I told him I wouldn’t do it
Outside the stuffy little office, cars go by only heard
The TV screen behind him is fuzzy
And I stand there leaning on the counter
Listening
‘Donut?’ he holds up a little pink box from under the counter
He stands there smiling too many teeth
‘Certainly,’ and I take a chocolate bar, lean on the counter chewing, and more hot wind whistles between the blinds
More cars go by
I lick my fingers and he says, ‘You don’t have to pay lodge’
I look at all the teeth in his mouth, the gold chain around his neck, hanging over the shirt unbuttoned low enough on his chest, black hair sprouts out
I ask, ‘How many shells do I get?’
‘What?’
‘Bullets’
‘No bullets,’ he slides his hand out, ‘No shells, just scare’
Wipe my hand on my shirt, ‘And a bottle of Jameson every night?’
‘No’
Look at the chocolate smudges on my shirt, ‘Okay, I’ll do it’
He puts the shotgun on the counter and it rattles in its set there, a bulky thing of trimmed barrel and sawed off stock, grooves around the pump, curved slim trigger
He says, ‘Start tonight,’
It’s bulky and round, heavy and weighted of evil
‘A six pack of Bud Light?’
He says, ‘No!’
I walk out, through the motel parking lot and all the sun and all the cars going by and some people see me carrying a shotgun and only speed up
Ugly people in dusty cars with paint chipping
Pretty people in dusty cars that squeak going by
In all the sun
I walk up the steps, past other doors to 13, put the key in and shove the door open
It’s shady behind the blinds I had closed and I sit on the bed looking at the shotgun
Meaningless really
I look up at the blinds, at the light struggling through and the bed bounces a little and my heart beats a little and I breathe a little
Leave it on the bed and go to the bathroom
Look at myself in the mirror and say
‘So I sat there…,’
My Adam’s apple moves round, as do the wrinkles cut in my face from not eating enough and frowning too much,
‘…In the blue light of this hotel room in Mexico…,’
My short brown hair and aware of myself as I guess anything can ever be,
‘…My ex-wife sleeping not very quietly there next to me, but in that gentle sort of way people you have emotions for do…’
And my eyes are hardened,
‘…And I couldn’t sleep cause I kept seeing this old lady in the corner, an old wrinkly lady with wide eyes, a thick chin and a big ugly grin…’
And behind me is the bathroom, dirty yellow tiles of the shower and folded over clear shower curtain
‘…And the only thing in English was this Clint Eastwood movie, Play Misty for Me, or something, and I laid there not able to turn the TV off though I really wanted to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw that old lady, and…’
And there’s a knock at the door
I look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Same as I ever was’
And I’m walking to the door when there’s another knock
I open the door and it’s this lady, mid-thirties wrinkled face but young eyes, stringy blonde hair and tiny blue eyes, eyes that haven’t seen too much,
Or haven’t remembered much
Her shirt collar is stretched out and she stands there holding a cigarette trailing perpetual smoke up by her chin and says, ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘The mirror’
She looks past me, into the dark room, ‘Does it ever talk back?’
‘Certainly’
Brings the cigarette to her mouth and its tip glows to her inhale
Cars go by and somewhere the blinds move from the wind coming in through the light
She exhales and says, ‘Wanna smoke?’
‘No’
More smoke comes from her mouth, her eyes are blue and looking away and she
says, ‘See ya’ and walks away
I close the door and stand in the dark room
Stand in the afternoon light struggling through the blinds
Then open the door, look down the hall at the blue veins mapping the back of her pale legs and say, ‘Can I have a cigarette?’
‘No’ she puts a key in a door, shoves it with her shoulder and goes in without looking at me
Then I’m in the mirror saying, ‘…I sat on that bench all night, watching the same star, but really waiting for her car to drive by…’
My eyes are wrinkled badly, though not as completely filled with sadness as other people’s
‘…I just watched trash scrape through the wind and the gutter until the sun came up…’
I guess that’s something to console yourself by
Not being as bad as other people
Say to myself in the mirror, ‘I might have it bad,’
I point to the mirror, ‘Though not as bad as that guy’
And when I woke up on the floor the room was dark and I sat on the edge of the bed drinking filmy tap water of a cup from the night stand
Put the cup down and in the dark grab the shotgun
Weighted like evil
Open the door, to the warm night and cars gone by, under a dark and serious sky, suffering orange fluorescent lights and life
Ending
Stand there listening
A car honks
A little wind ties through
And I look down at the shortened shotgun in my hands
In the doorway the weak light from those hollow orange parking lot lights angle soft shadows across the shotgun’s length, send little sleeping nature to ease across its demonic stature
Maybe like one you have emotions for
And I lock and close the door, cross the walkway to the steps and go down
A couple emerges from under the walkway, a dark shadow couple, moving through the parking lot towards a car near the back of the lot
From this distance it sounds like they’re laughing
But they’re fighting
And I’m walking through the parking lot, carrying the shotgun by the middle of its brutality and looking around
The light in the office is on, a few lights in the rooms are on
Lights of all the cars coming in off the 22 going straight on 7th or turning onto PCH
Sounds of all those cars and the warm offshore breeze
Sounds just like life
And I look around as the couple’s car sends bright tail lights out through the parking lot and starts backing up and I think, ‘I need an office’
So I start walking towards the back of the lot, where the building ends against the drive thru of the Jack in the Box
And the car pulls out and faces up to me
I’m in the headlights, staring down that eternity
The car lurches forward and swerves around me
‘Fucker!’ I say getting up off the concrete
The car speeds to 7th street, and into the street, into honks and shouts of other drivers
The office door opens and he looks out, his dark little deep eye socketed self,
‘Hey!’ his fat belly jiggles at me, ‘not scare people that stay here!’
‘Couple tall cans?’
‘No!’ he disappears back inside
Cars keep going by, buzz from the Jack in the Box drive thru, I walk to the back of the motel parking lot and find a white ledge under an over hanging tree
It’s a meaningless ledge next to the wall of an apartment complex behind the Jack in the Box and motel lot and I say, ‘Everyday seems another day, doesn’t it?’
And look down at the shotgun
Meaningless really
And a door opens up on the second balcony
She walks out
She has pants on and a button up shirt too big for her child shoulders, and she walks to the stairs and flicks a lighter
The flicker glow off her face shadows her eye sockets and she walks down the stairs smoking her cigarette
Walks through and out of the parking lot, towards the cars and lights off the 22 freeway, turns onto the sidewalk and disappears
The night wears on
Moon gets higher, people order more Jack in the Box, cars stop at the bleeding red lights, wait, then move on through the night
That self same distance
I sit there saying, ‘…I had no idea where I was, Idaho all looks the fuckin same, when…’
And this thin shadow walks up from the street
Looking and walking urgently, weaving through the parked cars, he stops at a truck and hops in the back
The truck bobs a little and he starts pressing in the back cab window
I get up and walk towards the guy
He’s pressing with arched arms on the back window
‘Is that your truck?’
He kind of stops, then says ‘Yeah,’ then keeps working the window, ‘Just locked my keys in’
And more cars go by, and the office light is on, and the light up in my room turns on
‘I don’t think that’s your truck,’
He spins around crouched low
A knife glinting in his hand
An angular Mexican face pooled in shadow under his hat
I’m holding the shotgun over my shoulder and looking up at those tragic parking lot lights
He kind of stops
Then jumps off the truck and starts running
Off towards the street
Running in telling little scrapes of shoes on dusty concrete
And he gets to the sidewalk and disappears and I look up at my room
Light through the closed blinds
Hefting the devoid shotgun I walk up the steps
Get to my room and open the door
Look around, find no one, then turn the light off
And in the dark bathroom reflected off the mirror, say, ‘the last time I saw her…’
My face thin and speaking as a shadow
‘…I was quite sure she was going to die…’
The dark shapes of the bathroom lurk behind me as desolate shapes trying really to be
‘…She was in our bed, breathing too fast to be normal…’
My chin moving up and down
‘…It was either shock, or she was going into labor…’
My shoulders, sad arcs slouched in the mirror
‘…Either way before I closed the front door I heard her scream…’
Going back down the stairs I see a hunched figure walking through the shadows of the Jack in the Box parking lot
He’s glancing around with his hands in his pockets
Bulky arms ending in his pockets
Hooded and shadow faced, he walks over the parking stones into the motel lot
At the end of the lot, next to my office, there’s a sedan sitting in the shadows and he walks to the window
I get to the bottom of the stairs and look over at all the red lights in the wavering exhaust fumes at the PCH stop light
All those ugly and pretty people going places
And I walk through the neon orange lights of the parking lot, holding the shotgun by the pump
Swinging it a little
And a nice little breeze ties through, a moment of peace on badly used up flesh
The little breezes that keep it all going
He’s jamming a wire down into the doorway of the sedan, scratching up the window horribly
Holding the shotgun by the pump and looking down the barrel, I say, ‘Is that your car?’
He looks at me, chubby faced pig eyed white guy with a stubbly chin and slack jaw
His feral eyes look at the shotgun
He charges at me and I fling the shotgun at him and jump out of the way
I’m on the ground and the shotgun rattles around on the concrete and those scraping steps recede off into the distance
Those cars driving by
Idling at the light
Buzzing voice at the Jack in the Box drive thru
I dust off my brown pants and look at the black smudges on my shirt, next to the brown ones
I pick up the shotgun and the office door opens
He looks out, his fat little belly jiggling, ‘Alright!’
My side hurts, and I hold it and lean on the shotgun and look at him
‘A beer?’
Red break lights off his fat little face, he looks out at the cars idling on the street, red distance around and in his eye sockets
Then he looks back and says, ‘No!’
Disappears again and the office door closes
Limp back to my office
Sit down
Looking at the shotgun
Something of value
Another wind comes through
Though this one’s empty and doesn’t feel like much
Someone walks out of a room, a little Asian guy walking to his car, and his blinker flashes for five minutes as he tries to turn right onto 7th
And up there my room light goes on again
I look at it
At the valued light all meaningless and bright up there in my window
The night moves on
The moon gets lower
People coming and leaving, keep ordering Jack in the Box, and me watching everything end as subtle movements of red turned green, the moon a little lower, and that’ll be 4.67 at the second window
But I mostly watch cars go by
And I’m saying, ‘…So we drove all the way through Idaho without saying anything, more just feeling fed up with each other in the sense that you love someone so much you want to hurt them as much as possible…’, when scraping sounds from the Jack in the Box parking lot
I look over at a floating red tip
In the shadows it’s her, walking slowly to the light as a figure still putting itself together
Her white tank top around the breasts it clings tight to, sharp nipples poking out, she’s looking at something that’s not anywhere near me
I’m leaning forward with the shotgun between my knees and she looks at me without seeing me, stepping gradually into the light of the parking lot carrying a little brown bag
Her hair is still stringy and her eyes are still small and forgetful
She stands there and drops her cigarette
It smolders a forgotten bright spot in otherwise everywhere dark
She says, ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘Myself’
She looks around me, her shoulders sort of back and her breasts kind of looking at me, ‘Do you ever talk back to yourself?’
‘No’
More cars go by in the dim red break lights
A guy runs from the street into the parking lot, stooped low he runs in quick long steps
She holds out the bag, ‘Want a chicken sandwich?’
‘No’
The guy runs to a mini-van between a truck and a jeep
She lowers the bag, ‘I get ‘em free’
I get up and walk towards the mini-van and he’s a young black guy, pushing in the side sliding window of the mini van
I say, ‘Is that your van?’
He looks at me, his young and angry face full of years and wonder
But mostly anger
A little wind ties through, though doesn’t feel like much other than meaningless heat over me and him caught there looking at each other
Then he rushes at me, hailing fists balled into quick punches
I hold the shotgun crosswise, backing to keep from him
He’s quick but weak and I knee him in the stomach and he falls holding onto the shotgun and we both end up confused and scrambling down on the pavement
He wrestles away the shotgun, kicks me in the ribs and stands, puts the barrel in my face and I’m staring down that empty eternity
I hear the buzzing voice of Jack in the Box recapping an order
“…and two large fries…”
The shotgun clicks
“…is that it?”
He stands there monolithic in the light with a meaningless weapon and I say, ‘Luck?’
He drops the shotgun and runs away
Those telling scrapes, and I get onto my ass and sit on the dirty pavement, spitting blood and tonguing a loose tooth
She walks to me still holding the brown bag
She asks, ‘Is that your van?’
Sitting there in all this, I feel my nose and find warm blood
I say, ‘No’
‘It’s mine,’ she says
And through all the cars and wind and movement towards something, she stands there under the tragic parking lot lights confused or forgetful and yet bare breasted under that tight tank top
From the pavement I ask, ‘Can I have a chicken sandwich?’
She says, ‘No’
BIO: Jeffrey Douglas is a creative writing major at Cal State Long Beach where he was recently accepted into the MFA creative writing program and will be attending the program this fall.
