"And coffee?"
"Yes. Forgot that. Right. Coffee."
He goes away to the kitchen, and I struggle to control myself. He hasn't noticed anything yet, or at least nothing he can't put down to highway daze, the result of somebody traveling alone for hours in a car.
But what am I going to do now? How long does he work here? Am I going to have to sit in the Voyager in that parking lot for eight hours? Six hours? Twelve hours?
He comes out through the swing door, goes to get a cup and saucer and spoon and the glass coffee pot, brings them all over to me, pours me a cup of coffee. "Milk and sugar on the counter there."
"Thanks."
He puts the pot back on its electric burner while I add milk to my coffee. Then he comes back, leans against the work counter behind him, folds his arms, gives me a friendly smile, says, "Passing through?"
I hate having to look at him, talk to him, but what else can I do? "Yeah," I say. "Pretty much." And then, because I'm beginning to realize this isn't going to be as quick as I'd hoped, I say, "Is there a motel anywhere around here?"
"None of the chains," he says. "Not close, anyway."
"I don't need a chain. I don't much like chains."
"Neither do I," he says. "You have that feeling, there's no human touch to it."
By God, I don't want a human touch between us, but what can I do? "That's right," I say, just hoping to cut the conversation short.
He unfolds his arms, points away to my right, lifting his head. I look at his near eye. I wish I had the Luger with me now, wish I could get this over with now. "About a mile and a quarter south," he says, "on Route 8, there's a place called Dawson's. I've never stayed there myself, of course, you know, I'm local, but I'm told it isn't bad."
"Dawson's," I say. "Thanks."
I look away, but I can feel him considering me, thinking me over. He says, "You looking for a job?"
Surprised, I look back at him, and he's so naturally sympathetic that I tell him the truth: "Yes, I am. How'd you know?"
"I've been there," he says, and shrugs. "Still am, really. I can see it in a fella."
"Isn't easy," I say.
"Not around here, anyway," he says. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that, but there just isn't much of anything happening around here." He gestures at his own territory, his side of the counter. "I was lucky to get this."
This is an opportunity to get my question answered. I say, "You work a full shift?"
"Almost," he says. "Eight hours a day, four days a week. Four to midnight."
Eight hours. Four to midnight. He'll be coming out at midnight. In the dark, I won't see his face, he could be just anybody. In the dark, I'll shoot him. "Well, it's something, anyway," I say, referring to the job.
He grins, but shakes his head. "Not my regular line of work," he says. "I was twenty-five years in the paper business."
Being ignorant, I say, "Newspaper?"
"No no," he says, amused, shaking his head. "Paper manufacturing."
"Oh."
"I was a salesman, and then a manager," he says. "Years in a white shirt and necktie. And then one day, I got the boot."
"It happens," I say, and there's a ding from the kitchen. "It happened to me, too," I find myself saying, though I shouldn't prolong this conversation, I really shouldn't do it.
"That'll be yours," he says, meaning the ding from the kitchen, and he goes away, and I take the minute of respite to tell myself I can't relax into this thing, I can't let us be just a couple of regular guys talking over the news of the world together. I've got to keep that distance, for my own sanity I've got to keep that distance. For my future. For everything.
And aside from all the other considerations, I've already lied to him, pretended I didn't know anything about the paper industry, because I didn't want him thinking about the coincidence of me being here, a guy with the same work history as his. But that means I can't let the conversation go on. What am I going to do, invent some whole new life story, in a whole new industry?
He comes back, with my BLT and all the extras on a thick white oval china plate, and puts it down in front of me. "Refill on that?"
My coffee cup's half full. "Not yet," I say. "Thanks."
"Any time."
He goes away to deal with other customers, and I gnaw at my BLT. I'm not hungry, partly because I just ate four hours ago, but mostly because of the situation. I want to be out of here, on my way home. But I need this to be over, and then I'm out of here, and on my way home.
He's back, taking that stance again, arms folded, back against the work counter. "What line were you in?" he asks.
I panic for just a second, but then I say, "Office supplies," because I do remember something about that industry, from my first years as a salesman for Green Valley Paper & Pulp. "Memo pads, order sheets, accountancy forms, things like that. I was middle management, ran the production line." Then I force a chuckle, and say, "For all I know, we bought from you folk."
"Not from us," he says. "We did specialized papers, industrial uses." Another grin, another headshake. "Very boring, for anybody outside the business."
"You probably miss it," I say, because I know he does, and I can't help saying it.
"I do," he agrees, but then shrugs. "It's a crime," he says, "what's happening these days."
"The layoffs, you mean?"
"The downsizing, the reductions in staff. All those rotten euphemisms they use."
"They told me," I say, "my job wasn't going forward."
"That's a good one," he agrees.
"Made me feel better," I say. I'm holding the sandwich, one triangular quarter of the sandwich, but I'm not eating.
"You know, I've been thinking about it," he says. "I haven't had much to do, the last couple years, except think about it, and I think this society's gone nuts."
"The whole society?" I shrug and say, "I thought it was just the bosses."
"To let the bosses do it," he says. "You know, there's been societies, like primitive peoples in Asia and like that, they expose newborn babies on hillsides to kill them, so they won't have to feed them and take care of them. And there's been societies, like the early Eskimos, that put their real old folk out on icebergs to float away and die, because they couldn't take care of them any more. But this is the first society ever that takes its most productive people, at their prime, at the peak of their powers, and throws them away. I call that crazy."
"I think you're right," I say.
"I think about it all the time," he says. "But what do you do about it? Beats me."
"Go crazy, too, I guess," I say.
He gives me a broad grin at that. "You show me how," he says, "and I'll do it."
We chuckle together, and he goes off to run up the elderly couple's check on the cash register.
While he's gone, I force myself to eat most of the food and drink the rest of the coffee. I can't have more of this conversation, I just can't.
When I see him coming back down the counter, headed toward me, I make that squiggle in the air that means I want my check, so he about-turns, goes to where he keeps the book, and adds it up.
He has a couple more things to say, just chatting, but I barely answer him. Let him think I'm suddenly in a hurry. I pay the check, and I leave him too big a tip, even though it's stupid to do that, I mean, really stupid any way you look at it.
When I'm going out the first door, he calls, "See you around." I smile, and wave.
At least he didn't offer to put me up.
"Good Vibrations" is playing; the old Beach Boys song. "Good Vibrations," and I'm floating in a glass boat on a luminous yellow-green sea, it looks like dish detergent, it's terribly sad, I'm very sad all the time, and then I'm awake and I'm in Dawson's Motel, and the radio came on at 11:30 p.m., just the way I programmed it. I get up and switch off the radio and go into the bathroom, to pee and brush my teeth and wash my face and prepare to kill EBD.