Honest Addict, Chapter Eleven

11

The next morning Peter awoke with a sharp headache and the sourness of lime on his lips. He tossed and turned for over an hour, trying to find just the right position to return to sleep, but despite the tiredness all his efforts were thwarted by an angry little sensation within him that refused to be ignored. After a while he turned the television on. The nonsense of a national a.m. talk show distracted his mind in a way he found agreeable, though he had never enjoyed the program before.

For some reason his thoughts kept coming back to the conversation with Gene. There were a couple of things that stood out in Peter’s mind. Primarily, he couldn’t get over the fact that the man paid two hundred and fifty dollars a month rent and lived in his own pad. Certainly, Ely wasn’t the Bay Area. But it was almost inconceivable to him, someone meeting their monthly housing needs on such a meager amount. The Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco was over three hundred a night, and that was for a basic room.

The second issue that his mind fixated on was more abstract – at first even Peter didn’t realize what conclusion his thoughts were drawing toward. It started with a series of images that were inspired by the tale he had been told. First he imagined Gene deciding to take Highway 50 instead of the much quicker Interstate 80. Then he envisioned the somewhat strange looking man staring up at the night sky on the middle of the lonely road, his fluffy brown moustache and feathered, 1980’s style hair, for whatever reason, blowing in an invented wind. Peter pictured him in the bar waiting for the woman who was never to come, downing shots of bourbon, though the dealer had never told him exactly what he had been drinking on the night in question. He witnessed in his mind’s eye the pull over and subsequent incarceration, even his day in court and the menacing countenance of the elderly judge who sentenced him. Finally, he saw Gene at the end of a long shift in the Gambling Hall sidling up to the bar and getting drunk, then stumbling home down the dark streets of the sleeping town.

And as his visions came to a close, Peter realized what is was that so transfixed him. It was the fact that the protagonist of the dealer’s story – for it was impossible to say whether the tale Gene told and the effect it had on his listener’s imagination was an accurate depiction of the life of the man who told it, even if the events he described were more or less true – lived a life in almost perfect proportion of slavery and freedom. On stage was presented a man who was admittedly powerless against his impulses, even when they drove him to do stupid things, one who would drive hours out of his way on the off chance a bartender might still work, and be currently on shift, at a bar he had once drank at, a man who openly confessed that alcohol seriously impeded his goals and achievements, who forfeited jobs and apartments and his drivers license the way most people lose pocket change.

And yet, floating above these obvious truths was an individual who simply didn’t seem to care, one completely at peace with himself, who embraced the reality of his existence in a way that few of us ever do, a man who would gladly take a job and live in a two horse town because it was the road of least resistance. A slave, no doubt: but one content with his chains, even though they brought him with each passing day successively and inexorably closer to the ground.

Peter could not help but think of Carol Rutherford that day in the hospital.

After a while he got up, his head still hurting from drink and dehydration. He remembered the bad wine at the restaurant the night before and believed that somehow it was the primary culprit. After a shower that once again vacillated between stinging extremes of hot and cold he decided to walk around for a while, unsure of what he was going to do with his day.

He sauntered down the abandoned street imagining himself a character in one of the old Spaghetti westerns: not Clint Eastwood, mind you, nor one of the myriad bad guys or law men he encountered and always somehow defeated. No, as Peter moseyed with the piping hot Starbucks coffee in his hand – for even in land-locked Ely the caffeinated mermaid had found her way – he saw himself more as one of the intimidated and outgunned townsfolk of the overrun outpost, the barber or perhaps the saloon owner and whoremonger. He would never have been brave enough to have chosen the life of a gunfighter, he mused.

After some distance he approached a real estate office housed in a small wooden structure of dubious quality. Although the office was closed and the interior dark, there were a number of advertisements displayed on the window. He read several with interest:

“Three bedroom two bath house on the east side of town near shopping and schools, 1495 sq. ft., very large fenced lot, renovated bathroom and kitchen, ready to move in: $122,999.”
“Double wide two bedroom, one bath trailer located ten minutes outside of city limits on two acres of land, level site near highway perfect for your dream home, $39,999.”
“Producing gold, silver and copper mine fifteen miles south of McGill. Last operated in 1985. Gross revenue during final year of production: $365,868. This may be your last opportunity to get in on the burgeoning metals industry. A bargain at $49,500.”

As he continued down the street, Peter’s imagination crafted a new fantasy, one that for a brief moment actually felt realistic. He would sell his condo in the City and settle permanently in Ely, investing a quarter of a million in a quality residence. He would buy the mine, hire the proper experts and set aside another two hundred thousand to initially fund operations. The rest of his money he would put in an annuity or in tax free municipal bonds, which would provide him with a more than ample yearly income by eastern Nevada standards. Foregoing everything he had been in the past, he would lose himself in the high desert by learning to ride horses, shoot guns, and chew tobacco. Camping in the Great Basin National Park for weeks at a time would become a regular activity, he a veritable Grizzly Adams, addicted only to clean air, the freedom of the outdoors and personal isolation. Here was a place he could make a fresh start.

It was a glorious dream that carried him away for almost fifteen minutes. When it had run its natural course he knew it was time to leave.

***

It wasn’t that he had been blind to the decorations for the past week. Peter had seen them all clearly enough: the white and multicolored lights hanging from trees and the exterior of houses, the plastic snowmen, candy-canes, Santa Clauses and reindeer littered like so much garbage on lawns and rooftops, the fir trees covered with ornaments in the frames of windows. But it took a greeting from the girl at the front desk to remind his conscious mind of the season.

“Merry Christmas,” she said. Her smile was one of large, white, perfect teeth.
“Jesus Christ. What day is it?”
“The twenty-fourth of December. It’s Christmas eve.”

“Happy Holidays,” he replied, scolding himself as he walked away for the response almost immediately upon speaking the words. He had always hated the phrase, a byproduct in his mind of not only mind numbing political correctness and meaningless, condescending pluralism, but also the secular and scientific war on religion and hope, a Nietzschian victory over the useful and productive contemporary mythology that is Christianity.

Peter was tempted by an overwhelming urge to forgo his final night, pack his bags, leave the hotel and get in his car right then and there. He actually took several steps in the direction of the elevator with this in mind. But as he did so he noticed the Leroy’s sports betting kiosk in a corner of the casino and decided to see if there were any football games to be played that evening. Sure enough, the San Diego Chargers were hosting the Denver Broncos, the “Bolts” favored by eight points. Immediately his mood changed. He decided to stay around for the night, betting San Diego and laying the points. It took him several minutes to complete the wager of twenty-two hundred dollars. It was odd, placing such a large bet by feeding hundred dollar bills into an inanimate object. But regardless of the method, the bet had been placed; he had the tickets to prove it. And somewhere within him an inner peace blossomed.

As game time approached an uncommon nervousness came over him as he reminded himself that he was no longer employed. It was one thing, he thought, to wager huge sums of money when he was making tens of thousands of dollars a month, but it was quite another when nothing was coming in. This revelation heightened his sense of gamble to a fever pitch. His mouth was dry; his hands trembled with excitement. He felt as he had as a grade-schooler, betting his lunch money on hands of blackjack in the bathroom stalls between classes.

While the pre game analysts babbled Peter sidled up to the bar and drank shots of Jagermeister backed by Budweiser. The alcohol had little effect because of his nerves, so he drank more than he should have. By the second quarter he was thoroughly drunk, screaming at the television on every play – favorable or not – and questionable call by the referees. Fortunately for the other denizens of the room, once the Chargers took control of the game they never looked back, which had a subduing effect on his interest. Once your team is up three scores, the game loses its most essential element, hope, and circumstances can only get worse. For most of the second half he just sat there staring vaguely into a blurred distance, cold sweat gathering on his pale, unshaven face.

The game ended with San Diego winning by twenty points, easily covering the spread. A patron Peter had been talking with earlier slapped him on the back.
“You did it buddy. Piece of cake. Easy money.”
Peter alighted to the reality that the game had finally ended in his favor. He stood atop the second rung of his stool, wavering slightly, and called out, “Merry Christmas! The next round’s on me. God bless us, every one!”

A halfhearted cheer emanated from the crowd.