Chapter 44

44

She’s left me in Colorado.

It was one of those fuck-all, bullshit sort of days and had been since we woke up next to each other in a run down hell of a hotel in Greeley. After paying for gas, food and lodging last night we seem to be out of money. I have three dimes and a nickel stashed somewhere in the glove compartment but I’m saving it in case we need to buy cigarettes before leaving town.

The hotel comforter looks like an acid trip at Grandma’s, only, Grandma lives in Greeley and she’s a hotel manager named Steve who is missing his right front tooth. Grandma made us pay up front before taking us to our room. Somehow Grandma could sense that we’d skip the night’s rent.

There’s a knock on the door, but it’s too damned early for any knocking. She wakes next to me, pissed. I wake next to her because she’s pissed. We’re both pissed because a bottle of whisky disappeared last night and now this knocking is hurting our dehydrated minds.

“Who the fuck is that?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Make the pounding stop!”
“My head is…”
“Richard!”

I get up. It’s housekeeping. I’m rude and not wearing anything past the waist. They leave. We miss our 11:30 check out time by three hours.

The rest of the afternoon is a repeat of our initial morning conversation.

We’re headed out of Colorado. She looks at me driving her car. Out of the corner of my eye I can feel her stare, but I keep my eyes on the road, prolonging inevitable conversation until I can take her gawking no more. You know that old saying, “If you don’t have something nice to say…”

“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“”Because I’ve never thought of you as old before. But today…I can’t quit staring at your wrinkles.”
“Just today, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I hate to break it to you Jamie, but I’ve been old since we met.”
“I just thought I’d…”
“…Be a bitch? Well now you can check that one off your to-do list can’t you?”

And that was round one.

We stop to get dinner at a roadside diner in Fort Morgan. She orders an omelet. I order a cheeseburger.
And fries.
And a milkshake.

She watches me drink my milkshake. Her lips part for attack.

“How are we going to pay for all of this,” she questions, pointing her middle finger in such a way that I interpreted her “we” to mean “me”.

I shrug my shoulders and bite into my burger.
She continues her nagging.

“What do you want me to say Jamie? That I’m sorry I brought your starving ass in here to have a decent meal? That I’m sorry we spent too much money at the beginning of this trip and now we can’t pay for this food? We’re…no, you’re eating better than we have since Nevada and you want me to apologize? Just eat your omelet and shut up.”

For the rest of dinner we eat in silence. My milkshake is runny and the fries are slightly cold. She picks at her ham like she’s dissecting a frog.

Before we’re both done I pull out her car keys and hand them to her under the table.

“Go start the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Wait, we’re just going to leave here and not pay a dime? Richard, we can’t do that!”
“The hell we can’t. Jamie, we’re completely out of money. Go start the car.”
“No.”
“Jamie, this isn’t up for discussion.”
“No. I’m not stealing this food with you. I’m tired of this. Right now I’m embarrassed to be sitting across from such a washed up, pathetic old man.”

Somewhere between “old” and “man” I snap. The words that follow are not my own.

“Then I suggest you take your filthy cunt back to the kitchen and start sucking for that omelet.”

This didn’t make Jamie cry, and that was the frightening bit of it. I watched as she silently stood up from the table, nodded to me, and went to start the car. I kept my seat for a few more minutes, waiting as the waitress left the dining room.

Taking my chance I ran to the parking lot, expecting Jamie to be there, car running. She wasn’t. She's left me in Colorado.