6. Gus Goes Home.
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Room 207
“Anything you want is on us,” the handlers had told Gus when they dropped him off. So, as soon as they scooted their asses out the door, he ran to the mini-fridge and cracked open a Bud.
He downed the can in half a minute, crushed it in his hand and banked it off the wall into the plastic trash can. He then went back to the fridge for number two, “his first real beer,” as Gus had grown to think of it, the last one being more of an aperitif.
He sat at the desk and unbuckled one end of his denim coveralls, letting his gut expand to its naturally curvaceous state. He had just taken another sip when a powerful knock boomed at the door. He set his beer down. It perspired a dark ring on the desk’s wood as he stood up and walked over.
On the other side of the door were his two lawyers. He’d forgotten their names already. They entered in dark suits and silence. The tall one carried a briefcase, the pudgier one only a grin and a handshake.
Tall pulled the desk from the wall, negligent of the can still resting on top, which Gus quickly snatched before it tipped over. He sipped it as the suits sat side-by-side on the bed, creaking the springs. Gus sat down in the desk chair while Tall opened his case and produced a stack of papers.
“This is what we’re dealing with,” Pudge said.
Tall fanned the papers like a deck of cards.
“This is all sworn testimony from others who’ve been fucked over like yourself,” Pudge said, “who’ve also had their hard-earned money taken to pay these union dues without any say in the matter.”
Gus drank. He used his opposing hand to mimic a chin rub, trying to give off the impression that he was deep in thought.
“I’m just the husk,” Gus said, and then waving his hand over the stack. “Representing them.”
“Well, not exactly,” Pudge said. “You’re part of this group. But for the lawsuit, we need one of you to physically be present. Which is why you’re here living large in this lavish hotel.”
Gus hacked phlegm into his open hand, wiped it on his jeans.
“Kinda like the boss,” Gus nodded in understanding. “I’m in charge of all these folks here.”
“No, not at al—,” Pudge caught himself. “Actually, yeah, sure whatever.”
Gus smiled proudly, but he was just fucking with them.
He knew the gist of the deal by now, but he didn’t want to roll over for a tummy-scratch just because these hacks said so. Wanted to make them sweat a little in their thousand-dollar suits, their polished shoes, their salaries that could afford city real estate. Felt nice to be on the dominant end for once.
They’d approached him in a Des Moines diner while he was on a break, en route to dropping off a shipment in Indianapolis. Pudge had set three creased $20s on the table. Said all they wanted was time to chat as he ate. Halfway through his burger, they told him that a settlement would grant him five years pay all at once. But as he dipped his last fry into the pool of leftover beef grease, they hinted that, if he were willing to go further, they could do even more together.
They said he could change the world.
“Why should hardworking Americans be forced to give their money away with no say?” Pudge had said, pounding the diner table. “So some union head can collect a six-figure salary for sitting on his ass all week?”
“I sit on my ass all week,” Gus countered. “Doing that now, in fact.”
But Gus would be lying if he didn’t admit that the argument resonated some. Then they promised Gus some more money down the line, and the argument resonated even more.
They’d traded information and told him they’d be in contact soon. A few more phone calls, then a verbal agreement and some more ducks in order, then the paperwork with all the dates and the train ticket into the city for tomorrow’s initial hearing.
“Any questions?” Pudge asked.
“Don’t see what they’d be,” Gus said. “Show up tomorrow, shut up, look pretty.”
Gus opened his mouth and flashed his yellowed chompers, their gaps filled with crud from his last meal.
“Maybe not as pretty as that,” Pudge said.
He stood up from the bed while Tall returned the papers to the briefcase. They bid farewell for the day, but after a few steps, Tall spun around and glared at Gus.
“Six a.m.,” Tall said, his first words all meeting. “On the fucking dot.”
He turned his back, and they continued down the hallway.
Gus let the door close and crushed the beer can in his fist. He swished it into the trash and retraced his steps to the mini-fridge. He opened another Bud with a satisfying ker-chick, sat on the bed and sipped. He reached to the nightstand for the alarm clock, twisted its knobs for a 5:30 a.m. wake-up, and set it back down.
“On the fucking dot,” Gus mocked in a high-pitched voice. “Don’t worry about me. I actually work for a living.”
He sipped some more in front of the TV, and eventually the new episode of The Jeffersons came on. He reached for one last bedtime beer before turning it off. He made it halfway through the can before passing out on top of the covers in his clothes, same as usual.
Gus dreamt that dream he always did. He was floating above the highway in a seated position, watching the hot, black asphalt blur beneath his feet. He was still pressing the gas and manning the clutch, but the rig itself was gone. Just hovering in the air, cornfields on either side swaying in the breeze.
He passed under a highway sign that was painted the standard forest green, but the lettering was scrambled into gibberish. Then, suddenly, he was seated atop the sign itself, his workboots dangling over the edge, watching his truck approaching over a distant hill.
As it came closer, he saw that it was being piloted by a new driver. A stranger.
He was blurry, but looked a lot like Gus. Broad-chested and wide-gutted, but freshly shaven. Sweat poured down his brow from under his red-and-white Local #90 hat. Gus saw that he was nervous about something. The stranger’s knuckles, covered with red scratches and purple bruises, gripped the wheel.
Gus sat motionless as the truck passed below his feet. Suddenly he was behind the wheel. Not the invisible mass of his recurrent dreams, but his actual rig. But when he looked at his hands, he saw that they were now marred with cuts, like he’d just been in a brawl. Gus could feel that he wasn’t in his body anymore. He began to nervously tap his left hand against the wheel.
tap. tap. tap.
Ahead on the highway was an off-ramp. The wheel swerved to the right. Over the horizon, Gus saw that the ramp led only to open, empty space. He tried to swing back onto the highway, but his hands didn’t respond. They held the wheel firm, aiming straight ahead into nothingness. He felt his foot depress the pedal, then the rumble of the rig below as it picked up speed and shot up the ramp and into—
Gus was in a rocking chair on a porch, watching the sun set beyond the fields of corn. Someone behind yelled out “Lloyd!” He stood and walked inside.
The screen door shut with a thwap behind him. Halfway down the hall, he felt a sharp pain. He looked to see a long, rusty nail lodged in his left foot. He fell to the ground. A young boy came running, a towel draped over his shoulder. He had frizzy hair and a worried look on his brow.
“Look what you’ve done now,” the kid said.
He quickly pulled the nail from Gus’s foot. Two drops bled onto the hardwood floor. The wound started to coagulate. It itched something awful. Gus began to stand.
“Don’t you dare,” the kid said, holding Gus back down.
Gus lay back down. He was now looking at the ceiling in his room at the Palmer Hotel.
Gus felt the bed beneath him. He tried to move his toes, then his fingers, but no response. He stood up; his body did, at least. A tremendous sharp pain throbbed in his foot as something guided him to the bathroom. His hand flicked on the light. He saw the mirror.
Staring back was the stranger from the truck. Cold blue eyes, his brow full of nervous sweat. And now Gus noticed a fresh scratch running down the side of his face, crusting over into a scab. It looked ripe. Desperate to be plucked.
Gus felt his hand rise. Fingers ran over the scab. He heard a dry rustling sound, like flipping through an old book, like leaves raked into a pile. Then his thumb and forefinger circled into a tweezing shape and, after a few false starts, got a hold.
His hand pulled downward. Each new separation of scab and skin brought a new tinge of pain, a fresh drop of blood into the sink. He felt himself looking down to see that the entire basin was stained with red and filling, as if a spout had opened up.
It filled and filled, and then went over the brim of the sink and began to spill on the tile floor.
The alarm clock went off. Gus groggily sat up and cracked his head on the bottom of the bathroom sink.
He pulled his hands from the cold tile and felt the first signs of a goose-egg forming on his head. He stood in a light-headed daze, staggering back toward the bedroom alarm, and into a waft of stagnant beer from the unwashed and half-emptied cans scattered about.
“Fuck this,” he said. “And fuck those hacks too.”
He grabbed his overnight bag, slung it over his shoulder, and went downstairs, leaving the alarm buzzing behind.
The lobby was empty at this early hour. Gus passed through the revolving front doors into the street. He saw his breath in the cool morning air, then heard a few huffs from the ground on his left.
There were three men resting their heads against the building’s brick exterior. One held a homemade poster calling for “Fair Wages Now!” tucked under his armpits, like he was using it as a blanket. Next to them was a deflated balloon, folded and dimpled. Gus pried it open with a foot and saw the beady eyes of Scabby the Rat.
Gus doffed an imaginary hat to the sleeping men, walked to the train station, and took the first express back home.
Artwork by Tiffany Silver Braun.
If you like Tales from the Palmer Hotel, tell a friend. If you really like it, the suggested donation for the series is a one-time payment of $6.66. Venmo (@Rick-Paulas) or Paypal (rickpaulas@gmail.com).