PLLS

The bus depot was reminded him of a horse barn. It smelled vuagely of feces and all these expresive young faces suffered the captivity of having to wait. Young is the urge to be free, as is the conundrum of being a horse. As a horse you are geneticly engineered to run and walk, but there’s no where for you to do it anymore. Sam always respected horses. Quiet, but full of rage. Obsolete too. Obsolete like rage.
After waiting some time in line, he finaly got his chance to speak to the tired old lady behind the counter.
“Gold beach please,” Sam said and with hands shaking to an almost dibilitating degree, he produced his wallet and managed to extract two twenties. A ticket printed and the old lady handed it to him. Sam nodded his thanks and walked into the bathroom.
He went into a stall and sat on the toilet with the lid down and produced his bottle and drank. A young man droned on and on a cell phone. His conversation was repetative and adjitated. It seemed to endlessly cycle. Sam peeked through the crack in the door and saw the kid. He was dressed in that urban ganster style, gaudy fake gold jewlry, the kinds you see for sale at the mall hung from all over his body. Finaly the kid shut up and closed his phone while looking at his hair in the mirror. Right away the phone rang again and the kid said, “what up G.”
Sam became aware of a groan comming from the stall next to him. Looking down he saw mud caked boots and jeans down araound the ankles. From the stall another young voice said, “Please shut the hell up.”
Sam’s eyes jumped over to the ganster talking on the phone who didn’t register the complaint. His annoying conversation cycled on. Sam took a drink.
“If you don’t shut the hell up, I’ll throw you the hell out of this bathroom,” the voice from the next stall said.
Again Sam watched the ganster for a reaction. He seemed to increase his volume to taunt the man in the stall next to him. Sam looked down in time to see the jeans rize and the cowboy boots leave the stall next to him. Sam took another drink. Amzingly the man in the next stall was more of a kid. He looked either part Mexican or indian. His clothes were worn and muddy and his face didn’t have a a lick of hair on it. That would come in a few years. He diliberatly and slowly grabbed the ganster kid by the jacket and led him from Sam’s view through the crack inthe stall door. Shortly there after Sam heard the door to the bathroom close. The kid with the boots returned, walked back into his stall and vomited wildly.
Sam noded with admiration, took another drink and left the stall. As he stopped to get a drink at the hand washing sink, the kid in boots emerged from the stall. He looked pale, skiny and preoccupied. Sam wiped his mouth with his sleeve and followed him out of the bathroom. The ganster kid was standing at the door of the depot with another ganster kid watching. Sam followed his new hero as he moved towards the ambush.
The kid with the boots held the door for Sam as they walked outside the depot. The two ganster looking kids stared at Sam, but didn’t say anything. Sam returned their stare for a moment before the two turned and walked away. It was a ridiculous interaction and the boy Sam followed out to protect didn’t even realize it happened. He was leaning against the wall of the depot, letting saliva drool out his mouth.
“Hey kid,” Sam said. Need a drink?”
The kid looked up with eyes that seemed on the verge of tears. He shrugged like he was willign to try anything. They walked down a narrow alley between the depot and the next door warehouse. Sam couldn’t remember being that hung over when he was a teen. He remembered being drunk, but not looking or feeling that wasted. He handed his big bottle of whiskey to the kid, who braced himself, then took a drink. He held it in his mouth for a moment, then spit it all over the wall. Sam chuckled and drank a little himself. Whiskey tasted like wood smelled, and he liked that.
The kid walked away from sam, down the alley, without saying a word.

Chapter II

Sam’s bus didn’t leave for another three hours. There was nothing to but sit and watch the faces in the depot. The gansters had returned, but they left Sam alone.
Latino girls sat quiet, trying to nap. They had eight times the patcience of the white girls who talked and talked. There were a few college girls in cotton hoodies and sweaters. They seemed so clean and erotic.
There were a few older men, like him, in their thirties, maybe looking for the next gig. They were meeker, orbiting the fringe of the depot, smoking and laughing togetheroutside, or admiring the vending machines.
Sam was feeling reflective. He could feel the drunk moving up his spine. He found an empty part of the floor next to a vending machine and let his eyes un-focus.
If he were younger, he’d be in the same damn position, he thought. No where to go, no real future. Just a hasty retreat on a bus. He had made the decision to escape before, some seventeen years earlier.
It was spring in Topenish. His mother had married a man with a horse barn a few years earlier. They were having trouble keeping the horse boarding buisness afloat and Sam sorta disapeared to his mother. He went to school on his own schedule and dated girls.
Sam stood sudenly and checked the time. He didn’t want to dose off and miss his bus. There was a big map of Oregon on the wall. There was graffiti scratched into the surface all along the Interstat Five corridor which reached up the West part of the state. The coastal towns dotted the shore. Some had indian names, some had generic sounding names. He wondered why the town he was headed to was called, ‘Gold Beach,’ and what kind of work he would find there. He wondered too if he’d have to improvize a place to sleep for a while. A good way to find a place to sleep, a job or a woman was to find a bar and make friends quick. He could stay drunk on cheap whiskey, he thought, and buy cheap beer. It would work out. He sat down again.
He looked at his callused hands. They were ugly, foreign and old looking. It mildly amused him to try to accomplish small tasks with them like touching his thumb to pinky. The shaking made it impossible. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Giving up was a relief. WHen he was in his twenties he amlost daily thoguht of suicide. Now in his thirties, he rarely thought, which was a relief. A few years ago he sometimes worried about his future. He felt weak next to men his age with some semblance of establishment. Pot bellied men in line at the supermarket on there way to play golf made him feel meek. Drinking made him feel like he was getting somewhere. And that somewhere was drunk.
Giving up did take a daily work. There were a few moments of panic during the day. They came like waves in a dream, drowning in an irrational situation. Thinking about thes emoments of panic often brought the panic on, as it was doing at that very moment. Sam stood to pee and take another drink in the bathroom.

Pretty Little Love Song

Pretty Little Love Song



The sounds from the Interstate calmed Sam and allowed him to sleep, but sometimes those sounds mixed with memories in his dreaming subconscious and jolted him awake. Mostly he couldn’t hear them at all. The viaduct splitting the tows in half could have carried water to Rome for all Sam knew, he never drove on it, even when he had his license. His tow truck didn’t have the pick-up nor the brakes to compete, so he avoided it.
“Sammy Knows Best,” was painted on the side of his cream colored rig. He considered it for a while before locking his front door and walking to the liquor store. He considered moving it, he didn’t want it reminding him of how everything was fucked up in a new and annoying way.
Maybe there was an element of Karma to it, he reposed cars from meth heads and drunks for many years in Medford until he himself was too broke to pay his own insurance, fines and rent so that soon someone else would impound his truck. There would be a bite to that thought if he were a more proud man.
It was hot. He had forgotten to put on deodorant before leaving his apartment. He felt weak and his drunk from the night before was wearing off. Soon a bottle of Evan Williams would restore the unreal stupor and he could watch TV all day and do it all again the next day. Waiting for the light to allow him to cross river street, a car honked making him feel vaguely uncomfortable.
Angie had left him that Spring. It took all spring. She had met him through a man who reffered impounds to him. She was his age, early thirties. She had tanned skin, so tanned it was wrinkling. It looked beautiful in sunlight like the kind making him squint and sweat. She made Medford beautiful. She was built for the place. She smoked in crappy dive bars, loved cheap Chinese food and would stay all night drinking white wine in a cheap lounge. She got excited in the morning and drug him out of bed to fish. She made Medford Beautiful. She left him when she realized Sam wouldn’t get her pregnant. They spent many quiet painful nights on her couch, each thinking of a way to make it work and each rationalizing they wern’t too old to start with someone else.
The light changed and Sam crossed the street and made his way into the liquor store. He bought the cheap stuff, paying with shaking hands.
He considered taking a drink while walking home, but decided against it in case he threw up. His apartment was sweltering. He turned on the TV and had his first drink of the day. It went down violently, but it cleared the horror of the day.
The drunker he got, the better the TV got. Perry Mason was a drag, always too long. The bes thing about it was the huge old cars. But thinking about cars made him think about the price of gas and thinking about the price of gas made him think about how little money he had. Thinking about how little money he had made aware of his looming rent payment which was eight four dollars more than he had after buying that bottle of whiskey. Thinking about that bottle of whiskey made him feel rich, and he drank from it.
This was a new thing to him, being broke. He had always been poor, but since leaving home at a young age he had always been busy. When he had his towing job, he was a lube mechanic at a garage, so at one point he was averaging about a seventy hour work week. Angie made him cut down on working, which was fun. They spent his savings driving to the coast. When they realized they wern’t going to work, he decided to be all the time. That was working for him, until he got pulled over. Failing to show up for any of the court proceedings, he lost his license .
The funny thing about Angie was he didn’t love her. She was beautiful and fascinating, but she never reached him. He would sit next to her in her car and feel liek there was so much he could say, but didn’t. In fact there was an element of anger to their relationship because he always felt like she should ask him why he was so quiet all the time. If it was really ment to be, she could have reached through that quiet and found the screaming man within him.
Sam decided to move his truck. It came to him just as Matlock came on the TV. He didn’t like Matlock and his folksy personae. As Sam was from the country, he knew goofy old men never had deductive powers. Scowling fat men in greasy overalls could look you over and figure out where you were from and what you wanted, not groomed smiling old men. It was all too improbable.
The keys to his rig were hanging on the wall next to the door. Unhooking them, he fumbled them and they fell to the floor. Bending down to pick them up, he hit his head on the door. He swore and left his room. The hallway of the apartment smelled like Mexican cooking and he felt jealous. Behind the adjoining apartment door with the cross on the outside was domestic bliss. Sober living and hard work, things he felt he wanted, but never could figure out how to keep.
The hot sun felt good on his drunk face. Wiping sweat from his brow, he realized he was bleeding. He found the scratch on his scalp and rubbed it, then looked at the blood on his hands and laughed. It seemed like a good day to piece of shit. He got in his rig and tried to start it. It spun, but didn’t turn over. He popped the hood.
With shaking hands he got the cover of the air filter and sprayed ether in it. He got back in the cab and started the truck and it turned over immediately.
It felt damn good to be driving again. The hot air blew through the window as he turned down side streets avoiding the police who no doubt recognized him and his rig. He approached one of his favorite bars from the back and parked.
The inside was dark and cool. There was a game on an old faded TV. He ordered a whiskey sour from an old Chinese man who gave him a funny look. Sam frowned back at him, then remembered the blood. He tried to rub it off while squinting into the back bar mirror. Looking at the clock he saw it was 4:17. he had seventeen dollars ro stretch until about eight when he figured he’d be drunk enough to sleep again. Drinks were two fifty a piece. He had got there with a healthy buzz, so he figured he’d make it.
The door to the bar opened. The figure looking in was back lit and indiscernible. It loomed in the door way for a moment, then closed the door without coming in. Sam shrugged and drank. He finished his sour and ordered another one. As he paid he thought of something. He sprang up, drink in hand and went out into the parking lot just in time to see his his tow truck being towed away by a newer larger blue rig with a perfect paint job.
Sipping his drink while standing in the parking lot of the bar, he felt calm an somewhat sober. He decided to go back and have another drink.

A heavy knocking awoke him. His mouth tasted filthy. He rubbed his eyes and tried to remember where he was. His boots were still on. It was warm, but not hit. He recognized his apartment. The knock came again. It was morning again. He rose and stumbled to the door. Looking through the peep hole he saw a cop. A wave of panic rolled over him. He froze and tried to remember what he had done the night before. When nothing came to mind, with shaking hands he unlocked the door.
“Does a Sam Waters live at this address,” an officer with what looked like a fresh hair cut asked.
“That’s me,” Sam said, his head swelling with pain all of a sudden.
“Sir, may I come in. I need to tell you something,” the officer said, tying to lock eye contact with him.
` Sam glanced back at his one bedroom apartment filled with fastfood wrappers and empty bottles. The though crossed his mind that he should hide something, but he couldn’t think what, and besides he didn’t really care. He opened the door and allowed the officer to pass.
The officer looked absurd standing amongst the crap in his apartment. He had his gaze locked on Sam. In his hands was a white piece of paper.
“Are you originally from Topenish, Washington?’ he said, taking time to pronounce the town’s name.
Sam’s interest was piqued. “Yeah.”
“Do you have a son?”
Sam furrowed his brow. He looked down at his clothes. His fly was open, he zipped it up. He ran his fingers through his hair. He saw a bottle was on it’s side on the couch. He righted it.
“Sir, do you have a son named Ryan? Goes by the name of Ryan Tillman?:
Sam nodded, as technically the correct answer to the question was yes, although e had never seen the boy. A rush of old emotions filled his heart.
“Sir, your son was killed in an explosion last Tuesday in rural Siletz county outside Topenish,” the officer said.
The officer seemed to be trying to lock eye contact with Sam, which was annoying. He wanted him to leave. He dry heaved and the officer extended a hand to comfort him. Sam pushed it away. He felt his knees shaking beneath him. He looked around the room untill his eyes settled on a bottle with some brown liquid still in it. Feeling as if he were about to collapse, he maneuvered over to it. It took both hands to get the bottle to his face, and once there he nearly chipped a tooth getting the lip of the bottle in his mouth. The warm liquid attacked the back of his throat and filled his nose. He stomach clenched like a fist causing him to run for the toilet.
He stared into the filthy bowl, salivating a steady stream. The whiskey stayed down and a calm settled over him. He was tired with an under current of scared. He couldn’t sleep and he needed another drink. He stood and was shocked to see the officer still standing in his living room. He picked up the bottle and sat on the floor. A long silence fell in the room.
“Finally the officer spoke again. “Were you in contact with your son at all?” Sam’s silence seemed to answer the question to satisfaction. “Memorial services are going to be held this Sunday at Christ Luthran Church on 2nd and Downing in Topenish. “
` Sam considered everything. He was broke, lonely and unemployed. His means of getting more money was impounded. A kind of fury grew inside him. He could smell the cologne of the officer standing there in his disgusting little apartment. He could feel his pity. He seemed so close Sam felt almost as if he could count the money in his wallet. Sam was desperate to run out the door and go somewhere, anywhere else. Maybe the ocean. Or maybe kill himself. He tried to hold the bottle in a way such that he didn’t shake so much. “What kind of explosion?” he foudn himself asking.
“Well, we believe he mave have had something to do with th emethamphetamine trade in the area,” the officer said.
Sam’s head roze and and his eyes met the officer’s. He made a solemn nod and looked down again. “I’d like to be alone,” Sam said.
“At times like this advize people to seek the comfort of friends family and his or her diety, Do you have church or spiritual advizer tou can contact?” Sam didn’t look up.
“Well, I’ll leave this paper on your... floor here. It has some numbers you can call...”
Finaly the officer left. Sam could hear his heavy footsteps going down the hall and later his radio in his patrol car. When the car pulled away, Sam stood. He looked around his little apartment. All the furnature was from thrift stores. His dresser was empty, all his clothes dirty on the floor. His kitchen was mostly empty, ecpt for empty cans and bottles. He drank the last of the whiskey and dropped the bottle. Under his mattress he kept a canvas bag full of tools. He opened it and let the contents fall to the floor. he then shoved a pair of pants, some underwear and a shirt in it. He put some toiletries in the bag and left the apartment. He stopped for a moment i nthe hall. With shaking hands he attempted to get the key for the apartment off the ring. He couldn’t manage. Looking at the ring he realized every key was to something he no longer had. One key was for his truck, one was for Angie’s garage, one was for the city impound lot. He threw the ring into the apartment and closed the door and left the apartment building.

Standing in the liquor store he weighed his options. He could get a fifth of whiskey, or a pint and travel light. Or he could get the half gallon and save money. If he got the fifth, he would be ok for a day or two. If he got the pint, it might lost last the day, but then again maybe this was a sign it was time to quit drinking. Something in him told his that was a stupid though. He picked up the half gallon which was in a plastic jug. The fat white woman behind the counter knew better than to make a comment.
It was going to be a milder day, Sam thought as he walked down the street. A powerful fatuige over came him. He identified it’s cause as starvation and stopped at a Taco Bell. There was no one in line and behind the counter was a lovely young Mexican girl. Maybe sixteen years old. She smiled at him with a kind of nativity that almost brought a tear to Sam’s eyes. His hands were shaking violently as he produced his wallet. He ordered a bean burrito, which was ready almost immediately.
Sitting with it in a booth he felt as if he had forgotten how to eat. He took a bite, but it seemed dry and ridiculous. The mechanism for chewing escaped him and he had to consciously direct his mouth to chew. Swallowing was an ordeal. The whole experience was alien and he only got half the thing down before throwing it away.
The bus station was packed. He wasn’t expecting that. People overflowed onto the streets. There were lines for the phone booths and ticket counters. What little picture in his head of his escape was of a stoic journey to an empty buss station. Where were all these people going. A young man sat cross-legged drawing the mob in a sketch book. Sam craned his head to see. He couldn’t quite understand all the lines and shading, but it seemed to capture what his own half drunk eyes saw.
A voice cme over the loudspeaker,” The bus South to Ashland, Redding, Shasta and Sacramento will be delayed another two hours. At that time three buses will take everybody waiting.” A groan came over the croud. Sam waited in line at the ticket counter. His own vuage plan was to go West to the coast, not South.