Don't Kiss Me: Stories(22)
But, like, it’s us, we lie on our backs to watch the sky pearl to star, we are skin to bite we are hair to flick we are swish, we have the power it’s us we say what we want we say, Come, and we say, Here, and we say, Burn, and we say, Like.
THE NOISE
There was that noise again. Definitely something mechanical.
His stomach roiled; he pictured a swordfish wearing a parsley lei stabbing through the slosh of coffee and bourbon and, when the night got late and he felt tired of paying for premium booze, the gin he felt sure had been ladled from a toilet somewhere in the bowels of the hotel.
The hotel had seemed promising. Its neon sign in a modern sort of font. Industrial lettering or some shit. Maxine would know.
But after pulling his wheeled suitcase through a labyrinth of hallways to get to his room, he realized it wasn’t anything different from the Ramada at the end of the strip. Just a hotel room. In fact he wondered could he have smelled the drapes so strongly in that Ramada. Bleach. Exhaust. And something sour, something like rags at the bottom of a well.
They were bright yellow. Frazzles of black lines at odd intervals. He imagined in the Ramada the drapes were hunter green with some mallards or paisley, or both. This hotel was really saying something with these drapes, with that chair made out of clear plastic, with that urchin of a beanbag he found in the bathroom. For what? He had rested his feet on it while on the toilet. Had read the free months-old issue of Playboy. It had been placed with the soaps, the mouthwash, the shower cap, all arranged on a fan of towels. Had clearly survived a bath of some sort, maybe more than once, and it gave the pages the feel of a rarefied document, something old and of the import to never, ever be thrown out.
That f*cking noise! What was it? Had someone left a dog in the next room? Terrified in the dark, shivering, its eyes two black moons, keeping quiet until it became impossible and out burst a cry, a two-note moaning eruption that the dog immediately felt relieved and reterrified by?
Only, the noise was the same, every time. The clock was on the other side of the king bed, and he felt barred by something—exhaustion? fear, maybe?—from rolling over to look at it, to time the intervals in between the noises.
Instead he convinced himself, again, that he was just hearing the elevator. Something to do with the elevator. Focused on the night he’d had. What had he lost, what had he accrued?
At Caesar’s he’d started at the quarter slots, and after four neat bourbons had moved on to the five-dollar slots. Had come in with a grand. Left with thirteen hundred. Thought he saw Maxine at the ATM, nearly grabbed her elbow until he remembered: wasn’t her. Heart jabbing wildly. He ate swordfish at the buffet. Could taste the lamp it had been heated under. Hunted a scale from behind a molar, left it on his plate, thought better of it, dropped it into his inner pocket. The way it flashed at him: wink, wink. A real treasure.
At New York, New York, he’d ordered a coffee from a cocktail waitress whose face was smooth, unlined, fresh even, but whose gnarled toes and bunion the size of a cherry tomato told a different story. He tipped her a twenty, she ran her hand down his cheek. He waited for a different waitress, ordered a double bourbon. Won a hundred at craps, two at blackjack. Made it outside in time to heave into a trash can, but only the bourbon came up. A girl holding hands with her grandmother watched him, shook her head and grinned like he was putting on a show for her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tipped an imaginary hat at her. Wink, wink. Realized too late it was the kind of grin that’s the preamble to a gory wave of screaming. Pushed his way forward, away, Oops, he said, oops, I didn’t know. Every face a spinning wheel.
The noise couldn’t be mechanical. It had the essence of sorrow, of regret. He wanted the clock the way a drowning man must want an inner tube. But he’d have to roll, he’d have to show his back to the window, and the noise was making him feel like that was a bad idea. Like a shrieking carpet of horror would reach him if he turned for the clock. Better to stay on his back, where he could see the window and the short hallway that led to the door.
Would Maxine laugh at him? No. She’d be turned off. Call down and ask, she’d hiss, the smell of sleep pouring out of her, her face creased, her hair in her eyes.
Well, the phone was on the desk across the room. So eat shit, Maxine, and God, it felt good to think it.
There it was again. Was it coming more quickly? Now it sounded like a child who’d been hiding too long, shut in a closet waiting for the game to be over. Olly olly oxen free? He felt threaded with exhaustion. He imagined putting up his hands, No thanks, the inner tube bobbing away.
He’d returned to his hotel, had found a bar, watched some fratty types twitch and lunge at the cocktail waitresses from the rim of his double gin. Had made one of the waitresses giggle when he said, You feel yourself having a powerful craving for beef? Was talking about how they all looked made of meat. Felt good that she got it. Realized later human beings are animals and thus made of meat anyway. But realized that while getting an outside-the-pants squeeze job from a different waitress he’d asked to meet him in the elevator, so the shame was eclipsed and set aside. They were all so smart, these girls. Just had to give them an idea in the neighborhood of what you were thinking and they knew just what you were getting at, could give you directions to your own house.
He’d come in his underwear. Better that way, less cleanup for her. He placed bills one by one into her tiny brown hand until she closed it. The elevator stopped at his floor. Had he pushed the button? They both made a move to get off, but she stopped herself, her face a small brown apple, and swept her hand out, like, Here you go! Gracias, he said, and she stared at him so blankly he realized she wasn’t Hispanic, just really tan. The mirrored doors came together silently. His two selves joined, and then halved.