Wimberley is a magical place where local residents expect the unexpected.
CHAPTER ONE
So, yeah. Here I am in the Texas Hill Country wondering if I made the right call. I was given a travel allowance, but it didn’t stretch far enough. I had to beg, borrow, scramble, and pawn to get enough money for a plane ticket from L.A. to Austin. But once I got on the plane, things started going my way.
Turned out I could get a limo from Austin to Wimberley for less than a one way bus ticket, taxi, or Uber. I have to laugh at that, but really I’m used to it. I may not get enough modeling/acting jobs to support a flea circus, but stuff like this happens to me. If I borrow a car, I get good parking places. If I need to supplement the rising star income with a bartender job, there’s usually an opening at the exact place where I want to work.
Needless to say, I grabbed the limo opportunity with both hands and pulled up to downtown Wimberley in stretch-style. Black, of course. Naturally I was hoping somebody would tell the witches I arrived in style.
I’m one of the lucky ones holding a key to a single at the hotel. Single means double bed, but just one person. There are only sixteen rooms total and about a hundred guys, potential suitors like me, who were hoping to score a room at the Charmed Horse Hotel. I read the card in my room when I checked in.
Apparently there was a Charmed Horse Inn on this site almost two hundred years ago. The card said the place is famous for its location on the river and its ghost. Huh.
Somebody once told me that there are only two kinds of people, those who’ve seen ghosts and those who haven’t. Those who report having a personal encounter believe in the supernatural. Those who haven’t had a brush with unusual occurrences think it’s primitive nonsense.
The guy who shared that wisdom at a bar many, many beers ago was wrong. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I’m not a hard ass skeptic either. I like to keep my opinion and belief options open until cornered.
I took the old-fashioned wide staircase down from my second story room that overlooked the river. When my foot hit the bottom step, I saw that there was a little crowd of about seven people standing around the woman who was playing a small town desk clerk.
Well, I guess it’s not playing if desk clerk is her real life job. I usually just see things like that. All the world’s a stage and all.
I stopped to listen. What can I say? I’m curious about attractions and these people are rapt.
“The original Charmed Horse Inn was just a few yards away. It was built in 1840 and torn down a hundred years ago. In the sixties, there was a tourist trap in this location. They sold, you know, local art, pralines, jackadillos, the usual Hill Country souvenirs. Lightning struck it one Halloween night and burned it to the ground.
“What was built in its place was a café. It had a good run, popular with the locals, lasted about forty years. But right after the turn of the century, this century, workers just showed up one day, bulldozed the café and built the Wimberley Tavern. Five years later this hotel was built in the style of the Driskill in San Antonio. Smaller and not as luxurious, of course. So it looks old, like it was renovated, but it’s not. It’s new.
“Now as to the ghost. People say that at night, right outside, near the crossroads, if everything’s quiet, sometimes you can hear galloping hoof beats. A few people say they’ve seen somebody dressed like a highwayman ride past and disappear. Others said they’ve seen a ghost in or around the tavern or here in the hotel dressed like a Texas Ranger.
“He wears a wide-brimmed hat, a loose-fittin’ shirt, and a gun belt with holster and pistol. The old folks say it’s Deck Wimberley, still looking out for his girls. Deck and his wife built the Charmed Horse Inn. She stayed, ran the inn and raised their girls, three of ‘em, but he went rangerin’.
“Some say he’s sorry he left his wife and can’t move on until he thinks he’s made up for it, but I don’t know about that.”
“Have you seen him?” a kid in a tee shirt and baseball cap asked.
The clerk shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’ve seen people right after they saw him. Those folks looked a fright. Made a believer out of me.”
Jesus. No wonder it’s hard to get a room at this place. With a hook like that, this place is probably full year round.
I walked around the little group and headed out the front door.
Name is Willem, by the way. I know. Depending on who you talk to it’s either pretentious or nostalgic. I guess, in my case, it was the second. My mom’s great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was named Willem.
Circumventing the whole pretention/nostalgia speculation by calling myself Will is the easiest way to go. People assume it’s short for William and that’s okay with me. Not sure I understand why William is less pretentious than Willem, but whatever.
I grew up in Alabama, but headed for L.A. after two years at Alabama State. I took mostly core courses, but had a few classes in my chosen major, which was Metaphysics, Mythology, and Paranormal Psychology. I loved those classes. Gobbled up the info like a living vacuum and asked for more. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want to study MMPP. The problem was that I didn’t want to have to wade through Western Civ, English Composition, Algebra, Geology, a foreign language, and a host of other equally yawn-inspiring courses just to get to the good stuff.
The comments of all the people who’d told me that I was good-looking enough to be a movie star came back to me. I believed them. I mean, I have eyes and a mirror. Just sayin’. It sounded like a cool enough gig to me and I’d heard that there’s a lot of time wasted on set when actors just sit around for hours. I have dark hair and eyes such a deep blue that people usually think they’re black.
It’s fun to watch the surprise when they see me in sunlight or bright lights and hear them go, “Hey. Your eyes are blue!” They always say it like they think I didn’t know or that I’ve been deliberately hiding my eye color.
Anyway, it sounded like it could be the best of two worlds, earning mega-money while being able to study what I wanted to study independently, the old-fashioned way. Reading.
The first couple of cattle call auditions, I found out that my southern accent was going to be a problem.
I needed money for diction lessons, not to mention food, housing, clothing, etc. One of the guys waiting in line to audition told me that food and beverage service is the only way to go for wanna-be’s because you can usually get a little schedule flexibility.
Tried waiting tables. That lasted all of two nights. So I located a bartending school. When I told the woman in the office I wasn’t rolling in cake, but could pay a little at a time, she tilted her head to the side, smiled, and said, “That might not be a problem.”
That’s when I found out that “people” were right. My looks could open lesser doors on the way to stardom, if I was willing to get my body involved, enthusiastically.
You might say I went to bartending school on a fuck scholarship, which means I got a free ride, figuratively and literally, for getting off with a woman instead of my hand. I’m telling you. Life is strange.
Well, between my looks and my ability to do a few tricks, I did okay bartending, especially if I made liberal use of winks and the smile that made the one dimple pop out on the left side of my face. I had a no-drink rule for myself when I was working. If I was on the clock, I was all business. Afterward, I sometimes took advantage of the free drinks perk, the one the owner didn’t need to know about. I guess technically that would be more a liberty than a perk, but whatever. I sat at the bar and had a drink or two when the cleanup crew was, well, cleaning up.
My days were regimented. Get up at noon. Call my agent. Yeah. I have an agent. Got her the same way I got through bartending school. I see if she has anything for me. If she doesn’t, I show up at the new “spot” on Sunset Boulevard where people who have actual tip money come to experience “the scene”. Even the dives have valet parking and secure lots for the beems, benzes, Porsches and Audis, along with the occasional Bentley or Lamborghini. They get to play like they’re still relevant. I get tips. Everybody wins.
If she does have something, which - I gotta hand it to her - is more than half the time, I get copies of “Billboard” and “Variety” and go get in line with hundreds of other guys who migrated to L.A. because they were told they were pretty enough to be in movies and it sounded more exciting than whatever else they saw in their future.
I’m not dumb. I know it takes more than beauty. So I go to acting classes on Mondays and Wednesday. And let me tell you, they’re not cheap. Every extra penny goes to coaches and diction lessons. The latter has caused my family to look at me like I have a rare and contagious disease.
“You sound like a Yankee, Will.”
Believe me when I say that, in Alabama, that is not a compliment. Southerners take their southern accents seriously.
So, with the lessons, I can barely afford the half rent on the dump I share with a geek who’s a Jabba the Hut look alike and never leaves the place. Hector gets enough freelance IT work to finance food and rent and the video game development he’s sure will pay off big one day.
Can you imagine being named Hector and actually deciding to go by that? By kindergarten I would have shortened it to Heck or something not guaranteed to turn girls away.
Speaking of girls, it probably goes without saying that I never bring anybody home. Having a roommate like Hector is almost as much of a romance douser as being Hector.
Now you’re caught up on my life. That’s the last ten years in a nutshell. I got off the plane in L.A. when I was twenty and I’m celebrating thirty in another couple of months. Long story short, that means it’s time to face facts. Make that fact in the singular because the only one that matters is this. If I was going to make it, it would have happened by now.
So reviewing my options. If I keep spinning wheels, maybe I’ll wake up one day and find that another ten years is gone. Now I’m seeing forty looking back at me in the mirror, still living with Jabba, who leaves Taco Bell and M&M wrappers everywhere. Or I could take control, make the “done” call, and head in another direction.
Told my sob story to the guy in line behind me and ended it with, “This is the last time I’m ever doing this. If this audition doesn’t result in a paying job, I’m gone.”
“You’re quitting? Really?” he asked.
“Made up my mind. I’m a man, not a hamster.”
“I hear that. So what are you gonna do?”
I smiled. “That’s the question. Right?”
“Well, you’re cute for sure. And straight, right?” I drew back as far as I could without getting out of line. “No, man, I’m not trying to get in your pants. I’m just saying,” he leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a whisper, “that, if you’re straight, you’re cute and buff enough to try for the witches.”
I gave him my best what-the-fuck look, thinking I was in line in front of somebody who’d snapped from one too many mass auditions, but I decided to go with it. Who knows why?
“What witches?”
“You know.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know.”
After a few beats he laughed, right in my face. “How could you have never heard about the,” he looked around, “you know?”
“Maybe I keep to myself. Look. I don’t want to be rude, but you’re edging toward annoying. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”
He slipped his backpack down his arm and let it drop to the ground. He rifled through it and came up with a card. “Here it is. It’s not doing me any good because, you know, I like boys. So you might as well have it. Maybe it’ll do you some good. If you’re really quitting.”
“I’m really quitting,” I said, as I looked down at the card in his hand. I don’t know what made me reach out and take it. Maybe curiosity. Maybe the fact that my life had been almost as predictable as a hamster wheel for nearly ten years.
Wake up.
Call agent.
If there’s a morning audition, shower and find a way there. If there’s an afternoon audition, go back to bed until noon, then shower and find a way there.
Eat at the deli counter.
Report for bar duty at eight.
Work until two.
Have a drink on the house.
Here you can insert random girl hookup. I say random because I’m not interested in anyone in particular, but there’s no such thing as a night when some lush babe isn’t interested in extracurriculars with moi. I’m not in the mood every night because I’m not fourteen. At least that’s what I tell myself, maybe I’m bored with the chicks, too.
Go to the pad shared with dweeb.
Sleep.
Wake up.
Well, you get it.
I figured I could use an adventure. Alright, well, calling a phone number on a card might not sound like much of an adventure, but he did say witches were involved. So that sounded like fertile ground for possibilities. Right?
You probably know what happened next.
That’s right. Not only did I not get a job out of the audition, I never had a chance to speak one word. They just took one look at me and said, “Wrong.” Then waved me off like they were the mad King George.
Did I say I’d be done? Well, I’m a man of my word.
Usually.
So done. Done. Done.
Got an Uber home and he probably gave me a bad review because I really did not feel chatty. Usually I sit in the front seat and try to make the day a little less long for people trying to eke out a subsistence living. Especially since I know that for a lot of them, it’s a second job and the mileage is steadily ticking toward the reaper. That means the inevitable day when that vehicle is going to need tires and / or repairs that outdistance driver proceeds.
Come to think of it, I’m done with this city, too. I mean, who knows? Maybe the worst thing that could have happened to me was making it. I don’t want to be the guy who buys five-thousand-dollar pants and quibbles over whether I’m going to make eighty million or eighty one million for a month’s work. Jesus.
So Uber man, who really was a nice enough sort, pulled over to the curb of my shitty built-in-the-fifties-and-not-well-maintained apartment building. I saw him lean out and look. While he was doing his dashboard computer thing, I tried to see it through his eyes.
Sure. I could say something like, “It’s not a nice address, but it’s a funky address, goddamn it,” but who would I be kidding. It’s shit. That’s what I’ve made of the last ten years, the potentially most productive, conclusively most marketable years of my entire life. Shit.
I closed the door. Hector looked up from his work station, which was spread across most of what had once been a living room, and nodded vaguely. I waved half-heartedly, headed for the privacy of my room, closed the door, dropped the backpack on the bed and sat down beside it.
It didn’t take long to fish out the card. Once I had it in my hand, I sat there on the side of the bed studying the text, graphics, colors, even the textures. It was a heavyweight vellum that felt almost like fabric, cotton maybe. When I rubbed my finger over it, I realized the text was raised like old-style engraving. All things combined to make it not just draw attention, but compel.
Maybe the designer was a psychologist, but I really felt like I had to reach in my pocket, pull out my phone, and dial the number. There wasn’t even a hint as to what I’d be calling about.
Maybe it was a retirement home for psuedo actors who never even got called back for a cop/doctor/lawyer show walk-on.
What would I say if they answered? “Hey. I have no idea why I’m calling. Some random dude standing in a moo chute audition line gave me this card and said that if I was really moving on from acting to check out the, um, witches?”
It sounded lame when I played it over in my mind. If I was on the receiving end of that call, I’m fairly certain I would hang up on me.
The hum of the little fridge in my room drew my attention. I often thought of it as my own personal version of a Hummer. So I got up and pulled a cold diet drink out. When I closed the fridge door, the hum quietened, which was unusual to the point of being rare. When I opened the can, the crack of aluminum sounded loud, like I was in an echo chamber. I supposed that’s what the space would sound like all the time without Hummer noise.
Sitting back down on the side of my unmade bed, I took a long pull on the aspartame poison, chasing the Scotch neat I’d borrowed for a nightcap at The Spot, and held the card up again. After studying it for a few more minutes, it became clear that it wasn’t going to give up any more information than before. So I put it on the bedside stand next to my trusty alarm and the bendy-neck lamp, dropped my clothes on the floor, climbed in bed, and turned off the light.
I lay awake for a few minutes thinking how strange it was to know the alarm wouldn’t be going off in the morning. I wondered if Julie would realize I hadn’t called. Seemed to me that I should feel something about pushing through the exit-only door. Since I’d dedicated a decade of my young life to the single-minded focus of becoming the next Brad Pitt, you would think I’d be depressed or morose or angry. But honestly, I didn’t feel any of those things.
The fact that I had no Plan B wasn’t scaring me or worrying me either. And that worried me. I should be worried. Right? That’s what a normal person would feel in my situation.
Telling myself that I’d delve into the metaphysical mysteries of personal self-reflection after a good night’s sleep, I turned over and shut my eyes.
Keep in mind that I used the phrase “good night’s sleep”. If that was a qualifier, then the night was disqualified. Whenever I dozed off, I found myself dreaming about every Hollywood version of witch-type characters I’d ever seen, from the high school girls in The Craft to the harpies subbing for Dracula’s vampire wives in Van Helsing.
Waking myself each time I was a hair’s breadth away from being groped, clawed, bitten or seduced, my eyes were drawn to the card pretending to sit innocently on my bedside table. I’m not going to say it glowed in the dark, but I will say that I knew where it was. After several hours of tossing and turning, I threw back the covers, grabbed the card in sleepy disgust, and put it inside the Hummer.
“There,” I said, throwing myself back onto the bed.
Twenty minutes later I imposed lucid dreaming on a dream wherein a succubus was about to suck up a lot more than my dick. She was going for the full monty, body and soul.
I jackknifed up, which put me in a sitting position looking straight at the Hummer that was vibrating away three feet from the end of my bed.
“Christ,” I said to no one.
My eyes wandered all around the fridge. I’d built makeshift bookcases with cinder blocks and boards from Home Depot and, in ten years, I’d collected an impressive library. Mostly from the half-price store. It’s amazing what treasures people are willing to give away or sell for pennies on the dollar.
Anyway, I thought about fishing out one of the tomes that really is a lullaby in printed word form, but I knew if I turned on the light I wouldn’t go back to sleep.
In a huff, I threw myself onto my right side and forced my mind to think about a jumping sheep. Not just any sheep. I’d seen a video featuring a sheep who’d been orphaned young and taken in by an Aussie family with Border Collies. The poor sheep thought she was a Border Collie and tried to play with the dogs, who were not the least species-confused. They just stared with a dog version of a WTF expression. I felt sorry for the shunned sheep who so desperately wanted to be accepted.
That’s what was on my mind when I drifted off the last time.
The next time I woke there were cracks of light around my thick-lined dark curtains. That didn’t mean I got a full night’s sleep. There were usually only two to three hours of darkness left when I turned in at night.
Life and times of a barkeep.
Turning toward the alarm, I opened one eye so I could read the time. Nine-oh-seven. The first thought that jumped to mind after that was that it probably wasn’t too early to call the number on the card.
Half falling out of bed, half pulling myself up, I headed to the shared bath outside my door. Jabba’s door was closed and I didn’t hear any signs of life. It was a tiny slice of heavenly experience, the times when I could pretend that I was actually alone.
Having relieved myself of the burden of Scotch, diet drinks, and vitamin waters, I stepped back into my room and looked at the Hummer. I had the oddest compulsion to take a shower and shave before making that call. I’d figured out by the time I was ten that feelings like that usually mean something and had started paying attention to them.
You might call it intuition. You might call it weirdness, but calling something weird doesn’t make it go away. It also doesn’t make it untrue.
I guess that’s what drew me to study MMPP. I find that, if you keep your eyes open and don’t shut down possibilities before they have a chance to show themselves, you’ll find that life is far stranger than most people are ready to admit. By the time I was twelve I was calling this vague and invisible sense of guidance the Voice. Not that it had an actual voice. And not that I called it that anywhere except inside my own head. Even as a child I was savvy enough to figure out that telling other people about voices could land you in the Counselor’s office when everybody else was outside for recess.
That was the long meandering way of explaining why I went back to the bathroom, used the good soap, gave myself a twenty-dollar shave and used just enough product on my hair to give myself the almost-impossible-to-pull-off-bedhead-by-design look. Over torn jeans I buttoned up a clean, pressed button down, left the shirt tail out and put a good-looking Armani sweater on over. The fashionable juxtaposition of rags and riches was hip and looked good if I did say so myself.
Too much trouble for a guy who’s straight, you say? I’d agree with you completely, but the gay boys taught me that women like clothes and don’t appreciate the practice of looking like you reached into the closet wearing a blindfold and put on whatever your hand came back with. If you want to be noticed by powerful women who can do something for you, you need to dress in a way that comes off as understated sexy. I’ve worked at that look and pretty much mastered it, even if I do say so myself.
After transforming into cover model perfection, I took a look at the room and decided that the bed should be made before the phone call. Don’t ask me why. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it sounds squirrelly. After all, I wasn’t planning a video call, but the Voice was insistent. So I took three minutes to make the bed. I even picked clothes up off the floor and put them in the duffel that I lugged to the laundry downstairs when it couldn’t possibly wait another day.
With an environment that was semi-presentable and a personal presentation that would cause most women’s mouths to water, I was ready. Or I would be after coffee.
I was more scared of venturing into the kitchen than I was of my lack of a plan for the future, but like the macho southern man I was, I forged ahead.
There was no window in the kitchen, but there was a slider door and balcony on the other side of the dinette. I flipped on the light and, more or less, stood there frozen. I may have gaped. I’m not sure. I know I was surprised.
The kitchen was spotless. Everything was in its place, whether drawer, cupboard, or cabinet and the surfaces almost gleamed. I must tell you that I’d never seen the kitchen like that in all the years I’d call that dump home. I realized for the first time that I hadn’t known what the kitchen looked like. Not really.
As if that wasn’t spooky enough, the coffee machine had been set up with water and coffee in a fresh filter. We had an old-style setup, but I promised myself that someday I would have one of those single cup doobies. Fancy. For sure.
Hell. Maybe Hector was turning over a new leaf, too. If he was, I’d have to stop thinking of him as Jabba. I mean a kitchen that clean deserves some respect. Coffee ready-to-go deserves respect plus long-lasting friendship.
So I turned the machine on and leaned against the counter smiling.
On the very day I should have been drowning my sorrows in country music and alcohol, dreading taking a bus to sweet home Alabama, and dragging my ass into my parents’ house to say, “Surprise! I’m a thirty-year-old without a degree. My only viable skill is that I can tend bar and I’m living with you again.”
That should have made me depressed enough to think about taking a carousel ride on the Santa Monica Pier and then jumping off. Of course, that probably wouldn’t be a solution because I’m a really strong swimmer. Survival instinct would kick in and force me to swim to shore. The idea of not being able to commit suicide by drowning was depressing. Or it should be. But I didn’t feel depressed. At all.
The only part of that scenario that was appealing was the carousel ride. Now that I think about it, I might be a little depressed about that last part because, after all, I am a grown man and, as such, know that it’s out of sorts with my image to find merry-go-rounds fascinating.
That was the stream of consciousness that was lazily filtering through my head while I waited for the coffee pot to do that gurgling hissing thing it does right at the end of the cycle to indicate it’s finished. Or dying.
I stirred sugar and coffee cream into the cup and then stood there wondering what to do with the spoon. A kitchen that looked showroom pristine just shouldn’t be spoiled with an errant spoon. So I rinsed it off. Thoroughly. Dried it. And put it back in the drawer.
No one the wiser.
It had been the most in-depth and complicated preparation for a phone call in the history of Alexander Graham Bell. All was done. No more delays or excuses.
So I returned to my room, closed the door and, for reasons I wouldn’t be able to explain, locked it. I retrieved the card from the Hummer and set it on the bedspread next to the phone. What a fine pair of items they made. A phone and its reason for existing, a potential call.
Taking a deep breath like I was embarking on breaking a channel-swim record, I dialed the number on the card. Now I was holding the phone next to my ear with one hand and holding the card with the other so that I could continue looking at it while I waited for an answer. I sat the card down and took a sip of coffee.
Ringing stopped. “Mr. Draiocht.” This was said by a man with an English accent and a no-nonsense business-like tone.
I sat blinking trying to assess how I felt about the witches knowing my name.
“How did you know my name?”
I heard a distinct sigh on the other end of the connection before the man said, “Caller ID.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Draiocht?”
“I don’t know. I was given your card. And I guess I thought that was the question I’d be asking you. What can you do for me?”
“Ah. I see. What do you know about our program?”
“Nothing.”
There was a slight, but distinct pause. “If you’d like to attend the next Orientation, you may be admitted if you pass an evaluation to be conducted at the door.”
“What kind of evaluation?”
“Nothing for which you can prepare. You are either right for the program or you are not.”
“Oh. When’s the next Orientation?”
“This evening. A car will pick you up at six thirty if you want to move forward.”
Part of me was thinking that bad things begin with mysteries, but I checked in with the Voice and it was quiet. While the Voice might allow me to do stupid shit or unproductive shit, the Voice intervened if I was about to do something irrevocably dumb or dangerous.
“Okay,” I said. “My address…”
“We can find it. Don’t be late. Dinner will be included.”
“Uh, wait! What do I wear?”
“What you have on is fine.”
“How do you know what I’m wearing?”
“I don’t know what you are or aren’t wearing, but approval does not depend upon clothes. You are either right for the program or you are not.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. The next thing I heard was a series of three beeps letting me know the call had been disconnected.
“Okay. Bye. See you later,” I said to the room with sarcasm.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that a sane man, one who’s been to the movies at some point in his life, would not even consider going, Voice or no Voice. You’re right, of course. That’s what a sane man would do.
It would be an exaggeration to say that I had nothing to lose at that point because it was far from true. I had my books. And my life. But it would be fair to reiterate that I was a man without a plan. I wasn’t desperate, but I was curious and certain that, if I didn’t show up at the curb at six-thirty, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened at Orientation.
Time to walk the walk. What student of the paranormal would refuse the opportunity to attend an Orientation possibly leading to some sort of “program” involving witches.
Again, I know what you’re thinking and, again, no, I’m not ignorant enough to believe we’re talking about cartoon witches like Disney or supernatural hags like those in Macbeth. I assumed these “witches” were modern-day Wiccans, a sect of pagans with little, if any, verifiable power to affect reality.
It seemed I was all cleaned up with no place to go at the moment, but I did need to call and cancel my shift at The Stop. The bar manager was not happy because it was Friday. Lots of upper, upper middle class people liked to celebrate surviving another work week with the corporate version of the MAN by alcohol-induced letting loose. Friday nights were good for the bar and good for me.
“You don’t show tonight, Will, don’t come back.”
That’s what he said to me. My mind raced around. Was I willing to cut the only tie between me and script from the U.S. Treasury? I must be a gambler because I didn’t really hesitate.
“Okay. I’ll be in to get the rest of my tips Monday afternoon.”
Wolfie, the bar manager, huffed and disconnected.
Had people forgotten how to say goodbye?
As I looked around my room, my eyes landed on the clock. I had eight hours to fill until go-time. For the second time that day I found myself smiling, just because of the simple pleasure of recreation time. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a whole day to read.
I settled on a book from the Duke Parapsychology Lab that I’d acquired weeks before and hadn’t had time to dive into. I kicked off my boots, bounced on the bed, and said to hell with perfect bedhead. A couple of hours later my stomach rumbled loud enough to be heard over the Hummer and reminded me that coffee had been breakfast. It was good, but it doesn’t stay with you.
So I slipped into sloppy deck shoes, grabbed the book, and walked down to the corner Chinese. The place was filled with the overriding and heavenly aroma of eggrolls becoming little golden, hot grease masterpieces. Of all other cultures, Chinese come closest to Southerners in understanding that deep fried equals nirvana. I ordered a special with a diet drink, sat down at a vinyl covered dinette table in the corner and proceeded to enjoy my day off. If days off were about to become a lot more common than was comfortable, I would think about that some other time.
When I returned to the apartment, Hector was working at his station, which also seemed to have had a Martha Stuart makeover. Neat. Clean. Everything put away. Not even any wrappers in the trash can. I noticed that the overhaul had generalized to his personal presentation as well. He appeared to be wearing clean clothes, but the most shocking thing was how Hector looked with trimmed beard and clean combed hair. I’m not sure I would have recognized him on the street.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he responded.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the place is kind of presentable. As are you. Something you want to tell me about?”
He shrugged. “You can’t have order of thought in chaos.”
“A sound philosophy. Well, it’s an improvement. Nobody’ll argue with that.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“Not really.”
“I have somethin’ special tonight and I quit acting.”
“You quit acting? Does that mean you got an acting job and quit?”
“Don’t be mean. I’ve officially decided that acting is not for me and I’m moving on.”
“Huh. Does that mean you’re also moving out?”
“Got no plans as of yet, but you’ll be the first to know.”
“I will need fair notice.”
“Yeah. Goes without sayin’.”
Hector turned back to his monitor. Chitchat was over.
Closed my door, lay down with my book, which was enthralling, but not so enthralling that it could overcome the bio-dip that occurs after a nice greasy lunch. So I fell asleep.
When I woke I rolled over and looked at the clock. Six-fifteen.
I jackknifed off the bed like I had a trampoline for a mattress and ran for the bathroom. Thank God I didn’t have any pillow wrinkles on my face. My right side was a little pink-looking but that would settle on the ride to wherever.
I threw water in my eyes and spritzed my hair where it had been squashed and looked like actual bedhead. The shirt might be a little mussed but didn’t scream, “I took a nap in these clothes.” So I jumped back into the boots, grabbed the coolest pair of shades I own, the Wayfarers, and made it to the curb at six twenty-nine.