Dinner at Jack's

Chapter 3: The b***h Is Back

Chapter 3: The b***h Is Back

I sat in the yellow smart car I had once gaily dubbed Marilyn Monroe and stared at the rain pouring down the windshield, obscuring the orange Vacancy sign blinking on and off just outside, making an expressionist blur of it. I turned to Ruth, who sat on the seat next to me, and said, “I thought we left the rain in Seattle.”

“Apparently not,” Ruth replied. She yawned and licked her lips.

Now, before you start thinking I had completely wigged out, let me acknowledge that I ascribe appropriate dialogue to my pug in my head. It’s all imaginary. I don’t actually hear her voice.

Much.

Anyway, Ruth followed my gaze to the rain-smeared windows. She was probably wondering why we’d ended up here. She’d been a good traveling companion the last four days as we made our way eastward across the country, singing along with me as I tuned the Sirius radio to the ‘80s disco station and listening intently to the anecdotes and opinions offered on NPR. All the while, Ruth was most likely anticipating some fabulous destination as a reward for all the miles rolling underneath the smart car’s wheels. After all, all good things come to those who wait, right? At least that had always been Ruth’s philosophy as she counted down the minutes by her stainless steel food and water bowls in our old kitchen in Wallingford. She’d lie there for a bit, and magically, food and water would appear. It never failed.

So maybe this long car ride would lead to something magical—and wonderful. Ruth had even behaved, never once having an accident in the car and sleeping dutifully each night in whatever no-tell motel I had selected from the highway as we drove by.

I could see Ruth’s dark brown eyes peering through the rain’s wash and staring out at the one-story cinder block motel whose office was just a few feet away. I imagined her thinking “What the hell? We drove all this way for this? I should have stayed with Ross.”

I had to admit, I was on the same page with my dog. The Panorama Motel had been around since I lived here full time, and that was, like, twenty years ago. Even then it was run-down, and I’d always wondered who stayed in its dozen or so rooms, with their rusting and dented orange metal doors. Even kids looking for a place to have a quickie avoided it. On the plus side, it did sit on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River as it curved southward toward West Virginia. “Don’t be put off, Stinkerbell,” I told Ruth. “I’m sure the views from every room are fabulous.”

Ruth looked at me as though she didn’t believe me. Maybe it was because I myself could hear the lack of conviction in my voice.

“Well,” I said. “There really aren’t any other options, as far as motels go. As far as I know. Unless someone has built lodgings since I left. And who would be foolhardy enough to do that?”

Ruth didn’t have an answer. She circled once or twice, then lay down on the seat, her head resting on her paws. In instants, she began to snore.

But the more I stared at the cinder block motel, the more I was certain I was making a mistake. I mean, yes, there were no other hotel/motel options until you went a little farther east and hit the outskirts of Pittsburgh, but I did have one other choice.

No. Not Dad. Never Dad. I could not spend one more night under the roof of that green house with the white trim. He would drive me completely nuts before dawn even arrived.

But there was Mary Beth. My little sister. My parents’ late-in-life baby who came along a dozen years after I did. My mother called her “the miracle baby.” My dad just referred to her as “the accident.” She’d grown up spoiled rotten by the two adults and one almost-adult living in the house with her.

As a sissified adolescent boy with few to no friends, Mary Beth got a bigger dose of love and protection from me than she would have gotten from, say, a more popular and sports-inclined older brother. I was laughed at and called names because I pushed Mary Beth around the neighborhood in her stroller. This was not something young males did in our ‘hood. No, boys my age were busy fixing cars, debating the merits of the Browns versus the Steelers, and wondering if they’d ever succeed in getting a girl to touch them, you know, down there.

I could never talk to those guys, let alone hang with them. They’d never have understood my obsession with 1960s horror movies, the novels of Ira Levin, or how to make a perfectly crispy pizzelle waffle cookie.

But Mary Beth loved having her big brother around, especially since she had a dad who didn’t pay much attention. Back then, Dad was all about the VFW and the American Legion, two places he divided his time equally between, nursing beers, watching sports, and shooting the s**t—his phrase, not mine—with buddies he’d known all his life.

We were all quite comfortable having Dad outside the house, especially me.

Anyway, I’m rambling, winging my way heedlessly down memory lane when this is supposed to be about a new beginning.

It had stopped raining. The Panorama looked even drearier in the washed-out light of late afternoon, damp and still dripping. A carton from McDonald’s skittered along the sidewalk in front of the row of doors, and I wondered if that’s what passed for room service in this dump.

Mary Beth. Sure, I had considered calling her, telling her I was coming. I knew she’d insist I stay with her and her high-school-sweetheart husband, Brad, and their adolescent daughter, Grace.

And maybe that’s why I resisted even letting her know I was coming. My little sister, the one who’d always looked up to me as almost a father stand-in, now had a better life than I did. More luck in love. Happy. Settled. The American dream.

Does it make me a shallow person to say I wondered if it would hurt to see their happiness, coming so soon after my own failure?

Oh, shut up. You don’t know me.

I had told myself I wanted to surprise Mary Beth, but I knew the real reason I had put off letting her know her big brother was back in town for good. It’s right there above—read up a few lines. I won’t repeat it.

But should I really punish myself by staying in this dump? It was even sadder and more run-down than it had been in my youth, and that’s saying a lot because it was a pretty pathetic excuse for lodging even back then.

I grabbed my phone from the cup holder in the console between Ruth and me and scrolled through my contacts until I came to Mary Beth’s.

I waited breathlessly as I listened to the distant ringing, hoping she wouldn’t pick up, toying with the idea of hanging up before she did. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Hang up. Wait. I pressed the button to end the call. Breathed a sigh of relief.

The phone rang immediately, and Mary Beth’s face, all button nose and streaked blonde hair, came up on the screen.

“Hey, sis.”

“You called me? Just a minute ago?”

I nodded, and when I realized she couldn’t hear that, added helpfully, “Yup.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment or two. I hadn’t actually talked to my sister, other than a couple of f*******: “likes,” in the past six months. We were like that. Drifting and coming back together. Endlessly tethered to the other, we could always pick up where we left off.

So I hadn’t told her about Ross, the breakup, and certainly not about the move back here. I thought I could do all that once I got settled in.

“So are you here yet?”

I laughed. The snort of mirth burst out of me more as evidence of surprise than delight. “What?” I asked, thinking I’d perhaps misheard.

“Are. You. Here. Yet?” she asked, as if talking to a small child or an imbecile.

And that did make me laugh, more in a funny ha-ha way. “Yes, I’m here. Dad?” I asked in what passed for shorthand between us.

“As soon as you got off the phone with him, weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I was giving you your space. Would you have wanted me to?” Once again, Mary Beth knew what I needed as well, and maybe even before I did.

“I guess not. I wasn’t ready.”

“So, I’ll ask, in the vernacular of the locals, ‘where you at?’” Mary Beth taught English at Fawcettville’s sole junior high school.

“I’m sitting here in the parking lot of the Panorama Motel.”

“Really?” she asked, chuckling, the surprise apparent. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. Fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“Are you looking to make a crystal meth purchase?”

“That’s an odd question.”

“Well, it’s kind of tweaker central. Everybody knows that’s where you go for meth, or as the locals call it, shards.”

“Really?” It was my turn to be surprised. And almost like an omen, or talk manifesting itself as reality, a sketchy character, all skin and bones, flannel and torn denim and scruffy facial hair, opened his door to have the smoke he was lighting up. He stared pointedly at me.

“Yeah. Everybody knows that.” She sighed. “So, if I assume you’re not looking to score, what the hell are you doing in the parking lot of the Panorama?”

“I was thinking of booking a room?”

“Shut up! In that dump? You want to get bed bugs?” She laughed heartily.

“Well, no.” I paused for a beat. “I already got them. I just thought the views were pretty and it would be a nice place to hang my hat until I found my own digs.”

Mary Beth snorted. “More like a nice place to hang yourself. Don’t stay there. Don’t be crazy. Or crazier than you already are. Come out here,” she urged, referring to her aluminum-sided ranch in the wooded neighborhood on the outskirts of town called, for no reason I could ever discover, Dresden. “I’ll kick Grace out of her room, and she can couch surf until you find yourself, as you put it, your own digs.”

“Oh, I don’t want to put Gracie out.” The last time I’d seen my niece, she was a six-year-old with pigtails and saddle shoes. Or maybe I was recalling a Shirley Temple movie on TCM.

“Get outta here! You’re family. And she won’t mind. Why? Because I say so! Besides, you won’t think I’m so nice when you see your digs here.” She laughed at her wit and mockery of my use of the ill-considered term. “You’ll be having Justin Bieber nightmares every night.” She laughed some more.

“I can hardly wait.” I started up the car. We said our good-byes. I signaled, pulled out into traffic, and headed toward my sister’s.

The motion awakened Ruth, who got herself up to a sitting position, snorted, and said, “I knew you couldn’t be serious about that place! What a dump!”