Doug Dorst - The Surf Guru

“Of course I don’t mean that about you ,” Trace said. “I don’t know you. Or how you feel about mitts.”

She turned to me. “How about you? Is there a woman in your life?” I watched her nose winking at me.

“There was,” I said. “It didn’t work out.” I had been with Katie a whole year, and then one night, no warning, she told me it was over. You want me to be just like Mo , she said. Well, I’m not Mo. It’s not fair and I’m sick of it. She may have been right. It’s just that Mo was a lot more likable. I told her so, and she threw her shoes at me, and I threw them out the window. One got stuck in a tree. It was still there when Trace and I left town.

The woman leaned back in her chair and undid her ponytail. Her hair fell in loose rings past her shoulders. “How old are you?” she asked. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-three,” I said. It occurred to me that my life was bleeding out of me even faster than I’d thought.

“I have a kid,” the woman said. “He’s eighteen.” She sipped her drink. “He went to jail this week.”

“What for?” I asked.

“Joyride. Took a car from the lot at the gas station.”

“That’s all?” I said.

“That bastard Duffy pressed charges.”

“That bastard Duffy has our van,” Trace said.

“We broke down,” I explained. “We’re waiting for him to fix it.”

“He’s a bastard,” she said.

It would turn out that she was right. Duffy was a bastard. The next morning he would tell me and Trace our transmission was shot and he wanted sixteen hundred to replace it. We’d say we couldn’t pay that much, so he’d offer us a trade: the van straight up for a ’79 Bonneville with no muffler and bad brakes and power windows that wouldn’t go down. We’d take it so we could get out of town in a hurry.

Behind me I heard a pool ball smack on the floor and roll away. The baby started to cry, but Trace jiggled it and it stopped. Spit bubbled from its mouth. The woman finished her drink. I watched her neck as she swallowed. The skin around it looked a little loose, baggy. I’d never noticed that on anyone before.

“He didn’t even steal anything good,” she said. “Just an old Beetle, all rusted to shit. You’d think the boy would have some taste, at least.”

“He’s lucky to be alive,” Trace said. “The transmission could have exploded.”

She looked down at the floor. “The judge said I was a bad mother,” she said.

“That’s terrible,” I said. “What’d he have to say that for?” He could have been right, for all I knew, but still.

She set her glass down on the table, hard. “I’m a good mother,” she said. “A damn good mother.” Her eyes got wet. It was like she’d been waiting a long time to say this, waiting to find someone who might believe her.

“I’m sure you are,” I said.

“I have to take a leak,” Trace said. “Can you hold my baby?” He held it out to her.

She sat the baby in her lap and bounced it up and down. “Hello, baby,” she said. “What a big baby you are. What a bouncy baby.” She kissed it on the top of its head, then smoothed its thin brown hair. Maybe she was a good mother. The baby looked like it was in heaven, eyes half-closed and dreamy. It drooled a little more, and she wiped its mouth with a cocktail napkin. Her eyes were still wet, but she’d started to smile. She was pretty when she smiled. I told her so.

“You should stop hanging around with that guy,” she said. “He’s holding you back.”

I told her I knew that. It was what she wanted to hear.

The baby grabbed her nose, and she wiggled her head from side to side. “That’s a nose you’ve got there,” she said. “That’s my nose.” The baby let go, but kept moving its hand through the air like it still had a nose in it.

“When are you leaving town?” she asked me.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “I hope.”

“Where’ve you been staying?”

“In the van,” I said.

Her knee touched mine. “Want to stay with me tonight?” she asked. She saw me look at her ring. “I have money for a room,” she said.

I didn’t even consider saying no. I swept the baby out of her arms, without thinking, without worrying, like I’d held a baby every day of my life, like I juggled babies in my spare time. That’s when the smell hit me. The kid was ripe. She smelled it, too.

“Jackpot,” she said.

I found Trace standing with Roy at the pool table, a fresh drink in his hand. I handed him the baby.

“Phil, this baby stinks,” Trace said.

“You’re going to have to change it,” I said. “Maybe feed it, too. You got us into this.”

He nodded, slowly. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said.

“For fuck’s sake, Trace,” I said, “why’d you take this thing? You could’ve said no.”

He steadied himself against the pool table. “I was called,” he said with a stupid smile. “I was called by forces we can’t understand.”

“Tell the bartender to call the cops,” I said. “The mother’s not coming. The mother is long fucking gone.”

“I’m going to give her some more time,” he said.

“I’m leaving,” I said. “I have somewhere to go.”

“Where? Where is there to go?”

“The motel.”

He looked surprised. Then he smiled that same smile again. “Have fun,” he said. “I’ll be fine here.”

“I can’t give you any more money,” I said. “We’re all out.”

Roy lit a cigarette and draped his arm around Trace’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Drinks for the daddy are on me.”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Trace said, smooth and cool. “Roy’s buying.”

I went back to the booth. She sucked the last ice cubes out of her glass, then whispered to me, lips cold and wet, that she would leave first and I should wait a minute before following. “It’s a small town,” she explained. I doubt we fooled anyone. People turned to watch me as I walked out. She was waiting in the motel parking lot, money in her hand. She told me to get the room while she waited outside.

The lobby of the Desert Blossom Motel stank of curry. The desk clerk kept looking out the window, like he expected something to come crashing through it. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“A big party,” he said. “The bikers. They like to make trouble. Always they make trouble.” He offered me a room on the other side of the motel. I took the key and told him good luck.

She had her tongue in my ear before we got to the top of the cement stairs. We kissed outside the room, leaning on the metal railing. “Look at that view,” she said, extending her arm like she was showing me a whole new world.

The fog had blown away, but all I could see was the motel parking lot, some scattered lights, dark desert. “There’s nothing to see,” I said.

“That’s what I mean,” she said, and she kissed me again.

I had to push her away to unlock the door. The room was decorated in sad shades of brown. Brown carpet and curtains, brown-and-orange plaid bedspread, two brown-cushioned chairs, a still life of a coconut painted on tan fabric.

It was choking hot inside, and I said so. “It’s the middle of summer, sweetie,” she said. I kissed her long and hard because I couldn’t remember the last time anyone called me sweetie. She took off my shirt. Then she stepped back. “When was the last time you had a shower?” she said.

I counted back to the day we’d left Durango. “Five days,” I said.

“Why don’t you clean yourself up,” she said gently. “I’ll go get us a bottle.”

In the shower it seemed like I could smell everything that was coming off me, layer by layer, grimy souvenirs of our time on the road. Smoke from fireworks, cigarettes, and ditchweed. Sweat from the heat and the alcohol and pushing the van and losing a dozen straight hands in Vegas. Road dust. And, Jesus, my feet. I smelled like I was dying.