved, come prostrate yourself before the altar of California's traffic laws, Lyle thought. Bow down before Mr Lee because Mr Lee was the conduit and, perhaps most importantly, he truly believed in the message he was sending.

In the break, he went out to the yard among the smokers and took out his pack of cards and practised his finite array of tricks. He shuffled exaggeratedly and dragged the cards out in long curves on the concrete. He drew a small crowd as he always did; it was always good for finding dates, though this time they were mainly a group of people he already knew. They were, for the most part, drunk or dangerous drivers like him who wanted to avoid losing their licence.

Where'd you learn to do that? asked the chef who'd fallen asleep in his hairnet.

Just picked it up, he said casually, checking to see if any of the women standing around him were listening. By the end of the break he had a half dozen of them playing poker for matches.

Poker's fun, one of them said and by the end of the second session of driving school they were playing for dollar bills just to keep things interesting. He was flunking theory, he couldn't believe how much of the highway code he'd forgotten, but was mopping up with each card game. He'd take the bus back home after class and count the wad of bills in his wallet. His fellow drivers provided his pin money and then he'd go out and parlay it into real winnings. At least that was his plan.

It's like you're not trying to pass, Lyle, Mr Lee said to him one day. They were standing in a hallway that smelled and sounded like his old school, every school, he imagined; even the squeak of his sneakers on the vinyl floor could transport him back in time. The daylight coming through the windows was watery and he felt the anticipation of the ringing bell that would fill the corridor and take him to another class. His old friends weren't here though, the only person mooching toward them was someone weighed down with kitchen utensils heading for an advanced cooking class.

Do you need more help? asked Mr Lee. He couldn't help but like Mr Lee. He really seemed to care about his class, he only wanted what was best for him. Mr Lee, he figured, would make a good dad.

Do you have kids? he asked him, but Mr Lee blanched at the question. His brow tightened and he looked indignant and then curious.

Is that meant to be funny? he replied peevishly and that's when Jack's dad realised that Mr Lee was gay.

I didn't mean anything by it, he said. I've got nothing against . . . he let the words go. Mr Lee was a dwindling, squeaking image striding towards the end of the hallway by then. It didn't help matters later when Mr Lee caught their card school playing for money in their break; there was no way he was going to talk his way out of it then.

You failed driving school? asked the judge. Who fails driving school? Lyle leant forward to respond but he was shushed with a raised finger.

I was being rhetorical, he said. I think we all know that I was talking about you. The judge gave a sly smile. Did you win your card game, at least? he asked and then held up his palm. I really don't want you to answer that.

He took the points on his licence and swore to himself that he'd only celebrate victory once he'd got home from here on in. It wasn't a difficult promise to keep. His winning streak began to wane shortly after and he'd often find himself driving home stone sober, his pockets and heart empty, his promising start as a card shark stilled. He didn't know it, but his winning ways were already over. All the sadness and bitterness was ahead of him. He still believed that every next game was the elusive big win. Even at his lowest ebb he would console himself with the thought that he had the redemption of gambling to save him somehow. He didn't realise that gambling had him.

What's wrong with you today? his father asked him as another of his picks lagged behind in the final straight. Once, the track had unified them, brought them together as father and son over a handful of yellow betting slips, but now they bickered and moaned as their stock dwindled and their horses limped home. The card games were no better. They'd argue on the journey home, his father criticising his son's lack of game face.

You're kidding, Jack said, you're an open fucking book when you're at the table. It takes a certain kind of skill to lose that consistently and you've been doing it for years.

Hey, said his father, I taught you how to play this game; you wouldn't even have poker if it wasn't for me. And he knew it was true; that his father had given him the means to fleeting elation, the tools to ruin his life and drive him slowly mad.

Stop, he said, but his father ignored his cries as road signs now seemed to rise out of the street to confound Jack at every turn. At first he thought his son was faking it, using it as an excuse for his losses at the card table, but the obstacles were as real to his son as his failings were to him and they increased with every folded hand and every squandered stake. His highway was littered with signs, the detritus of loss made physical in his mind's eye. The doctor had prescribed anti-depressants, but Jack had flushed them away when they had made him sluggish and dull. Even when he was taking them the figures and signs had still been stood at the roadside when he drove by. Now he'd cross junctions to the blaring of horns and the squealing, hastily turned wheels of other cars as he refused to believe his own eyes. He played his last hand in the smoky garage where he'd started out and when he misjudged what he thought was a bluff and lost the meagre pot in front of him he pushed back from the table and asked his father for the keys to the car, telling him that he needed the last of the money he had in his jacket pocket so that he could play another hand. He let himself out of the side door and watched the smoke follow him out into the night. He started the car and began to drive slowly away. Up ahead he spotted a stop sign and increased his speed and drove straight at it. It wavered, softened and disappeared. He passed his mother's house and kept on going in the hope that the distance would stop the pulsing in his head. He clipped another road sign, a real one as it turned out, and laughed as it put a dent in the wing of his father's car. By tomorrow it wouldn't matter, he'd be gone.