WE land in Providence and no flight was ever this fast. I text Love: My phone died and I’m gonna crash. Nothing yet, wish I had better news. Love you.
She writes back immediately: Ok
I buy some crap in the airport. A candy bar that’s too big, a copy of Mr. Mercedes, and a Red Sox cap. I walk directly to Budget Car Rental. There’s no way to rent a car without showing an ID and providing a credit card. I do these things. What I have going for me: I was only here with Amy this summer, a vacationer. That guy who was here in the winter, that guy who smashed up his car and killed that girl? His name was Spencer Hewitt.
I don’t get a convertible. I get a Chevy. I start it up and I drive into my life, into my past, my future, my genetic coding, my mistakes, my possible salvation, my probable doom, Little Fucking Compton.
46
THE theme of my life appears to be working vacations. Like so many Americans, I appear to be incapable of taking a fucking break. And it’s bad for you. This is where Europeans are healthier. They relax. They rest. They turn off their phones and leave their work in the office and when they go to the beach they take off their tops, they show their tits and their hairy chests and they drink and sunbathe and they fucking go for it. I, on the other hand, am one of those fucked-up workaholic Americans plodding on an empty beach, not savoring the sunset, not romping in the waves—though it’s too cold, it’s autumn—and I am working hard, deciding how the hell I am going to get into that motherfucking house.
After I checked into my shitty motel, I went into a sleep coma. Vegas will fuck you up. I think I went twenty-eight hours without so much as a nap. I woke up on the cruddy, low-thread-count bedspread in a pile of my own drool. I showered in the stifling, tiny shower and I used the terrible small rectangles of bad soap, and I drove to the public parking lot that’s closest to the beach near the Salinger house. And I started walking. As if you can just walk into a fucking crime scene. Before I even got there, I saw the activity, the police cruisers and the TV news vans, the various Salingers in their winter clothes, and I had to back off.
I pretend to be a guy walking on a beach relaxing and meanwhile, that fucking house fills up with people who might find my mug of piss. I need to get in there so I try to get in there.
I drive to Crowther’s and order a shit ton of food to go. I buy one of their T-shirts. I go to the Salinger house and park as close as I can. The TV vans are gone—news is only news for a little while—and there is only one cop. I put on my Red Sox cap and I lift the heaving box of food and I trot toward the house, the way any delivery guy would. I knock on the door, the way any delivery guy would. Nobody answers so I ring the bell, the way any delivery guy would.
A guy who can’t be more than twenty and looks exactly like Peach walks up. He’s wearing a Yale T-shirt and scratching his head. He looks like he’s never held a rake or scratched a lottery ticket in a 7-Eleven. “What’s up?” he asks.
“I have a delivery,” I say, as if this isn’t completely fucking obvious. “Can I get in there and put this down?”
The Salinger’s eyes roll to the side of his oval head. “Mommmmmm!” he calls out.
“Buddy,” I say. “My back’s breaking here. If I could get in there and get this down.”
But now his mother is here. “Trot,” she says. “Don’t scream.” She looks at me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We’re requesting that all flowers and food and gifts be sent to the battered women’s shelter in Fall River. Peach was very passionate about women’s rights and we just don’t need the food.”
Peach was not very passionate about women’s rights. She was passionate about women’s pussies. She wanted to fuck Beck, which is why I killed her. Salingers. This bitch just stares at me. “Do . . . you . . . speak . . . English?” she asks.
NO, BUT I SPEAK CUNT. “That’s so great of you,” I say. “But my boss would have my ass if I drove to Fall River. You sure I can’t just get in there and leave this with you?” Meaning, get in there and steal the keys that are undoubtedly on the kitchen table because rich people, particularly the ones on the East Coast, really like to throw their shit on the kitchen table.
The bitch sighs. “You poor thing.” She reaches for her purse. She thinks I want a tip. “You take this and you keep that food.” She slips me a five-dollar bill and gives me a fake smile, the kind people do when they want you to know you’re faking it. She closes the door and locks it and now I’ve been made by not one but two fucking Salingers, so it’s not like I can show up here tomorrow in a UPS uniform. Not that I have a UPS uniform. All I have is a heaving box of food.
I drive to my shitty motel room. I eat. I text Love: Still nothing and yes I am the asshole who got sucked into a blackjack table for hours
She writes back: I’m not your parole officer. You don’t have to report to me! I know you’re working hard. I’m helping my dad with some Pantry stuff.
This was the wrong time for her to use the phrase parole officer and I don’t want to talk to her until I’ve destroyed that mug of piss. I wish I could change things. I wish I had taken care of this mug before we met.
Miss you, she writes, and most girls would throw hissy fits if their boyfriend went into silent mode in Las Fucking Vegas for several hours, especially while said girl was in the middle of a family crisis.
My phone buzzes and now she’s calling me.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she says when I answer.
“How you doing?” I ask her. She starts in about a difficult woman at work, Sam, and I yawn and the room is cold and I walk to the window to close the blinds and I left my headlights on. “Fuck,” I say.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I left my lights on. It’s fine.”
I grab the keys and go outside—the bitter cold—and I turn off the lights and I run back inside and Love asks me where I am. “A diner,” I say. “The Peppermill.”
She says she’s glad I’m eating and she wants me to rest. She says I sound tense. I tell her I sound tense because I am tense. She tells me that when they were in college, Forty disappeared for two months. “Right after I got married,” she says. “Two months, Joe. You know you can’t stay in Vegas for two months.”
“I won’t, but I can’t give up yet,” I say.
“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” she says.
I promise her. And then I make shitty motel coffee and go on Tinder. Fortunately, there aren’t that many girls in the area. I swipe and I swipe and I swipe. I swipe while I piss and I swipe in the bed and I swipe in the car and then I find her. Jessica Salinger. I recognize her from a picture of the family in the article. She’s a prettier version of Peach and she’s less than a mile away. This is what I needed to know, that she was still here; her fucking Facebook and Twitter are private but her pussy, apparently, is open. Humans. I will never understand.
I shower. I shave. I dress. I run out to my car and thank God I noticed the lights because my battery works and I need it to work, I need to get to Scuppers now, the place I went with Supercunt. It’s the only joint in town, really, this time of year and I go in and the first thing I notice are the tall chairs at the bar, brown as opposed to the white leather chairs at the Bellagio. And two chairs are of particular interest to me because one contains Jessica Salinger, the other has the friend I was banking on, and there is plenty of room for me at the bar.