Loser's Town (6 page)

Potts parked his truck in front of the garage and went inside the house. He’d forgotten to leave the a/c running and the place was hot. He turned it on and went into the kitchen for a cold beer. He opened the beer and took a sip and then downed the whole thing. He opened another. It would help him sleep.

Potts went into the living room. He sat in his easy chair and looked around. It wasn’t much but it was something,
and Potts was happy to be back. The place was furnished mainly from Goodwill with accents from Target. Maybe it was cheap but nothing like the shithole he’d been brought up in, or the shitholes he’d lived in often enough. There was a big painting hanging on the wall of somebody called Blue Boy by somebody called Gainsborough. All in all it was a pretty faggoty painting, but Potts liked it. He liked the soft colors and the way there were no hard lines in it anywhere, everything kind of blended together. It relaxed him, and, anyway, he never brought people here. In the year he’d lived here nobody else had been in the place except the landlord and a guy to fix the toilet. There was a word for what the place was. Sacro-something or other.

The telephone answering machine was blinking. Potts played it back.

‘Mr Potts, this is Gina Rivera from Consolidated Credit. We’ve been trying to reach you concerning your account, which is seriously past due . . .’

(beep)

‘Mr Potts, this is Kevin Pynchon again. I’ve come by about three times now for my rent . . .’

(beep)

‘Mr Potts, this is Leslie Stout from McCann, Pool and Foxle. In regards to the appeal we filed for you about visitations to your daughter, it’s been denied. If you’d like to call me I can give you the details. We can try again of course, but it would require additional fees . . .’

Potts went over to the sliding patio door. As usual he
had to wrench it open. Potts would have preferred a real door with hinges and all, since he knew how easy these were to break into. All it took was a jimmy. God knows he’d done it often enough himself back in Texas. The door led out to the backyard and sometimes you could sit in the living room and look out and watch the sky change colors.

In the backyard, mainly sand with clumps of crabgrass, was a barbecue grill and a plastic table and chairs. Potts had strung up Christmas lights and sometimes he turned them on when he got drunk. There was a birdfeeder birds ignored and a jerry-rigged horseshoe court. He went over and picked up a rusty horseshoe and threw it. He missed. He sat down in one of the plastic chairs and for a while looked out at the desert. He finished the beer and dragged himself out of the chair and went inside. He got another beer and then he went into the bedroom and emptied his pockets onto the dresser, tossing the thick wad of bills Stella had given him into his sock drawer. He undressed and got sand all over the floor and cursed but he didn’t have the energy to clean it up. He went into the bathroom and took a long hot shower and tried to think about a woman but he couldn’t do that either. He felt like breaking something so he got out of the shower and put on his kimono and drank two more beers.

He woke late that afternoon on top of the bed in his dressing gown. His mouth was thick and his head throbbed. It might have been the beer but more likely it was because
he’d forgotten to eat. He shuffled into the kitchen and made some instant coffee and took it with him into the bathroom while he had a watery shit. His guts were churning and he felt weak. He’d dreamed, in flashes, of the dead girl’s face.

Potts dressed in jeans, boots and his ragged leather bike jacket. He went out to the garage and unlocked it and lifted the door. The large classic Harley-Davidson sat in the middle of the garage, surrounded by spare parts and boxes of tools. Potts went over and ran his hand along the bike. He straddled it and rolled it outside, then got off and closed the garage door. He put on his skid-lid – the minimum the law allowed – and kicked the bike to life. When Potts rode he forgot about everything, which was the reason anybody rode. The fucking world was everywhere but when you rode you broke free and skimmed over the top of it.

Potts rode to Kepki’s Roadhouse. There were a dozen or so bikes outside and a few trucks from guys just getting off work. Potts knew some of the people and when he went inside only a few said hello or waved even though he’d been coming here regular for a year. Potts went up to the bar and sat on a stool. Kepki was behind the bar.

‘Beer?’ said Kepki.

Potts nodded. ‘And some of that chili, if you got any. And a bunch of crackers.’

Kepki brought him a beer and Potts drank it quickly. He held up the bottle for Kepki to bring him another.

‘You starting early or just keeping one going?’ Kepki asked him.

Potts ignored the question but attacked this beer a little slower. He turned around and checked out the room. A couple of bikers were shooting pool at the table in back and a few people were standing around watching. One of them was a woman in her thirties wearing a tight blue dress and drinking a beer. She looked up and saw Potts watching her. Potts turned back around.

Potts had started in on the chili when the woman turned up at his side.

‘You want to give me a Miller?’ she said to Kepki.

Kepki brought her one and she drank it standing next to Potts. Potts opened several packs of saltines and broke them up into his chili and stirred it around. He was hungry and when he took a bite it was too hot and he had to spit it out into his hand. ‘Shit!’ He took a swig of beer to cool down.

The woman laughed. ‘Didn’t your mother never teach you to blow on it first?’

‘Damn, I burnt the hell out of my mouth! God damn, Kepki, you coulda warned me.’

‘Just cause it says chili don’t mean it ain’t hot,’ said Kepki, winking at the woman.

Potts took another swig of cool beer.

‘You always eat like that?’ the woman asked him. ‘Big gulps of everything? I reckon that’s a good sign, though. A man just taking big bites out of everything, like taking big bites out of life. That the way you are?’

‘I never thought about it.’

‘I bet you are,’ she said. ‘I bet you that’s the way you do things. My name’s Darlene.’

‘Potts.’

‘Just Potts?’

‘Just Potts,’ he said.

They drank up the rest of the evening. Potts had some of Stella’s money in his pocket and the beer bottles and whiskey glasses accumulated on the bar in front of them. They laughed and talked, Darlene resting against Potts with her arm around him. Somewhere early on Darlene leaned over and kissed Potts and slid her tongue deep into his mouth and rubbed his crotch through the blue jeans. Potts got up to have a piss and was standing at the urinal when Darlene came in. Potts started to zip up but Darlene said, ‘Don’t bother,’ and she grabbed Potts by the dick and led him over and pushed him up against the wall. She raised her blue dress and jammed Potts’ hand down into her panties. Potts was a little overwhelmed. A biker came in and said, ‘Hot damn! Well don’t let me interrupt nothing,’ and took a leak watching Potts and Darlene administer to each other. The biker whistled appreciatively before he left and winked at Potts.

‘Why don’t we go to your place?’ Darlene said to him.

‘No,’ said Potts.

‘You married?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Then how come? I don’t give a shit how clean it is, long as the bed is okay.’

‘I never take anybody there, that’s all.’

‘How come?’

‘Why you asking all these questions? I just don’t, that’s all. Now you want to get it on somewhere or not. Let’s go to your place.’

‘Can’t. I got a kid. I bring anybody home and the kid’ll blab to the goddamn social worker.’

They drove in her car to a motel. Potts was drunk so he handed her a wad of cash. She was perhaps slightly less drunk than Potts and she went in to book the room. She came back out a few minutes later with some cash still in her hand. She looked at the money, looked at Potts, then jammed the money into her bra.

‘You want it,’ she said to Potts, ‘you got to come and get it.’

In the motel room Darlene sat on the bed and took a pint of vodka from her purse. She took a hit and offered it to Potts.

‘You look nervous. You always like this or is it just me?’

‘I ain’t nervous,’ said Potts.

‘Fun to be a little nervous,’ she said. ‘I like being a little scared.’

She sat back on the bed and motioned for Potts to sit next to her.

‘Come on, honey,’ she said. ‘Come and talk to Mama Darlene a little while.’

Potts climbed onto the bed. Darlene pulled his head to her chest and gently stroked his hair, his face. Potts closed his eyes.

‘You had a hard life, ain’t you? I can tell. You can always tell a hard life. What you need is a little love, ain’t it, sugar? What you need is someone to be gentle with you, someone to be soft. Life’s too hard. Life ain’t got to be this hard all the time, is it?’

She tilted his chin up and brought her lips down to his, tenderly kissing him. She looked into his eyes.

‘You got beautiful eyes, you know that? I noticed that right off. Them big sad eyes of yours. That’s why I liked you. I thought: anybody with them eyes got to need some love.’

Potts watched her undress. She was beautiful, in her way. Her pale body was lush and soft but there was an ugly deep scar across her abdomen. She caught Potts looking at it.

‘That upset you?’

‘No,’ said Potts.

‘Ugly, ain’t it? A doctor did that to me, when I had my kid. An infection. I like to have died. Maybe you don’t want me now. Some men don’t.’

‘No, I still want you.’

She let him touch the scar softly. He ran his fingers the length of it.

‘You’re a good man, ain’t you? Are you?’

‘Yeah. I am. I’m a good man.’

‘Come on. Get undressed. I’m going to hold you for a while, then I’m going to love you.’

Potts undressed and climbed into bed with her. She seemed shy now. Potts touched her all over and she giggled. It was like high school. She pulled Potts close to her and it was as if she enfolded him. She pushed Potts onto his back and she slid him inside her. She smiled down at Potts and in that moment Potts thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The ceiling light was behind her and she looked like an angel; there was a halo round her head. Potts was in heaven. Like an angel.

She rolled over onto her back and pulled Potts on top of her. He kissed her as he made love to her but as she became more and more aroused she turned her face away. Her fingernails bit into Potts’ back and her legs wrapped round him as she arched beneath him, urging him harder, faster, harder. Potts thought she was going to come but she stopped and grabbed Potts’ hands and placed them on her neck. Potts wasn’t sure what to do. Darlene glared at him. ‘Do it, for God’s sake, do it!’

Potts tightened his grip on her neck and she relaxed and he could feel her begin to move beneath him again. Potts was worried about her but whenever he loosened his grip she became angry. Finally she grabbed his hands and squeezed them herself into her neck to show him what she wanted. She turned red and then began turning purple and made gurgling noises in her throat. Potts wanted to stop moving but she hit him on the arms and he kept on. She
began to twitch and her eyes began to roll and Potts was afraid he was killing her, he didn’t want to hurt her. She started slapping the bed with her palms and Potts stopped and took his hands away. He looked down at her as she fought for air and seemed to come round to consciousness again. Her eyes focussed and she stared at Potts curiously and then she screamed at him:

‘Why the fuck did you stop? I was coming! I was almost there, you stupid son of a bitch! I was nearly there!’

Potts backed off the bed and Darlene became hysterical. She sat up in the middle of the bed crying, cursing, tearing at the sheets that tangled her. Potts pulled on his pants and ran from the room carrying his boots. He stumbled out into the parking lot and the cool night desert air hit him and made things worse. It only increased his confusion. He looked around for his bike and remembered they’d taken her car. He sat down with his boots and tried to pull them on when Darlene appeared in the doorway, naked, shouting at him.

‘What is wrong with you? Am I too much woman for you, you fucking faggot? Is that it? You fucking loser, you fucking goddamn little faggot!’

She kept shouting at him, shouted as the doors around the motel opened, shouted as Potts hobbled carrying his shirt and boots out into the street and away.

Four

After Spandau left Coren’s office it was nearly 3 p.m. when he got back to his home in Woodland Hills. He lived in an older two-bedroom house, small, but it had a nice backyard. Spandau had put in a pond with some fish and a turtle. The turtle seemed to be doing well but the fish were being eaten by the raccoons. Every few days Spandau would look into the pond and notice a fish was gone, and sometimes he’d find the tail and a fin or two under the hedge. Then he’d go buy another fish. He thought about sitting up some night in the dark lurking behind the open window with a pellet rifle and catching the damned raccoons in the act, and the fact that he did think seriously about doing this worried him a little. They were just animals, after all. Thinking about them in human terms like revenge was already halfway to being crazy and best not explored. But he wished he’d never put in the goddamned pond. It was supposed to relax him but now whenever he looked at it he got angry.