Waveland Page 3

  She searched her purse for a card, and as soon as she placed it on the piano-black table, the waiter swooped in like a peregrine. The service was high-speed.

  Then they left the restaurant. Gail said, “I'm going to hang out, play awhile.”

  “Since when?” Vaughn said.

  “I do it all the time,” she said. “I win a fair bit.”

  “No kidding? Playing what?”

  “Slots,” she said. “I play the dollars. If I've got money, I play the fives and tens.”

  Her hair was raggedy and she was still inviting. The thinness made her complicated. He gave her a hug and a kiss high on her cheek and said good night, noticing for the first time that she had the name Tony in ink on her neck. He couldn't tell if it was a tattoo or something else.

  “What is this?” he said, pointing at her neck.

  “A joke,” she said. “It says ‘Tony.’”

  “Yeah, I see it says Tony, but, like, what's it doing there?”

  “It's just ballpoint,” she said. “I met this guy named Tony. I liked him, so, you know, he wrote on my neck.”

  “He tattooed his name on your neck?” Vaughn said. “And you left it on there?”

  “Well, he just did it this morning,” she said. “Last night, really. I'm going to run into him here later. It's just ballpoint.”

  He turned to Greta. “He did it on there this morning.”

  “I got that,” Greta said.

  “It's not a big thing,” Gail said. “It's nothing. I'm going to play some slots. I'm going to meet up with him in a bit. Why don't you guys go on? It was great seeing you again, Vaughn. We should do it more often now. I'm really a lot better than I was last year. It's good to see you guys. And Happy Birthday. Really.”

  “How are you getting home?” he said.

  “She's got a car, Vaughn,” Greta said.

  He felt stupid. “Right,” he said. “I lost track there for a minute.”

  Gail stepped up and hugged Greta, whispered something that he couldn't hear. The two of them smiled, laughed a little, patted each other, then Greta steered Vaughn away, side by side on the ornate casino carpet toward the entrance, the jangling slots and dropping coins and hits-of-all-kinds relentless. At the door he turned and looked back, but Gail had vanished into the crowd, into glitter and smoke. Outside, he and Greta stood under the overhang for a minute. It was chilly, rainy, the first front of the season coming through. They paused a second, then stepped out into the parking lot.

  4

  Greta had won the fifty-two-inch rear-projection Sony television in a church raffle, a gift to the church from one of the casinos. The casinos, just as you might imagine, were like that, always donating to this or that charity, always being good citizens, always going the extra mile for the local firemen, or police, or PTA. It didn't matter much what your organization was, if you needed a little helping hand, the casinos were always ready. They went out of their way to contribute to the well-being of the community. The casinos were real team players when it came to participating in community affairs, models of selfless commitment to a better life for all.

  When Vaughn first saw this TV, back in the summer, he'd said, “I always wanted one of these, but it cost too much and the quality of the screen isn't that good and the image is fuzzy and it's an ugly piece of furniture that takes up too much room. It's kind of an eyesore. I guess that's why most people avoid 'em.” This was the first night he stayed at Greta's place.

  “Why, thanks very much,” Greta said, making a curious face.

  “That's not exactly what I meant,” he said.

  “I was a fool to accept it,” she said.

  “C'mon, that's not right,” he said. “I just meant that—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she'd said. “Okay. I accept your apology.”

  It was their first big night and Vaughn wasn't 100 percent under control. He tried to repair this gaffe by explaining about rear-projection television, and about DLP rear projection compared to CRT rear projection, and about direct-view CRTs, and the business about scanning, about 1080i and 1080p, and how the picture is composed of alternating lines that are difficult to get in register. After a while he could see that wasn't working.

  “I really always wanted one,” he said finally.

  “He scores!” she said, offering up a high-five.

  So they turned the set off and went about their business. He read a book. She regarded him with great curiosity, and then, after a suitable period of observation, said, “What is that strange object you're playing with?”

  “Got it,” he said. And they went to bed.

  The days that followed went more smoothly. Vaughn accepted the television and the television accepted Vaughn.

  The night they went to dinner with Gail, however, they returned from the casino restaurant and things weren't going so well. They weren't talking to each other. Eddie was in the house, in the living room, sprawled on the couch, making himself at home, snacking, and watching something that looked like ultimate cage fighting on the big screen.

  “Vaughn is upset about his wife,” Greta said.

  “Yeah?” Eddie said. He didn't take his eyes off the TV.

  “She had some guy's name tattooed on her neck,” she said.

  “Wasn't a tattoo,” Vaughn said. “Was an ink thing, like a drawing.”

  “Even worse,” she said. “What kind of guy draws his name on some woman's neck?”

  “Young guy,” Eddie said, wincing as one fighter on television kneed the other guy repeatedly in the groin. “This is old-time ultimate fighting. They don't let 'em do that anymore.”

  It surprised Vaughn how pissed he was about Gail. Pissed and sickened—she was a grown woman, well past the age where you get written on. He tried to hide the anger, but Greta was all over it and she wasn't pleased. They'd ridden in silence from the casino, watching the wipers slog back and forth across the windshield.

  “What're you doing in here anyway?” he said to Eddie. “Don't you have a TV out in the apartment?”

  “Tiny screen,” Eddie said. “Barely see it. These guys would be the size of squirrels on it. The size of nuts. Couldn't see the action. It's part of my rental agreement.”

  Vaughn turned to Greta.

  “What?” she said. “I told him he could use the TV when we weren't using it.”

  “Weird,” Vaughn said.

  “You said if you weren't here I could use the television,” Eddie said. He was gathering his stuff around him, not picking it up, but moving it closer to himself.

  “He's right. That's true. I said that,” Greta said.

  “Well, we're here now,” Vaughn said. “There's a ring on the floor there where your beer is.” He sniffed the air. “It smells like smoke in here. You been smoking?”

  “I haven't smoked a single thing,” Eddie said. “Loosen up, will you?”

  “It's the boyfriend,” Greta said, stage-whispering. She was standing in the doorway between the den and the hall that led to her bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse.

  “What are you doing?” Vaughn said. “With the shirt? Would you mind?”

  She sighed. “What? It's going to upset him? He's … you know?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said. “I'm—”

  “Oh, please,” Vaughn said.

  “Well, pardon me, Mr. Rockefeller,” she said. She waved at Eddie, then went down the hall, her footsteps ringing.

  Vaughn sat in the chair alongside the couch and stared at the screen. The captioning was on, and the picture-in-picture was on. The sound was off. By now Eddie had changed channels a couple of times. There was an ad for some kind of mini-tractor on the screen—a guy picking up leaves, hauling them around his yard, vacuuming them into some kind of cloth bin that was pulled behind the tractor. This image was duplicated in the inset window on the screen.

  “Why are you watching the same thing twice?” Vaughn said.

  “I like it,” Eddie said.

  “You like what?” Vaughn said.
<
br />   “The two pictures,” Eddie said. “I like two pictures together.”

  “It's the same picture,” Vaughn said. “The two pictures are the same.”

  “I know that,” Eddie said. “I can see them better when there're two of them.”

  “You like that they're the same. I get it. It's fine. It's very attractive,” Vaughn said.

  “It's what I like,” Eddie said.

  A fire blazed in duplicate on the giant screen. “What're we watching here?” Vaughn said.

  “Fire,” Eddie said.

  “I see that, but what?” Vaughn said.

  “Ad. Fireplaces, maybe. Colorful fire logs. Insurance. I don't know what. I was watching a rerun of CSI before. That's the most popular show on television. That guy on there is really bowlegged.”

  “He's the most bowlegged guy on television,” Vaughn said.

  “I guess,” Eddie said. “I like that blond woman—she's kind of sexy. And then there's that other woman on there—that black-haired woman? She's kind of sexy. And I like the special effects. I like it when they get that blue light out and start looking at things,” Eddie said. “They always find sperm, you know? Every week they pull out the blue light and find some sperm. It's a hoot.”

  “That's so last year,” Vaughn said. “Finding sperm.”

  Eddie started flipping through the channels. He stopped on a “Healthier You” ad, some movie with a bunch of British people in it, an HBO channel with a cowboy movie. He flipped backward to get to The Weather Channel and then went through Robot Wars, public affairs, the shopping network, and a Matlock rerun.

  “It doesn't look too good now,” Eddie said.

  “Keep moving,” Vaughn said. “You'll find something.”

  Eddie kept clicking, the channel changing simultaneously in both windows. He passed Animal Planet with the world's biggest and baddest bugs, some other stuff, and then he paused and said, “You worried about your wife?”

  Vaughn stared at him for a minute or more. “Well,” he finally said. “Sure. I haven't seen her in a year and … I don't know. You always worry about the ex-wife, don't you? It's built in, goes with the territory.”

  “I ain't worried about mine,” Eddie said.

  “I didn't know you had a wife,” Vaughn said.

  “What, you think I can't handle a wife? I'm not just a faggot, you know. I had a wife once. Just like you. Same thing.”

  There were puppets on the TV, kids playing with hand puppets. Vaughn thought it was peculiar and wanted to say something but then thought better of it. “My wife had this guy's name on her neck. It hit me the wrong way,” he said.

  “That happens,” Eddie said. He sat up on the couch and pulled up his socks and began putting on his shoes. Vaughn figured he was getting ready to leave and go back to the garage apartment. He didn't want Eddie to go.

  “I didn't ask how it got there,” he said. “But I can imagine.”

  “How old a woman is your wife?” Eddie said.

  “Not too old,” Vaughn said. “And she looks younger. She's forty-something.” He knew exactly how old she was, when her birthday was, but for some reason he said this other thing. So then he said, “Forty-four. In the spring. Looks forty, maybe. She's well preserved. She exercises.”

  Eddie moved the little square with the second picture in it to different positions on the screen—to the bottom right, to the top right, to the top left, to the bottom left, then back to the bottom right. Then he clicked up the cable schedule and started jumping through that four or five lines at a time. The Son of Frankenstein went by, Intimate Portraits went by, Beverly Hills Cop went by, Classic Boxing.

  “She doesn't look that old. She looks young, really. She looks good. I figure the guy who wrote on her neck is younger, a kid.”

  “Maybe he's a lighthearted older guy,” Eddie said. “Maybe he's an easy guy to get along with. Maybe he was just having some fun. Maybe they were just joking around. Maybe it wasn't anything.”

  “That's the ticket,” Vaughn said.

  “Maybe it was a woman?” Eddie said. “Maybe your wife is joining a club or something and her sponsor had to write her name on your wife's neck.” Eddie turned around and gave him a look, a raised eyebrow thing that was a parody of hopeful.

  “You look like Bubs,” Vaughn said. “The guy who was on The Wire.”

  “I've got some of the attributes,” Eddie said. “I'm short a hand. Got a skin problem.”

  “Your hair isn't as cool as Bubs's hair,” Vaughn said.

  “Nothing is,” Eddie said.

  “You'd think you'd get over shit like this, wouldn't you?” Vaughn said. “We're divorced, we're finished, it's over. We go out with my girlfriend, for God's sake.”

  “That's nothing you ought to be doing. That's going to make you feel bad every time,” Eddie said. “Seeing her, I mean. That's what happened to me. I used to go out with my ex. We didn't go anyplace big—gas stations, hamburger joints, barbecue joints. She always made me feel bad. I felt sad as shit. Like stuff had changed. Both of us knew it, but there was nothing we could do. We'd sit there in the car and drink beer and listen to the radio and smoke cigarettes, watch kids zoom in and out of the convenience store.” He shook his head. “That was no fun. Reminded me I used to be the kid driving in, jumping out for a six-pack, speeding off somewhere. Now it was me and the ex in the car with nowhere to go. We were killing time. Sitting and drinking, listening to the radio, smoking cigarettes. Waiting for nothing. Waiting to give up. That was crap.”

  “This was before or after the divorce?” Vaughn said.

  “Both,” Eddie said. He grabbed his beer, tipped it up, emptied it. Then he looked at it, tossed it up by the neck, and caught it. “By the end I was just one more thing for her to worry about.” He groaned and stood up from the couch, pulling his shirt closed.

  “I'll tell you what,” Eddie said. “After a while it just isn't worth the trouble.” He wagged the beer bottle at Vaughn. “If I were doing fortune cookies, that's what I'd put in them. Every one. After a while it just isn't worth the trouble. That and You will have razor-sharp mystical vision today.”

  “That'd be useful,” Vaughn said.

  “You read the paper?” Eddie said. “The Bracelet Case? They did another piece today. She taking it all right?”

  “Seems to be,” Vaughn said.

  “It's a shame,” Eddie said. “Too much for too long.”

  Vaughn said, “You've known her awhile, huh? You go way back.”

  “Well, ‘known’ might be overstating it. But I've been around doing crap work for a while—construction, dirt work—so I ran into her. Not like I was the contractor on the job or anything.” He shook his head and started for the kitchen. “I just ran into her. She always seemed nice. The crew guys talked a lot of shit. You know how that is.”

  “Just thinking,” Vaughn said.

  “Sure. She's a nice woman. She's all right,” Eddie said. “Gotta go.”

  Vaughn heard the bottle click as Eddie set it down on the kitchen countertop next to the sink. He listened as the door opened and closed, then listened to Monkey's nails ticking across the kitchen floor as the dog came into the living room and curled up on the end of the couch.

  Vaughn watched the dog's eyes flick up at him, then away. Monkey did that a couple of times. Vaughn stared at the screen and listened to the sudden quiet in the house. He could hear Greta in the bathroom making those little thumps that can't quite be identified—water on and off, pipes complaining, cabinet doors shutting, bottles settling on a marble vanity, bad hinges.

  He watched an infomercial for some kind of barbecue device and read the captioning—“It's light; you can even pick it up.” Flames flamed up. “Here's a little gift for you: the Q-Grill cookbook with our best grilling recipes.” He picked up the remote, started punching the channel button. He got Cleopatra, some speech on some steps. Richard Burton arrived looking sort of like Bill Clinton. Vaughn kept clicking. He found a cowboy, a guy selling hair re
mover, a woman with a big mouth, a woman with a big nose, a woman with big stockings on her arms. Then police in Miami dealing with sick dogs—the stuff just kept going past, one alarming thing after another—that episode of Matlock with a character who looked like Norman Mailer, the Girls Still Gone Wild thing, an infomercial for Jaystone gel bras. The world looked turbulent.

  Vaughn couldn't really remember that much about Gail and himself, back when things were good. How they worked, how they stayed together. Or where it had gone. Fifteen years. It might as well have been his parents' life. He had a head full of photographs but not much else. They weren't sharp photographs, either. Vague, ripe for forgetting. Stuff didn't count because it was long over. People said they had sweet memories, but he had only bits and pieces. It was all he could do to remember somebody's name, a place he'd lived. He could remember a door, maybe a balcony, the stove someplace. Not much.

  On the screen he caught a stunned-looking alligator with a bowie knife stuck in the back of its head, then the Gateway Arch in St. Louis lit up in pink for breast cancer awareness. It looked good, he thought.