Our Lady of the Forest (28 page)

Midmorning he went to see Pin in his office. The small television was on, as always—a cable news program airing a feature on two Seattle lesbian performance artists who were opening a coffee shop. There was that curious smell of something Indian, Pin's pomade, rank sweet sweat, carpet shampoo, cardamom. I am very glad you are here, said Pin. I am very glad to see you, Mr. Cross. I am wanting to speak to you.

There's probably a few things to do, said Tom, with all these people around.

Pin was perched on his stool, ensconced—a caged bird clutching a dowel. I am very happy to have customers, he said. Very very happy for business.

Anyone would be, I guess.

So I am happy for the Virgin Mary. That she has decided to come and bring so many customers to stay at my motel.

A gold mine, said Tom. Except—they break things. And tax the septic system.

Pin tangled his thin caramel arms in front of him so as to lean on the back of one wrist. I do not understand, he said. Gold a mine?

Gold mine.

Is that somebody?

A mine. Where you dig gold. Where you dig gold out of the ground.

We are not digging gold.

It's a saying—you know. It means with the Virgin Mary here this motel is like a gold mine.

Pin rubbed behind one ear with the flat of his little finger. An unsanitary public gesture, thought Tom. But apparently that's how they did things in India. How I wish, said Pin, that yes, for a gold mine. But I possess seventeen cabins.

He didn't get it. A figure of speech. Well maybe you can build some more soon, said Tom. With all the money coming in.

Pin raised an eyebrow. Yes, he said. In the future more cabins will help my business. But for now I am having seventeen.

Tom began to grasp what was coming, but only with raw disbelief. More cabins, more maintenance, he said.

Yes more maintenance always, said Pin. But right now I must rent sixteen cabins. Because you are living in one, Mr. Cross. You are in Cabin Seventeen.

Seventeen minus one is sixteen—right. So that's sixteen still needing maintenance.

Pin untangled his arms slowly and began to straighten up the things on the counter—his stack of business cards, his check-in slips, his motel postcards, his pen. Every day, he said, the followers of the Virgin Mary are asking me do I rent a room even when they can see from the road my No Vacancy sign.

What a nuisance. Can't they read?

I must wish to have more cabins, Mr. Cross.

Why don't you just stop beating around the bush?

I am not beating.

You're playing games. You know what I mean. Don't pretend you don't know English. You all speak English in India. It's one of your national languages.

Pin now folded his hands in front of him. A clerk or bureaucrat at his desk, protected. Please do not be angry, he said. Please let us be peaceful.

Tom drummed his fingers against the counter. It is every day each room single bed forty-nine dollars, said Pin. In one week three hundred fifty dollars. In one month one thousand four hundred dollars. So you can see—very difficult.

A plumber's forty an hour, answered Tom. A gardener is fifteen or twenty dollars. I already give you one-sixty a month. I don't think you're really behind.

So I must increase your rent payment every week to two hundred and fifty dollars.

Tom felt himself clench inwardly. Jesus, he said. Jesus Christ. In this country we've got a name for that. It's god damn highway robbery.

Please do not be angry, Mr. Cross. I am very much sorry. No angry.

Jesus, man. You're ripping me off.

Nobody is ripping off, Mr. Cross.

Tom picked up the stack of business cards. Tired Traveler's Guesthouse, he read. I liked it better as the R&M. I understood those people.

Pin said nothing. He looked cowed but defiant at some obscure level. Somebody who knew the rules, if nothing else. Somebody counting on the rules. Be that as it may, his chin now trembled. Tom tapped the business cards against the counter. Fuck you Pin, he said.

Please you must not say bad things, Mr. Cross.

This is the bottom, Tom said. You people… you come in here. Treat me like this. In my own home town. Screw me over. Try to jew me. It doesn't get any lower.

He threw the stack of business cards at Pin's fax machine. They hit the wall with a slap and scattered. Pin picked up the telephone receiver. I am calling a policeman, he announced.

Go right ahead, Tom said. You don't know anyone in this town.

He pushed through the door and went to his cabin, where he sat on the bed for a few minutes first, then at the table smoking calmly until Nelson showed up in a cruiser. Tom watched with a calculated distance. Nelson got out and adjusted his shirttail, pulled at his belt, and ran a hand through his hair, eliciting in Tom an immense disdain and the memory of wrestling Nelson in high school, of dislocating his shoulder junior year, the expression of pain on Nelson's face, he hadn't handled pain with dignity, he'd let himself look pathetic when injured, and so be it, thought Tom. It was not a bad thing to have at hand. Nelson locked the door to his cruiser, no doubt according to some protocol, the 12-gauge shotgun was still inside, and went confidently into Pin's office. Tom smoked with giddy patience. Lit the next from the butt of the last. Enjoying the veil of inevitability that lay over everything now. Finally Nelson crossed the parking lot, swaggering, and knocked on Tom's cabin door. Open, called Tom, it all felt foreordained, and Nelson came in without caution. Throwing business cards—Nelson sniggered. What is it with this little brown greaseball? I got better things to do.

Like what?

You know you don't even have to ask. I was just heading out to the campground.

Sit down if you want.

I gotta get out there.

There's a chair if you want it.

For a minute, said Nelson. Then back to Ms. Mushroom and her fans.

He looked more tired than usual—his eyelids were gray and swollen. His cheeks had a jaundiced, sallow cast, the plastic complexion of a corpse, a cadaver. And he was carrying more weight than ever before, fat everywhere, Nelson was swelling, his gut, thighs, face. The brunt of cop jokes—donuts, maple bars. I never met this guy, he told Tom.

From India.

I figured that.

That little Hindu raised my rent a million dollars suddenly. Now that he's got all these people coming in the guy turns on me.

Your place looks like a gun shop, Tom.

I helped him out a million times. Tried to get him straightened out. Went out of my way for him.

What's that over there?

It's a forty-four-caliber black-powder revolver. Take a look if you want.

Nelson didn't, waved Tom off. My brother had one but in stainless steel, he said. Except with a nice brass trigger guard. Which he got in Texas when he went down bass fishing.

That greaseball wants me out of here.

Well what do you expect?

I don't learn I guess.

This Korean's got the laundromat. Same deal. Slant-eyed money-grubber.

Well forget it now, Tom answered.

Nelson nodded sympathetically and set his elbows against his knees—locker room tête-à-tête, halftime. The easy thing—don't throw his business cards. It makes me have to do something, okay? It makes me have to react.

Fuck you.

It puts me in a bind. He's scared of you. I'm supposed to be reaming you out right now. Kicking you out. Restraining order. The guy feels like you're dangerous, Tom. He doesn't want you around.

I am dangerous.

Don't tell me that.

I want to kick his little brown ass.

Don't do it, Tom. I'm telling you not to do it. You smack him around, it comes back on me. Because here I am just slapping your wrist. And then let's say—assault, you waste him. You kick his head in. Kick his ass. Well then that Hindu's going somewhere else. And I get accused of racism or something. The state or someone gets down on me. The department of whatever kicks
my
ass.

Things are fucked up.

I gotta show I'm following the rules. This is America. Land of the free. You ever listen to these rap people like this nigger who calls himself Snoop Doggy Dogg? Kill cops, freedom of speech? So how we gonna stop your landlord?

Tom shook his head. It's bullshit, he said. Jesus.

Calm, said Nelson. Keep it together. I'm way too busy for this type of call. So don't throw his business cards next time.

I can't afford to pay a thousand bucks a month to park my ass in this miserable dump.

Well you rob a bank I'll catch you, Tom.

Isn't there some rule about notice or something? He's gotta give me a month or something? Before he can raise the rent?

Nelson smiled. Hey, he said. Come on. Slow down. You're the one threw the business cards. That little grease monkey didn't do anything the law doesn't let him do anyway. It's a free country—didn't I say that? He can charge whatever he wants, can't he? For a room in his motel?

Tom snuffed his cigarette against his bootheel. Maybe you could get him deported, Nelson. Why don't you check his green card or something? Get him out of here?

Nelson stood, tucked his shirt, felt his belly. It isn't him that's gotta get out. It's you, Tom, if you can't meet his price.

All right, said Tom. I see where you stand.

I stand just where I have to stand. Not necessarily where I want to.

Right.

It is right.

Fuck you too.

Why don't you talk to him? Apologize? Try to work something out?

Tom put his boots up casually on the table, laced his fingers at the back of his head. Apologize my ass, he said.

Calm, said Nelson. I appeal for calm. I think you should give it time, calm down. You've got too much on your plate now, Tom. Try to be peaceful about it.

His wife's got an ass.

I noticed that.

Well let me sit here and think about it.

Good move, said Nelson.

He left and Tom thought for less than five minutes. Then he began to pack his things. Packing felt redemptive, cleansing. There was always the option of clearing out and it felt right to embrace that. How easy it was; flight, retreat. Tom didn't own much. He liked it that way. Traveling light and unencumbered. A fugitive and his earthly possessions. He didn't pack in orderly fashion, but neither was he careless about it. His rage, as always, was pointed outward—a searchlight blinding whomever it illuminated. At the same time he felt like a deer caught in headlights. The moment before roadkill. Deer and driver. His rage reflected back on him. Tom knew well about dire straits but these were deeper circumstances. Yet there was no point in ruining or losing anything, his binoculars or steelheading reel. His possessions had value, suddenly, as possessions do for the shipwrecked.

When everything was laid out across the bed he double-locked the door behind him and walked toward the maintenance shed. Maybe Pin was watching from the window. It didn't matter. Tom didn't check. Let Pin feel how Pin felt. Jabari's cleaning cart, at Cabin Fifteen, was tucked up under the moss-covered eaves. She knew everything by now, of course. Well let her stew while she cleaned her toilets and turned up her nose at American excrement. Let her ponder the maintenance man who smelled of nicotine and wouldn't go away. Intrepid of her to have ventured forth while Tom the Terrible yet lurked on the premises, man-eating tiger drags woman to her death, villager washing sari in stream pulled under by massive crocodile. But were there crocodiles in India? It hadn't been covered at North Fork High School. He'd never seen it on the Discovery Channel. Pin, on the other hand, was holed up, a house rat. He wasn't going to show his caramel face. So Tom went into the maintenance shed and took a tarp and skein of twine, an act of petty larceny. They weren't his. But who used them other than he, Joe Maintenance? Pin didn't even know the tarp existed. Tom had folded it, kept the twine neat, and left them there in their places. It wasn't theft except technically. He was borrowing his own work supplies. It was raining and he would need a tarp. Tom went out with it under his arm. Tom Cross, tarp owner.

He ran the defroster. More deliberation. He double-parked in front of his cabin, trapping a Chrysler minivan. In plain sight of Pin if Pin was watching. Tom put his firearms and fishing rods on the seat where rain couldn't get to them. Also his cartons of shells and rifle rounds, his tackle boxes, his reels, his binoculars, his knives, his fifth of Crown Royal, and his hunting boots. Collected talismans—he locked them in.

At the table he wrote a note—all caps.
I FIGURE THE MATTRESS IS WORTH FIFTY DOLLARS SO HERE
'
S YOUR FIFTY FOR IT
. That was all. Three tens and a twenty. He was not a thief, wouldn't stoop to stealing. They were going to have to be happy with that. What else was there to say? The whole time I wanted to fuck your wife and I'll bet you Pin she wanted to fuck me? In fact we did it in Cabin Nine every day while you watched
As the World Turns
? Tom spread the tarp across the floor with the twine placed in forethought underneath it and hauled the mattress in one move off the box frame with his clothes and worldly possessions piled on and wrapped everything, the mattress and his personal items, afterward it looked like something from a horror movie or perhaps recovered from an archaeological dig, the jute twine lashed a tight dozen wraps including a pair of slipknotted loop handles, the clean mean package of a physical perfectionist, of someone devoted to the things of this world, to trim and tackle, gear, equipment, everything always had to be right if it involved objects in the spatial realm, but what other way was there to do things? It only felt good this single way. It was always worth the effort it took. Tom felt primeval satisfaction.

He broke camp. Last go-round. Heat off. Shades pulled. Drawers checked. Under the bed. Tom allowed himself a weird short pause, a paltry sentimental moment. Bachelor-pad blues? Well better than homeless. Pine board walls and cable television. He'd hung his hat, put his feet on the bed. Anyway, he thought, go fuck this place. He pulled the wrapped mattress out into the rain and muscled it into the bed of his pick-up, shut the cabin door and double-locked it. As usual in his adult life, everything unimportant was in order.