Dead End in Dover
by Scott Cooper
“Honey, Jack, wake up.”
“Mmm, what?”
“Jack, wake up, you’ve been asleep for hours.”
I tried to open my eyes but things were blurry. Or was it my eyes that were blurry? Fucking downers.
Yeah, I’m awake. Where are we?”
“We’re in Omaha, the Super 8. You always ask that, can’t you remember?”
I closed my eyes, “No, I can’t.”
April sat on the side of the bed. My eyes opened a crack, I could see her, blurred a bit, but a sight nonetheless. She sat on the edge of the bed, ran her hands through my hair. It felt nice, calming, as I hovered between sleep and the responsibility of being awake.
“Did you score?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I got some Oxys and some blacks.”
“Thank Christ. You’re the best April.”
“Yes, yes I am. You have to start getting out there. I don’t like doing this all on my own.”
“It’s my money, I think that’s a fair trade off.”
“I don’t give a shit. If you don’t start going or going with me, I’ll kick and I know you can’t.”
“Fine baby, I will. I swear. Now give me an Oxy.” She reached into her pocket, into a bag, placed one in my mouth, one in hers.
“How much money do we have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Um, can you check please?”
“Um, ok… Two thousand or so.”
“We still in this thing?” I asked, often.
“Of course, baby, I’m not going anywhere. Without you that is.”
“How much longer on 2k?”
“Let me see,” she said, getting pen and paper. She grabbed them, stripped to her underwear, came into bed. “Move over, slug.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Ok, with rooms, gasoline, drugs and food, multiply here, divide this, add that, figure in time differential and zones, times pi…”
“C’mon, give me a number,” I laughed.
“All right, I’m guessing we’ve got about a month.”
“How many blacks did you get?”
“20.”
“Get us a couple, I need to get a hold of a month.”
She reached over to the nightstand, got the bag, gave us one black beauty a piece.
“Sweet April. I love you. I would do this without you but I’m so fucking happy I don’t have to.”
“Me too sweetheart,” she said, kissing my forehead.
“Turn the tv on, low like. Ambience.”
The television was blurry. Six pictures of some death and destruction somewhere on earth. Africa? Cleveland? Who knew, who cared. April turned towards me, put her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her, held her close. The sound of her breathing was a metronome of existence. All was well, breathe in breathe out. All was well as hell visited earth and broke spines and lives and brought despair full time to anyone at any minute. All was well with one month left. Every day we looked at the shiny black, unused barbecue grill. We looked at each other from various places in various motel rooms in every city. Always we smiled.
“Where to next hon?” I asked.
“Hmmmm,” she thought, long and deep. Hardly caring, hardly concerned. “How about Texas?”
“Texas,” I mused. “Ten gallon hats, Butthole Surfers, Austin, truckers, Corpus Christi, I-10, the Lone Star State. Yeah, fuck, why not?”
“I’d get the map sweetie but my body feels like 1000 weights of unknown origin.”
“No problem, we’ll check later, there’s time. There’s time…”
And there was. One month. All the time in the world minus a little. We hadn’t known the time of day in a year. Things were working perfectly.
We struggled to find drugs in Tulsa so we spent our time drinking.
In Paris, TX, April saved me from a bar fight I surely would have lost.
In Conway, AR, I did the same for her. Tough crowd.
Outside of St. Louis, we threw empty bottles from our room into the snow. It had no business being there.
We had a gun pulled on us in Louisville. We calmly explained that if he wanted to put our brains on the sidewalk, he was welcome to. He stared. We told him this was a simple drug deal and that $50 for a transaction was hardly a reason to be clipped on 2nd degree murder. Strangely, he saw the logic and delivered the goods.
In Columbus I fell and cut my head on the corner of a table. It needed stitches, I’m sure, be we went to the mirror and enjoyed the show. We used the blood as fingerpaint and dabbled in art.
In Chicago I held her hand as we walked along Lake Michigan. We played pretend, acted like everyone else. The fact that we weren’t made it ok. We ate some frozen yogurt, fell asleep in a park, awoke to a sunset. Chicago was all right.
In Livonia, MI, we woke up in puke. Too many drugs. We told the maid we had food poisoning. She changed the sheets, cleaned the room, we tipped her well, went back to bed.
I loved April more in Cleveland.
She loved me more in Charleston.
Outside Baltimore, I got a fantastic blow job. We stayed in. She fell off the bed and bruised her shoulder the next morning. We laughed harder than we had in months. We took pictures.
Our goal in Atlantic City was to get kicked out of a casino for “under the influence” behavior. At the Golden Nugget, we did.
It had been weeks since we’d bathed. I mean, what’s the point? April took a bath in Scranton.
She joined me in a shower in Albany. Bruises formed on her knees.
We took that barbecue grill with us everywhere. Always placed it in some corner or another. It watched and smiled. We watched, we smiled. From place to place it led us, teasing us, taunting us. The blue Interstate signs whipped by, number by number, mile by mile. Trucks hauling, people moving, goods delivered, hitchhike runaways, dead bodies in some woods we never saw. Small towns, one light strips, railroad tracks hugging the earth in death and rusted ways. Big cities, panic beneath the tension beneath the noise. Drugged out crosswalk cab cars bus stop train depot. Bars with no name and last call cutoffs spilling into the room again. Days and nights fall down one atop another atop another atop the other over and over atop forever. Miles clock by tick tick tick and the horizon never changes its name.
By Dover we were dead. Got a room on the first floor; you know carbon monoxide fumes go down, right? We left a note on the door for the maid, Sorry and all. She was traumatized nonetheless and moved to Atlanta six weeks later. Oh well, someone was bound to get hurt.
Scott is a hermit who enjoys closing the blinds and pretending he’s not really on earth. His job in the corporate cubicle tells him he is. So, he drinks and writes to escape and, while it never lasts, it’s better than never at all.
