What the fuck is going on, man?
Just put it down. You’re gonna make this a lot worse. His voice cracked at these words and he realized that he was on the verge of bursting into an agony of tears.
Jesus Christ, man, Rick said. He did not drop the pipe but he stepped back a few feet and stood there at the edge of the stairs. Down the walkway, a man leaned forward against the rail in a white sleeveless T-shirt smoking a cigarette, watching them impassively.
Nat tried to say something more but no words would come and he clenched his teeth tight against his own shuddering breath.
Mike stood behind him in the doorway, his presence all but filling it. Why don’t you two head on down the stairs, he said.
What the fuck? Rick said again.
He did not move until Nat arrived at his side and then both of them, together, began to descend, Rick holding the short black pipe erect in the glowing air.
Toss me the keys so I can lock up, Mike said from the top of the stairs.
Nat paused, Rick looking at him. Then he fished the keys out of his pocket and threw them, underhanded, to where Mike stood in the doorway. The man exited the apartment and closed the door and locked it and then turned and tossed the keys back to Nat, midway down the stairs. You gentlemen have a nice evening, Mike said.
Neither of them made a sound in response. Instead, they continued their descent, Rick still holding the length of pipe even as they reached the parking lot and Nat unlocked the battered Datsun and they both slid inside, Nat puffing on the cigarette as he started the car and pulled them out onto Fourth Street at last.
What the fuck was that, man?
I owe some money.
To who?
Johnny Aguirre.
Johnny Aguirre? Are you fucking serious?
He did not answer. The road before them was cast under a sky the color of burnished metal.
Jesus Christ, Rick said. Jesus fucking Christ. Johnny Aguirre? Fuck me. What kind of money are we talking about?
A grand.
Jesus Christ, Rick said. He lifted the pipe as if to smash it against the dashboard but instead swung it back and forth in the air and finally set it on the floorboards at his feet. Then he leaned forward and depressed the car’s cigarette lighter with a faint click. What happened?
They were already thick in the casinos, their lit facades towering over the car, all in flashing lights and colored signs. Harold’s on one side and the Silver Dollar on the other, between which hung the arched sign proclaiming Reno the Biggest Little City in the World. They had driven under that sign when they first came out from Battle Mountain for the concert, and it had seemed a magic archway into some other world. Now he had driven under it a thousand times on his way to and from work, driven this way even though there were certainly other paths he could have taken, paths with less traffic, but the sign and that strip of casinos along Virginia Street still seemed to hold some power over him, over them both, the rotating metal star above the four yellow octagons that held the letters R-E-N-O shining its way into some universe that he had not known or was even possible, their dreams always a kind of abstraction: a way out of Battle Mountain, a way out of the cupped sagebrush desert of their lives.
And it had actually worked out that way for a while. Even though they never had any money and struggled each month just to pay the rent, it still felt like some kind of grand adventure. And yet he also knew, had known almost from the start, that it could not be the actual destination. It was like visiting a theme park or being on some kind of semipermanent vacation where reality could be forgotten but only for a moment. Even encased in that small brightly lit world that was forgetting, he knew somehow that another life reverberated in the darkness beyond the blazing casino lights, a darkness brought flat black and featureless by the glare.
I don’t know, Nat said. His heart was still racing from Mike’s visit but his voice was steady now. At least he had that much. I was playing blackjack. And I was up, I mean way up. And then I just started losing.
He stopped talking then and in the gap of silence the cigarette lighter popped and Rick took it and lit the bent cigarette in his mouth and drew upon it, the tip glowing bright and fierce for a brief moment like an orange star. Then what?
Well, I saw Johnny Aguirre there and I thought, you know, that maybe I could get a few hundred to try to win back what I lost.
You dumb fuck.
Thanks a lot, Nat said.
What the fuck were you thinking?
I was thinking that I had to pay the rent and that I’d need to eat. That’s what I was thinking.
Christ.
Yeah, no shit.
So he gave you a thousand dollars?
No, he gave me three hundred. And I lost that but I made a couple of payments and so he loaned me three hundred more and then another five about a month later.
What the fuck, man? If I knew that I would’ve taken it easy last night. We probably blew through a hundred bucks.
It was your first night back.
You can’t spend money you don’t got, Rick said.
Seemed important.
It wasn’t.
Nat shrugged.
What are you gonna do?