Honest Addict, Chapter Fifteen

15

For three nights in a row he returned at six o’clock sharp, always staying until closing. It was his sole employment, the rest of his time squandered sleeping twelve hours a day, ordering delivery food and watching bad daytime television in the hotel room. One day he walked five blocks down Hollywood Boulevard to a taqueria and ate a carne asada super burrito. This was his sole departure from the newly established routine.

But she had yet to revisit the bar and it was driving him crazy. Each night her physical absence was replaced by hazy dreams in which she played a part but were always forgotten within seconds of awaking. For the first hour of every day he would lie in bed and try to recall the details of his sleeping mind, the memories always tantalizingly near yet irretrievable. It was like nothing he had ever experienced.

On the fourth day he considered looking up every Honda dealership in the greater Los Angeles area and hunting her down, but decided that was not the best course. However, a case of cabin fever had set in and he had to get out of the hotel. He pondered returning to the track, but remembered his recent failure. The thought of going to a movie crossed his mind, but he had spent too much time watching television for the cinema to provide a change in pace. He considered taking a drive, but remembered he was in Los Angeles, where driving was rarely a pleasure.

Finally he just left the room and went back to Hollywood Boulevard. Standing on the corner, staring into space, not knowing what to do, a bus pulled up on the corner and passengers began filing on and off. It seemed about as good an option as anything else, so he boarded, happy to obtain a single seat with no neighbor.

The interior was filled with the kind of beleaguered folks one would expect on a metropolitan bus line, especially in Southern California, where riding public transit is an especial symbol of poverty and social diminution. The majority of the patrons were people of color: Hispanics and a fair number of blacks. They mostly stared forward, avoiding eye contact with one another. It was a courtesy, and unspoken agreement, which the regulars knew and generally adhered to. Peter found it polite and charming.

After a while an elderly white man in a motorized chair boarded the bus with the assistance of the driver. Peter couldn’t recall what these chairs were called, but he remembered a television advertisement that he had viewed recently naming a similar brand of chair the “Jazzy.” The name and all it implied had made him sick to his stomach. There was, he believed, no jazz in spending the last days of your life rotting away in such a contraption.

“Here we go, Don,” the driver said as he strapped the chair into the appropriate area of the bus across the aisle from Peter. “You’re getting around in that thing pretty good now.”
“I drove long haul for forty years,” the elderly man replied. “It was only a matter of time before I figured this goddamned thing out.”
“Good for you,” the driver replied.

The bus continued on its journey. Peter, knowing with some trepidation that he was committing himself to a protracted interaction, engaged the man.

“So Don, you used to drive long haul, did you?”
His eyes alighted. “That’s right, young man. I covered every bit of territory in the lower forty-eight and made the run up to Alaska dozens of times.”
“I bet you’ve seen some things.”
The old-timer laughed. “I fucked more pussy on the road than you’ll ever see in your lifetime.”
Peter burst into laughter. “Did I just hear you right?”
“You did, mister. Why, once I lived in a whorehouse in Nevada for a whole month. Fucked three girls a day. Those were some wonderful times,” he added with a sigh.
Peter tried desperately to add something to the conversation. “I used to daydream about driving long haul. If my life had turned out different, I bet I would have been good at it.”
“It takes a certain kind of man. Not everybody can do it.”
“I heard that when truckers come home from the road they go crazy with a type of withdrawal. They call it road fever, if I remember correctly. You know anything about that?”
“Yes sir. That’s exactly right. When I used to come home to my wife I would only last a few days before I’d be itchin’ to get back on the road. But I’m not sure if it was road fever, cause when she started bringing her girlfriends home to me I never wanted to leave.”
“Excuse me? I didn’t get that last part.”
“After many years of marriage she realized I was getting bored, so my wife would recruit her girlfriends to come home with her and they’d both fuck me. My lord, my wife brought home so many different bitches you’d never believe it.”
“No shit.”
“I’m completely serious. I lost her to Alzheimer’s five years ago.” His voice trembled with emotion. “She was a good woman. I loved her so much.”
“How old are you now, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Seventy-eight years,” Don replied. As Peter looked over his liver-spotted face it seemed about right.
“Where you off to now?”
“I’m going to pick up a lady at her retirement home and bring her back to my place.”
“Really?”
“Yup. I still get the bitches. She came up to me the other day at a restaurant and just wouldn’t stop talking. I couldn’t even finish my meal before I promised her I’d take her on a date. Fucked her the first night – she wasn’t bad for seventy-five.”
“You are my hero,” Peter said, chuckling. “When I come back in my next life, I want to be like you.”
“Nobody like me,” he replied, shaking his head. “Nobody.”

At the next stop the driver came back and happily unleashed his passenger from captivity. Don rolled toward the hydraulic lift at the entrance of the bus with a bitter determination. Outside on the corner, there was a well dressed elderly lady clutching a purse between two white gloved hands. Her face bore an expression of hopeful anticipation.

***

It was almost nine o’clock when Peter returned to the bar. The bus ride was unexpectedly lengthy and took hours before eventually returning to the same location where he had boarded, which had made him tired and put him behind schedule. His mind too was fatigued with the events of the past several days, and he swore that this would be his last visit to the unnamed bar before leaving Los Angeles. Where would he venture to next, he wondered? It was impossible to say.

As is often the case in moments such as these, all his thoughts and plans were shattered when he saw her standing on the other side of the room. His heart rate doubled; his mouth went instantaneously dry. She was to him a shimmering vision. The last time he had encountered her he had not noticed the size of her breasts, which were heaving under a white “wife beater” that was covered with a very delicate, transparent blue shirt. Still exhorting loudly, still cackling inappropriately with her male companions, Peter realized as if for the first time the enormity of her presence. She was a goddamned Amazon.

Caroline noticed him from across the room. She excused herself from her companions and marched over to him just as he had taken his seat at the bar and was about to order a drink.

“I heard you been stalking me, dude,” she said seriously.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Tommy told me you’ve been in here every night since I met you. Is that right?”
“That is correct, yes.”
“So, you have been stalking me.”
“Hey, you told me there was nothing stopping me from coming in here,” he replied confidently. “And anyway, stalking requires my following you around surreptitiously. Now, if you had caught me slinking around the Honda dealership certainly you could accuse me of such a thing. But coming in here five nights in a row: well, that just makes me a drunk and nothing else. Which reminds me, may I buy you a drink?”

His logic being unassailable, she relented and ordered a gin and tonic from the bartender, a man Peter had never seen before.

“I would like to know: how did Tommy tell you about my comings and goings? He’s not here now and you haven’t been in since I first saw you.”
“He called me last night. We’re old friends and he looks out for me.”
“That’s good. Old friends are nice.”
“He says I should steer clear of you.”
“Why is that?”
“He says you’re strange, even for around here.”
“I take that as a compliment.”

While pulling booze from off the bottom of the glass through her straw she gave him a look that he had never seen before, appearing either intrigued or confused. Perhaps they were one and the same. Either way, Peter knew that somehow the dynamic between them had changed. And he believed he had Tommy to thank for it.