The Hotel Eden: Stories (24 page)

In the morning, Sunday, I didn’t go home, but drove way down by Ayr Oxygen Company to the Roadrunner, the truck stop there on McDowell adjacent to the freeway. It was the first day I’d ever been sore and I walked carefully to the coffee shop. I sat alone at the counter, eating eggs and bacon and toast and coffee, feeling the night tick away in every sinew the way a car cools after a long drive. It was an effort to breathe and at times I had to stop and gulp some air, adjusting myself on the counter stool. Around me it was only truck drivers who had driven all night from Los Angeles, Sacramento, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City. There was only one woman in the place, a large woman in a white waitress dress who moved up and down the counter pouring coffee. When she poured mine, I looked up at her and our eyes locked, I mean her head tipped and her face registered something I’d never seen before. If I used such words I’d call it
horror
, but I don’t. My old heart bucked. I thought of my Professor Whisner and Western Civ; if it was what I was personally doing, then it was in tough shape. The gravity of the moment between the waitress and myself was such that I was certain to my toenails I’d been seen: she knew all about me.

T
HAT WEEK
I
GAVE
Nadine my notice, reminding her that I would be leaving in ten days, mid-September, to go back to school. “Well, sonnyboy, I hope we didn’t work your wheels off.” She leaned back, letting me know there was more to say.

”No, ma’am. It’s been a good summer.”

“We think so too,” she said. “Come by and I’ll have your last check cut early, so we don’t have to mail it.”

“Thanks, Nadine.” I moved to the door; I had a full day of deliveries.

“Old Gil Benson is going to miss you, I think.”

“I’ve met a lot of nice people,” I said. I wanted to deflect this and get going.

“No,” she said, “you’ve been good to him; it’s important. Some of these old guys don’t have much to look forward to. He’s called several times. I might as well tell you. Mr. Ayr heard about it and is writing you a little bonus.

I stepped back toward her. “What?”

“Congratulations.” She smiled. “Drive carefully.”

I walked slowly out to the truck. I cinched the chain hitches in the back of my Ford, securing the cylinders, climbed wearily down to the asphalt, which was already baking at half past eight, and pulled myself into the driver’s seat. In the rearview mirror I could see Victor and Jesse standing in the shadows. I was tired.

Some of my customers knew I was leaving and made kind remarks or shook my hand or had their wife hand me an envelope with a twenty in it. I smiled and nodded gratefully and then turned businesslike to the dolly and left. These were strange goodbyes, because there was no question that we would ever see each other again. It had been a summer and I had been their oxygen guy. But there was more: I was young and they were ill. I stood in the bedroom doors in Sun City and said, “Take care,” and I moved to the truck and felt something, but I couldn’t even today tell you what it was. The people who didn’t know, who said, “See you next week, David,” I didn’t correct them. I said, “See you,” and I left their homes too. It all had me on edge.

The last day of my job in the summer of 1967, I drove to work under a cloud cover as thick as twilight in winter and still massing. It began to rain early and I made the quick decision to beat the Salt River flooding by hitting Mesa first and Scottsdale in the afternoon. I had known for a week that I did not want Gil Benson to be my last call for the summer, and this rain, steady but light, gave me the excuse I wanted. Of course, it was nuts to think I could get out to Mesa before the crossings were flooded. And by now, mid-September, all the drivers were wise to the monsoon and headed for the Tempe Bridge as soon as they saw overcast. The traffic was colossal, and I crept in a huge column of cars east across the river, noting it was twice as bad coming back, everyone trying to get to Phoenix for the day. My heart was only heavy, not fearful or nervous, as I edged forward. What I am saying is that I had time to think about it all, this summer, myself, and it was a powerful stew. The radio wouldn’t finish a song, “Young Girl,” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap or “Cherish,” by the Association without interrupting with a traffic bulletin about crossing the river.

I imagined it raining in the hills of Boulder, Colorado, Linda Enright selling cookies in her apron in a shop with curtains, a Victorian tearoom, ten years ahead of itself as it turned out, her sturdy face with no expression telling she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and that now she had been for thirty days betrayed. I thought, and this is the truth, I thought for the first time of what I was going to say
last
to Elizabeth Rensdale. I tried to imagine it, and my imagination failed. I tried again, I mean, I really tried to picture us there in the entry of the Scottsdale townhouse speaking to each other, which we had never, ever done. When I climbed from her bed the nights I’d gone to her, it was just that, climbing out, dressing, and crossing to the door. She didn’t get up. This wasn’t
Casablanca
or
High Noon
, or
Captain Blood
, which I had seen this summer, this was getting laid in a hot summer desert town by your father’s oxygen deliveryman. There was no way to make it anything else, and it was too late as I moved through Tempe toward Mesa and Gil Benson’s outpost to make it anything else. We were not going to hold each other’s faces in our hands and whisper; we were not going to stand speechless in the shadows. I was going to try to get her pants off one more time and let her see me. That was it. I shifted in my truck seat and drove.

Even driving slowly, I fishtailed through the red clay along Gil’s road. The rain had moved in for the day, persistent and even, and the temperature stalled and hovered at about a hundred. I thought Gil would be pleased to see me so soon in the day, because he was always glad to see me, welcomed me, but I surprised him this last Friday knocking at the door for five full minutes before he unlocked the door, looking scared. Though I had told him I would eventually be going back to college, I hadn’t told him this was my last day. I didn’t want any this or that, just the little visit and the drive away. I wanted to get to Scottsdale.

Shaken up like he was, things went differently. There was no chatter right off the bat, no sitting down at the table. He just moved things out of the way as I wheeled the oxygen in and changed tanks. He stood to one side, leaning against the counter. When I finished, he made no move to keep me there, so I just kept going. I wondered for a moment if he knew who I was or if he was just waking up. At the front door, I said, “There you go, good luck, Gil.” His name quickened him and he came after me with short steps in his slippers.

“Well, yes,” he started as always, “I wouldn’t need this stuff at all if I’d stayed out of the war.” And he was off and cranking. But when I went outside, he followed me into the rain. “Of course, I was strong as a horse and came back and got right with it. I mean, there wasn’t any sue-the-government then. We were happy to be home. I was happy.” He went on, the rain pelting us both. His slippers were all muddy.

“You gotta go,” I told him. “It’s wet out here.” His wet skin in the flat light looked raw, the spots on his forehead brown and liquid; under his eyes the skin was purple. I’d let him get too close to the truck and he’d grabbed the door handle.

“I wasn’t sick a day in my life,” he said. “Not as a kid, not in the army. Ask my wife. When this came on,” he patted his chest, “it came on bang! Just like that and here I am. Somewhere.” His eyes, which had been looking everywhere past me, found mine and took hold. “This place!” He pointed at his ruined house. “This place!” I put my hand on his on the door handle and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pry it off without breaking it.

Then there was a hitch in the rain, a gust of wet wind, and hail began to rattle through the yard, bouncing up from the mud, bouncing off the truck and our heads. “Let me take you back inside,” I said. “Quick, Gil, let’s get out of this weather.” The hail stepped up a notch, a million mothballs ringing every surface. Gil Benson pulled the truck door open, and with surprising dexterity, he stepped up into the vehicle, sitting on all my paperwork. He wasn’t going to budge and I hated pleading with him. I wouldn’t do it. Now the hail had tripled, quadrupled, in a crashfest off the hood. I looked at Gil, shrunken and purple in the darkness of the cab; he looked like the victim of a fire.

“Well, at least we’re dry in here, right?” I said. “We’ll give it a minute.” And that’s what it took, about sixty seconds for the hail to abate, and after a couple of heavy curtains of the rain ripped across the hood as if they’d been thrown from somewhere, the world went silent and we could hear only the patter of the last faint drops. “Gil,” I said. “I’m late. Let’s go in.” I looked at him but he did not look at me. “I’ve got to go.” He sat still, his eyes timid, frightened, smug. It was an expression you use when you want someone to hit you.

I started the truck, hoping that would scare him, but he did not move. His eyes were still floating and it looked like he was grinning, but it wasn’t a grin. I crammed the truck into gear and began to fishtail along the road. I didn’t care for that second if we went off the road; the wheels roared mud. At the corner, we slid in the wet clay across the street and stopped.

I kicked my door open and jumped down into the red mud and went around the front of the truck. When I opened his door, he did not turn or look at me, which was fine with me. I lifted Gil like a bride and he clutched me, his wet face against my face. I carried him to the weedy corner lot. He was light and bony like an old bird and I was strong and I felt strong, but I could tell this was an insult the old man didn’t need. When I stood him there he would not let go, his hands clasped around my neck, and I peeled his hands apart carefully, easily, and I folded them back toward him so he wouldn’t snag me again. “Goodbye, Gil,” I said. He was an old wet man alone in the desert. He did not acknowledge me.

I ran to the truck and eased ahead for traction and when I had traction, I floored it, throwing mud behind me like a rocket.

By the time I lined up for the Tempe Bridge, the sky was torn with blue vents. The Salt River was nothing but muscle, a brown torrent four feet over the river-bottom roadway. The traffic was thick. I merged and merged again and finally funneled onto the bridge and across toward Scottsdale. A ten-mile rainbow had emerged over the McDowell Mountains.

I radioed Nadine that the rain had slowed me up and I wouldn’t make it back before five.

“No problem, sonnyboy,” she said. “I’ll leave your checks on my desk. Have you been to Scottsdale yet? Over.”

“Just now,” I said. “I’ll hit the Rensdales’ and on in. Over.”

“Sonnyboy,” she said. “Just pick up there. Mr. Rensdale died yesterday. Remember the portable unit, okay? And good luck at school. Stop in if you’re down for Christmas break. Over.”

I waited a minute to over and out to Nadine while the news subsided in me. I was on Scottsdale Road at Camelback, where I turned right. That corner will always be that radio call. “Copy. Over,” I said.

I just drove. Now the sky was ripped apart the way I’ve learned only a western sky can be, the glacial cloud cover broken and the shreds gathering against the Superstition Mountains, the blue air a color you don’t see twice a summer in the desert, icy and clear, no dust or smoke. All the construction crews in Scottsdale had given it up and the bright lumber on the sites sat dripping in the afternoon sun. They had taken the day off from changing this place.

In front of the Rensdales’ townhouse I felt odd going to the door with the empty dolly. I rang the bell, and after a moment Elizabeth appeared. She was barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt, and she just looked at me. “I’m sorry about your father,” I said. “This is tough.” She stared at me and I held the gaze. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

She drifted back into the house. It felt for the first time strange and cumbersome to be in the dark little townhouse. She had the air conditioning cranked way up so that I could feel the edge of a chill on my arms and neck as I pulled the dolly up the stairs to Mr. Rensdale’s room. It had been taken apart a little bit, the bed stripped, our gear all standing in the corner. With Mr. Rensdale gone you could see what the room was, just a little box in the desert. Looking out the window over the pool and the two dozen tiled roofs before the edge of the Indian reservation and the sage and creosote bushes, it seemed clearly someplace to come and die. The mountains, now all rinsed by rain, were red and purple, a pretty lie.

“I’m going back Friday.” Elizabeth had come into the room. “I guess I’ll go back to school.”

“Good,” I said. “Good idea.” I didn’t know what I was saying. The space in my heart about returning to school was nothing but dread.

“They’re going to bury him tomorrow.” She sat on the bed. “Out here somewhere.”

I started to say something about that, but she pointed at me. “Don’t come. Just do what you do, but don’t come to the funeral. You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” I said. Her tone had hurt, made me mad.

“My mother and sister will be here tonight,” she said.

“I want to,” I said. I walked to the bed and put my hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t.”

I bent and looked into her face.

“Don’t.”

I went to pull her toward me to kiss her and she leaned away sharply. “Don’t, David.” But I followed her over onto the bed, and though she squirmed, tight as a knot, I held her beside me, adjusting her, drawing her back against me. We’d struggled in every manner, but not this. Her arms were tight cords and it took more strength than I’d ever used to pin them both against her chest while I opened my mouth on her neck and ran my other hand flat inside the front of her pants. I reached deep and she drew a sharp breath and stretched her legs out along mine, bumping at my ankles with her heels. Then she gave way and I knew I could let go of her arms. We lay still that way, nothing moving but my finger. She rocked her head back.