Leaving Las Vegas (21 page)

“That’s it then? You’re happy?” asks the well made-up salesgirl. She looks to be about nineteen and contentedly caught in the web of cosmetic consumerism that Sera once capered in.

“Yes,” says Sera. “That’s all I need today. Could you possibly wrap them for me?”

“Gift wrap is on Two,” says the girl. Smiling slyly, she is both intrigued by the romantic overtone and pleased to be passing the wrapping job upstairs.

Using a portion of the substantial savings withdrawal she made this morning—most of it intended to propitiate Al later—Sera pays for the two gifts and heads up the escalator. Unsure, at the time, of the moral implications, she had hesitated over the purchase of the silver flask, but it was only a very brief, momentary hesitation. Then, past the screen of media input and pop-logic, she picked out an ornate half-pint pocket flask. The sweet simplicity and well-evolved purity of this natural selection put her in an intellectual mood, enabled her maturity to size up the slick correctness of quick infatuation. Bang! Bang! The motivation is the message. She went to the loudest shirt rack in sight and picked out a bright pink and green jungle print. Big, puffy sleeved, baggy and conspicuous, she chose it to contrast with the black clothing that he seems so partial to. She chose it, as women will, to paint her name across his chest.

But for her it is a statement of support, not a notice of ownership. She savors her own delight in performing these commonplace acts, this gift shopping. With the shirt and the flask
on her arm, on their way to adornment in what will end up being a five dollar gift wrap, she rediscovers a side of her femininity that doesn’t need to be cloaked in caution, doesn’t require preliminary mistrust. She feels like a girlfriend.

Nothing like the way she feels as she stands outside of Al’s door, almost four full days since her last
visit.
Like a warning beacon, the yellow Mercedes did not escape her notice downstairs. She purposefully had the cab cruise the back lot and was surprised to find that the car hadn’t been moved since she last saw it. She takes a deep breath, purses her lips and blows out the air evenly, knocks gently on the door.

It is whisked open, catching her off guard and in a momentary vacuum. Al stands before her, fully dressed, his clothes looking as though they’ve been slept in more than once.

“I have waited. I have waited because I knew you would come,” he says. Then, after taking a seat in one of the room’s two white wicker chairs, he says, “Sera.” This latter is spoken more as a statement than an address.

She watches him carefully and with a perverse reverence. His voice is absolutely void of any emotion whatsoever, and she has never heard anything quite like it. The room, saturated and lugubrious, is quiet for a long time.

“I brought you some money,” she says, and it sounds trite and pathetic to her.

He looks at her with hollow eyes. He looks up from the chair at her. She is still standing, and when he looks at her he looks to her as if he were all scooped out.

“I must leave Las Vegas. You have come and now I can leave,” he says. “But I have waited for you.” A spark of desperation enters his tone. “Always remember that
I
have waited
for you.”

She notices that the matching wicker chair is burst through at the seat; unable to support his weight, she guesses. She prepares
to speak, ready to deliver the speech she’s been rehearsing all morning:
I can’t come back here, Al. Not ever. I can’t trick for you anymore. None of our past can ever happen again. Don’t come to my house. Don’t call me. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll go to the police. I’ll incriminate myself… I don’t care. Kill me now if you want, but when I leave this room, you can never touch me in any way again.

Instead, she says, “Goodbye, Al. Go somewhere and try to get better. This is just history.” She bends and kisses him on the forehead, tucks the money envelope into his lap, and leaves his room.

Ten minutes later Al himself leaves his room. A tip for the maid, his ring and gold chain lie cast-off and forgotten on the dresser.

But he has his clothes, and they are in the trunk of the Mercedes when it—mercifully—starts. He drives fast, but not too fast, skims by an indifferent state trooper, breezes by Henderson, the dam. 93, Kingman, no stops.

“We didn’t know whether to call the police or not,” says her neighbor to Sera. Apparently waiting for her arrival, he has just stepped out of his door. Speaking cautiously, unsure of his sudden role in the life of this quiet, pretty girl who lives next to him, he indicates Ben’s snoring body, curled up in front of Sera’s door, clutching a pint of bourbon. “He’s been there for about half an hour. My wife said she’s seen you two together, so I decided to wait till you got home.” Through his window he has watched Sera come home in the past, has always been aware of her proximity.

“Yes, thank you. He’s my friend. I guess he just had a little too much to drink,” says Sera, smiling uncomfortably. “I’ll help him
inside. Thanks for your concern, sorry to trouble you.” She nods in conclusion and there is an awkward pause.

The man turns back to his door. “Well, call me if there’s anything I can do,” he says gallantly, for future reference.

She puts down her packages and opens her door, then kneels next to Ben. “Can you wake up?” she says, gently shaking him.

Opening his eyes, he looks at her and then around. “Hi,” he says with a smile, as if they have just awakened from a Sunday afternoon nap.

She is taken in and finds her humor, which was never far anyway. “You’re a very private guy, aren’t you?” she says. Why don’t you go in and sit down. I’ll get this stuff. You have some gifts to open.”

“Right. I figured,” he says, rising. Halfway to erect he loses balance but catches himself on the doorjamb short of falling. “I’ll go sit on the couch.” Grabbing his suitcase, he manages to pull it after him and disappears into the house amidst the clink of the bottles. “Want a drink?” he calls. “Great nap. Wanna go out tonight?”

Sera, having never before closely witnessed the day to day endurance and rejuvenescence of a long-term drunk, is amazed, truly impressed. She’s been expecting him to crash like this eventually, but she didn’t think that it would only last for half an hour. She picks up her packages and enters the apartment, closing the door behind her.

“Seriously,” she starts, finding him pouring two drinks in the kitchen. “I like to keep pretty low key around here. Maybe next time you could drop off inside the door.”

“Oh, I always do. Don’t worry. I’m sorry about that, but I got back too early and the door was locked.”

“Of course,” she says, thus falling into one of his oft used expressions as she reaches into her purse. “Gift number one.” She
holds out the duplicate door key to him.

Taking the key from her, he walks to the door and successfully turns the lock with it. “Pursuant to our conversation of this afternoon,” he says, and drops the key into his pocket. “I used to carry a lot of keys, but one by one they fell victim to the great condensation. Now I have this one.”

It seems as though he might continue, so she watches and listens. But soon it becomes apparent that he has lost his thought and is simply staring at the floor.

“Ben,” she says, approaching him and placing her hand on his arm.

He looks up. “Sorry,” he says, and brightens. He is returned. “More presents?” Turning, he picks up her glass and strides into the living room.

She looks after him thoughtfully, wondering at his energy, mustering her own. She’ll be needing her newfound energy, all her many energies.

He is seated on the couch when she enters the room and puts the two packages on the table in front of him.

“I want you to let me pay your rent for this month. I’m here; I’ve come this far. It’ll be better for me that way… okay?” he says, as if he cannot proceed any further until this is resolved.

“All right,” she says. “Not that this has anything to do with that, but I plan to go out and do a little work—probably tomorrow night.” She tries to sound resolute. Even though he has never made her feel uncomfortable about what she does, she is still unsure of what his reaction will be to this.

“Do you have an appointment?” he asks. Then, looking up quizzically, “You know, I’ve never really asked you much about your work. Do you have regular customers?”

“No,” she says, relieved at his casual manner. “No, I just work the street and bars. Maybe one or two guys have picked me up
twice by chance, but I never make appointments or arrangements.” And for no reason she adds, “I used to have a pimp, a long time ago, back in LA.”

Together they stroke the silence.

“Sera,” he starts, “I hope that you understand how I feel about this. First of all, you’re welcome to my money. We can buy a couple of cases of liquor and you can have the rest. But I don’t think you’re talking to me right now about money. I think you’re talking about you. I’ll tell you right now that I’m in love with you, but be that as it may, I’m not here to impose my twisted life on your soul. I’m not here to demand all your attentions, to the point where you’re removed from your own life. We know I’m a drunk. That’s part of what we have here, and you’re all right with that. Likewise, we know you’re a hooker, so if and when you decide to work, whatever your motivation, that’s up to you. I don’t think I’m inferring too much when I say that you’ve been doing this for long time, that you’re comfortable with it. It’s not as if you’re a fifteen year old who’s being victimized on the streets of Hollywood. I hope you understand that I’m a person who is totally at ease with this. You’re not an oddity to me. In fact, I feel rather akin to you. Please don’t think that my apparent indifference means that I don’t care, I do. It simply means that I trust and accept your judgment, your inclinations. What I’m saying is: I hope that you understand that I understand.”

His speech touches her, she likes it, and marvels at his ability to talk right to her, so eloquently, just minutes after being passed out drunk. “Thanks,” she says. “I do understand. I was worried about how that would be, but now I’m not. And, you should know that included with the rent around here is a complimentary blowjob.”

“Yes,” he says thoughtfully, allowing her joke to tag a new
topic. “I suppose that sooner or later we ought to fuck.”

“Whatever
that
means,” she says. “Open your presents.”

But he is not finished. Leaning back, he says, “Once I got beat up in a cathouse. Not that it has anything to do with what we were saying, but I’m reminded of it for some reason. I was in New York, about fifteen years old. My family was visiting relatives in Connecticut and I took the train into the city with my uncle. He went to work, and I got to spend the day roaming around New York City. All along I had it in the back of my head that I was going to find a hooker. I was still a virgin, but that’s incidental; I would have had the same plan in any case. On Times Square I was given a handbill that described just what I was looking for, so I went to the address. Of course at that time I didn’t know how things worked, and I happily laid down almost all my money—maybe twenty dollars—at the door, thinking that I was paying for everything. But once inside the room with the girl, after she explained to me how the tipping works, I realized that not only was I not gonna get laid, but I had also thrown away twenty dollars, a fair amount of money to me then. On my way out, less than five minutes since my arrival, I asked for my twenty back. Even the girl came out and tried to help me, but I could tell that she knew it was a lost cause. After all, these guys weren’t running a non-profit organization. So they told me how it was and the guy gets up from behind the desk and grabs my collar—you know how bouncers push you by your neck—and shoves me to the door, which was at the top of a staircase. The place was just a little hole on a second story. At the door he said goodbye and let go of my collar. I was so outraged at my own ineptitude that I got crazy and tried to run back to the desk to take my money. It was stupid, but that’s what I did. Needless to say, he had me again before I had taken a step. He just held me at arm’s length with one hand and
slapped me back and forth with the other. I woke up very sore at the bottom of the steps. I’m sure he carried me down, I can’t imagine that he would have risked pushing me. Anyway, he knew what he was doing, because all I had was a bloody nose. The funny part is that I wanted terribly to go back up, not for my money, but to learn what these guys seemed to know. I wanted to be a sleazeball apprentice or something. I knew there was a world of experience in that dirty place that I could never share, and it pissed me off. I was consumed with envy.

“Now I’m softer. I know enough about all of it. Last spring I happened to walk past a house in LA that I had once patronized. There was a cool breeze off the ocean, and in the window I could see a woman’s bare leg. She must have been relaxing, taking a break between customers. The moment set a mood for me and I paused on the sidewalk though I had to be somewhere else and was running late. I was reminded of myself as a very young boy being forced outside to play in the hot sun by my mother. Even though our house was cool, shady and comfortable, my mother felt it unhealthy for me to remain inside on a summer day. I’d stay inside as long as I could, keeping a low profile, until she would finally hear the other kids shouting and playing. That would be the last straw, and I found myself banished to the backyard, where I would look back in longing at the latched screen door. That was the exact feeling that I recaptured, looking at the hooker’s leg in the window that day. The trees rustled in the breeze and I went up the walk. I felt very strongly, at that moment, that I belonged in that cathouse. I mention it as an epilogue to the other story. It was then that I had come full circle.” A little embarrassed that he may be talking too much, he says, “I guess I better open my presents.”