Don't Skip Out on Me Page 20

Inside his house, Horace closed the blinds, turned on the AC unit and slept. When he woke it was afternoon, and he called Benny and told him what had happened and that he couldn’t work. Benny said he would get someone to cover his shifts until he was better, but Horace told him he was quitting, that he was leaving town and not coming back. Benny didn’t say anything after that – he just hung up the phone. Horace tried to call him again and explain, but Benny wouldn’t answer.

  He didn’t leave the house for three days, but then his food ran low. It was evening and nearly dark when he walked to Food City and bought canned soup, milk, Coke, bread and cheese. He spent four more days in front of the TV eating grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. Mr Reese called twice but Horace didn’t answer either time. His aunt knocked on the door once but he turned the TV off and acted like he wasn’t there.

  On the eighth day he felt good enough that he packed what he wanted into his duffel and got rid of the rest. He busted his Spanish CDs and threw away his Spanish dictionary and phrase book. He cleaned the bathroom and kitchen and put things back the way he remembered them. With a broken hand, he wrote a barely legible note to his aunt.

  Aunt Briana

  Thanks for letting me stay here. I know I have two months prepaid on rent but I’m leaving. You can keep the money. I know we didn’t get to know each other very good, but maybe someday we will. I’ve left twenty dollars on the counter. I broke a mug that said ‘San Diego’ on it. I looked for a replacement in some thrift stores but couldn’t find one. Maybe you could find one online. Also I used three bars of Ivory soap but I couldn’t find that brand so I replaced it with Dove. I hope that’s okay.

  I apologize if I’ve left anything the way you don’t like it.

  Horace

  The next morning, after she left for work, he slipped the key and note through her mail slot. He walked slowly, his ribs stinging with each step, toward downtown, where he caught a bus to Las Vegas. He decided, even though he had failed as a boxer and was still a nobody, he would go back to the Reeses and live his life on the ranch.

  *

  It was evening and cool when he arrived, the lights from the casinos brightening the black sky. The small bus line that went to Tonopah was down the street from the Greyhound station and he found there was a bus leaving the next morning. He was stuck the whole night there. He carried his duffel and walked aimlessly for hours under the canopy of Fremont Street in Old Town Las Vegas. Hundreds of people walked by, and always the lights of the casinos shone down. A half-dozen times he nearly called Mr Reese to let him know he was coming back, but somehow he couldn’t dial the number. The evening wore on and he grew tired and the pain in his ribs sharpened, so he got a room for $40 at the Golden Gate Hotel.

  That first night he was so exhausted and hurt that he didn’t even turn on the TV. He just slept on the queen-sized bed straight through until dawn. When he got up, he dressed and walked to the bus station. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself to, he couldn’t buy the ticket to Tonopah. Outside the small station he paced back and forth and back and forth, but he couldn’t go inside.

  The bus came and left and he spent the day walking in and out of casinos. He paid for another night at the same hotel, ate at a Chinese buffet and watched TV in his room. The next morning he again went to the station. This time he bought a ticket to Tonopah, but when the bus arrived he just stayed on a metal bench seat, his feet tapping up and down nervously. He watched as five people boarded, the driver closed the door, and the bus left the station.

  As it disappeared down the street, Horace’s heart sank. He knew then that he could never go back to the ranch. He had been kidding himself to think he could. Because, if he did, he would live the rest of his life in embarrassment. Every time he saw Mr Reese, the old man would see him for what he was: a fool. The Reeses knew too much about him and that was the problem. He had been foolish enough to think he could be Mexican and foolish enough to think he could be a championship boxer. Why had he done any of it? He would have to start anew and start alone.

  The next morning Mr Reese called but Horace didn’t answer, even though he was in bed, awake, watching TV. He stayed in his room at the Golden Gate for three more days, only leaving to get food and pay his daily room bill. He slept sporadically and always the TV was left on.

  The morning of the fourth day, he woke to another call from Mr Reese. In the darkness of the room he watched the phone ring, but he didn’t answer it, and when it finally stopped he turned off the phone. He watched TV for hours and then grew restless enough that he left to look around. But, like it was when he first arrived in Tucson, he became overwhelmed by the number of people in Las Vegas. All the casinos and buildings and tourists. And knowing his mother was there, in a suburb of North Las Vegas, with her husband and their kid made it even worse. He didn’t want to see her, exactly, but no matter how hard he tried not to, he looked for her in every car that passed. If he saw her, then what? She wouldn’t want him back at her house, even though she would invite him. If he did stay there, when her husband came home and they’d be in bed together late at night, they would worry about how long Horace would stay and what his real motivation was. They would lay in the dark whispering about him. They’d talk for hours about how to get him out of their lives and then, in the morning, they’d smile at him and act like everything was normal while they all ate breakfast. He almost threw up thinking about it. Las Vegas was the last place he wanted to be, but somehow he couldn’t leave.

  A week passed where he did nothing but walk in and out of casinos. He spoke to no one but waitresses and clerks at the stores he went to. One afternoon, in an alley behind a casino, he broke down crying in loneliness. He sat in front of a dented roll-up door and sobbed, and in that moment of desperation he again decided he would try to go back to Tonopah. Embarrassment and shame had to be easier than being alone in a city every day.

  The next afternoon he took a cab to Boot Barn and bought new work clothes. Three plaid long-sleeved western shirts and two pairs of Wranglers. He went back to his room, packed, and waited out the night watching TV. But when morning came and he looked at himself in his hotel-room mirror, dressed in his new creased clothes with the patch over his eye and the cast on his hand, the certainty of the previous day vanished. This time he couldn’t even leave his room for the station.

  *

  All the days of idleness had caused him to spend his money too quickly. He paid daily for his room, ate out each meal and rented movies every night on TV. He knew, if he stayed in Las Vegas, he would have to get an apartment and a job. So he woke up the next morning and began searching. He looked for three days and then came to a dreary single-storey studio-apartment complex a mile from Old Town. It was a poorly built ranch-style building from the 1950s. There was no yard or shrubs of any kind. The siding was yellow vinyl and each unit had a front window and a white door. On one of the doors was taped a For Rent sign. He called the number on it and soon a middle-aged man emerged from an end unit. He was red-faced with veins on his nose and he wore a Hawaiian shirt, white shorts and flip-flops. He showed Horace the open unit, a single room with a bed, a couch, a dresser and a kitchenette.

  ‘As you can see, it comes furnished,’ the man said. He turned on the faucet in the kitchen to show it worked. In the bathroom, he flushed the toilet and turned on the water in the stained plastic shower stall.

  ‘How much a month is it?’ asked Horace.

  ‘Six hundred dollars. First and last and a six-hundred-dollar security deposit. Eighteen hundred dollars to move in.’

  Horace looked at the rundown room and, not knowing what else to do, said he would take it. He filled out the paperwork and then walked to the bank and got a money order for the $1,800. When he received the key he walked back to his hotel, and that last night there he tried to make a plan for his future but, no matter how hard he thought about it, his life made no sense in Las Vegas.

  He woke up at dawn the next morning and packed his duffel and left the
Golden Gate Hotel by eight o’clock. He walked outside to an alley where a series of dumpsters were lined in a row. He set his phone on the asphalt, jumped on it and destroyed it. Tears welled in his eyes as he took his hand exerciser, the autographed photo of Érik Morales, a jump rope, running shoes, sweats, boxing shoes, the shirts he didn’t like and the red-and-gold boxing trunks Mrs Poulet had made him, and threw them all in the trash.

  24

  Mr Reese pulled into the Banc Club casino. It was winter and there were traces of snow on the ground and the sun hadn’t yet come over the mountains. He walked through the parking lot dressed in long underwear, jeans, a thick flannel shirt, a canvas coat, his felt grey cowboy hat and new running shoes. His glasses fogged from the cold as he walked into the casino.

  Seated in a booth in the corner, Ander Zubiri filled out a keno ticket. A half-empty glass of red wine sat before him.

  ‘How long you been here?’

  ‘Not long,’ Ander replied, still looking at the ticket. ‘I ordered for us when I saw you drive up.’

  ‘What if I change my mind one of these days?’

  ‘You always order the same thing, no matter how hard you try not to.’

  Mr Reese laughed, took off his hat and coat, and sat across from him. ‘I hate when it gets this cold.’

  Ander nodded. He had a brown felt cowboy hat leaned back on his head, and wore a light-blue western shirt with faded wine stains on it. The left pocket was missing its snap and a pack of cigarettes sat in it. He looked at Mr Reese. ‘When did you get the fancy shoes?’

  ‘A while ago. I’ve been getting massages and the gal there thought a bit of my problem might be my boots. So I got the kind of running shoes Horace wears and now I feel better.’

  ‘Your back pain is gone?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it’s better.’

  A heavy-set, blonde, middle-aged waitress came from the kitchen with a pot of coffee and poured a cup for Mr Reese.

  Ander looked up from his keno ticket. ‘So are you going to start going on vacations now?’

  ‘Vacations?’

  ‘Now that you’ve sold the sheep. Now that you’re free and you have money and time. For most people, that would mean a vacation.’

  Mr Reese shook his head. ‘What about Louise?’

  ‘What about her?’ Ander said and took a drink of wine.

  ‘She won’t even go to the store, let alone visit Cassie or Lynn. How am I going to get her to go on vacation?’

  ‘You go and I’ll move in with her.’

  Mr Reese laughed and shook his head.

  ‘You know, I heard something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your man Pedro hired on with an outfit out of Wyoming. The Sunny B Livestock Company. He’s going out with a flock in a couple months.’

  ‘He didn’t go home?’ Mr Reese said.

  Ander shook his head. ‘It’s strange what I heard. Supposedly he hasn’t been home in thirty years. I was talking with a guy who knows him, and he said, all those times Pedro told you he was going back to his wife and kids, he was staying in Winnemucca and waiting it out in a camping trailer.’

  ‘In Winnemucca?’

  ‘That’s what I heard.’

  ‘Does he even have a wife and kids?’

  Ander shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Why would he go back to the mountains when it causes him so much pain?’

  ‘Who knows,’ said Ander.

  Mr Reese took a drink of coffee and looked down at the table.

  ‘Some guys just can’t do anything else,’ said Ander. ‘And some guys you just can’t help. Anyway, what have you been doing with your free time?’

  ‘I rebuilt the log splitter. I also rebuilt my Weed Eater and tuned up the chainsaw. Been working on the baler now. I still got most of the dogs and the horses. Someone dumped a donkey out near the Barley Creek Ranch. Lonnie Dixon found her, called me, and I went and picked her up. So now we have another donkey.’

  ‘I’ve never liked donkeys,’ Ander said. ‘The little bastards never shut up and they never die.’

  Mr Reese laughed.

  ‘I’m going down to Palm Desert to play golf next month. You should come. I’ve made friends with some people there.’

  ‘I don’t know how to play golf.’

  ‘You just take a couple lessons. It’s not hard to be bad at it. Louise is used to you being gone. Why not come down and see how other people live? You can’t spend your life rebuilding all the broke-down shit you have.’

  ‘The problem is, I almost already have. Once the parts for the generator come in, I’ll have that running again too.’

  Ander laughed and finished his wine. ‘You know, my daughter’s been planning a trip to San Sebastián. We’re going in the spring. You should come with us.’

  Mr Reese sighed and shook his head. ‘I’d feel too guilty leaving Louise. Plus I have three horses, three donkeys and five dogs to take care of.’

  ‘Five?’

  ‘I sold Whitey and Jip to a ranch in Idaho.’

  Ander nodded. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Mr Reese shrugged his shoulders.

  The blonde waitress brought out two plates of steak, eggs, potatoes and toast. She came back with the pot of coffee and a glass of red wine.

  ‘The point of not working is having fun,’ said Ander.

  Mr Reese nodded.

  ‘But you don’t know how to have fun ’cause you ain’t ever been able to go anywhere. And even now, with all those bleating sons of bitches out of your hair, you still have no freedom.’

  Mr Reese again nodded and cut into his steak.

  ‘This is an interesting case,’ said Ander and smiled. They ate in silence while Ander followed his keno numbers on the screen behind Mr Reese. There was no one else in the restaurant. The waitress came out once more with the coffee pot and then sat on a stool and read a magazine.

  Ander pushed his empty plate to the side of the table. ‘You know, Eddie Morton still has fifty head. I bet he’d give you a deal. If I remember right, you got Eddie out of that jam when he had a falling out with Rollins. And then there was that time you took your tractor all the way up Keystone Canyon to pull his rig out after he got drunk and rolled it. I’d personally shoot him if he didn’t cut you a deal. He says he’s gonna buy another place out here, but he won’t. The cows are just sitting while he tries to make up his mind. And cows are less of a headache, in some ways. I’ll give you my four-wheeler. You could get by with one part-time man.’

  Mr Reese set down his knife and fork. ‘You drive me crazy. You mail me brochures on cruises and fishing trips and you want me to go to Spain.’ He reached over and took the pack of cigarettes from Ander’s shirt pocket. He took a cigarette and lit it with a plastic lighter on the table. ‘You want me to take up golf and sell my place. And then you want to give me your four-wheeler and run cattle, even though you hate cattle as much as sheep … You’re crazy.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ander and smiled. ‘I’m just throwing things out there. I know you – one of the things I say will stick. Until then, come down to Palm Desert and play golf with me. No women, just a couple drunk ex-ranchers. They have good food there. It’s warm. There’s palm trees and hot tubs. You ever been in a hot tub?’

  Mr Reese shook his head and slowly smoked the cigarette.

  ‘We’re going to die soon, Reese. Why live your last days out on two thousand acres of sagebrush when you can sit in a hot tub?’ Ander looked to the keno screen as his numbers came up. He took a drink and smiled. ‘I just hit all four of my numbers.’

  ‘You would,’ said Mr Reese.

  Ander took a drink of wine and lit a cigarette. ‘You heard from your wayward son?’

  Mr Reese shook his head. ‘That’s another problem that I can’t understand and I don’t know what to do about. Horace has disappeared. From what I’ve pieced together, he had a boxing match at a casino north of Tucson. He didn’t tell me about it, never mentioned it when I
spoke with him. Only later, when I looked online, did I see that it had taken place. Turns out he got hurt. Broke his hand, hurt his eye and went to the hospital. After that he got a ride from his trainer, Alberto Ruiz, who took him back to his house in Tucson. He was too hurt to work so he called his boss and quit his job. His boss hasn’t seen him since, and neither has Ruiz. Maybe a week after that, his aunt received a note saying he had moved out. She checked the guest house and he was gone, even though he had two months left paid on the place. She said the house had no trace of him. There was nothing except in the trash, where she found his pictures of the Mexican boxers. During this whole time he has never once answered his phone. I’ve called him dozens and dozens of times. For a month his voice mail said “box full”, but now the phone has been disconnected.’

  ‘Disconnected?’ Ander said, suddenly worried.

  Mr Reese nodded. ‘A few weeks ago I drove down to Tucson and looked around. I met his aunt, his boss and his boxing trainer. No one has seen him. So I went to the police and put a missing persons out on him.’

  Ander took a drink of wine and tears suddenly welled in his eyes. ‘He’s always been such a sensitive kid. You have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about his folks?’

  ‘His mom still lives in Las Vegas. Horace hasn’t had much contact with her since he was twelve or so. A little bit here and there, during the holidays and things like that, but I don’t think he’d confide in her. Horace always told me that he never forgave her for leaving him.’

  ‘It was a pretty mean thing to do,’ said Ander.

  Mr Reese nodded. ‘When I spoke to her, she seemed worried but didn’t have much to say about it or give me any ideas. I called his father, who lives in Seattle, but he’s never had a relationship with Horace. The father said he sent a check for Horace’s birthday but he didn’t cash it. But then, he never cashed those or his dad’s Christmas checks.’

  ‘What’s his dad do again?’

  ‘He’s some sorta higher-up at Costco. But he was gone by the time Horace was three. From what I’ve heard, it was a bad breakup between him and Horace’s mom and he just moved on. Forgot about Horace.’ Mr Reese sighed. ‘I just can’t stop thinking about him. He’s always been such a lost and confused kid.’