The Hotel Eden(67)

Shaken up like he was, things went differently. There was no chatter right off the bat, no sitting down at the table. He just moved things out of the way as I wheeled the oxygen in and changed tanks. He stood to one side, leaning against the counter. When I finished, he made no move to keep me there, so I just kept going. I wondered for a moment if he knew who I was or if he was just waking up. At the front door, I said, “There you go, good luck, Gil.” His name quickened him and he came after me with short steps in his slippers.

“Well, yes,” he started as always, “I wouldn’t need this stuff at all if I’d stayed out of the war.” And he was off and cranking. But when I went outside, he followed me into the rain. “Of course, I was strong as a horse and came back and got right with it. I mean, there wasn’t any sue-the-government then. We were happy to be home. I was happy.” He went on, the rain pelting us both. His slippers were all muddy.

“You gotta go,” I told him. “It’s wet out here.” His wet skin in the flat light looked raw, the spots on his forehead brown and liquid; under his eyes the skin was purple. I’d let him get too close to the truck and he’d grabbed the door handle.

“I wasn’t sick a day in my life,” he said. “Not as a kid, not in the army. Ask my wife. When this came on,” he patted his chest, “it came on bang! Just like that and here I am. Somewhere.” His eyes, which had been looking everywhere past me, found mine and took hold. “This place!” He pointed at his ruined house. “This place!” I put my hand on his on the door handle and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pry it off without breaking it.

Then there was a hitch in the rain, a gust of wet wind, and hail began to rattle through the yard, bouncing up from the mud, bouncing off the truck and our heads. “Let me take you back inside,” I said. “Quick, Gil, let’s get out of this weather.” The hail stepped up a notch, a million mothballs ringing every surface. Gil Benson pulled the truck door open, and with surprising dexterity, he stepped up into the vehicle, sitting on all my paperwork. He wasn’t going to budge and I hated pleading with him. I wouldn’t do it. Now the hail had tripled, quadrupled, in a crashfest off the hood. I looked at Gil, shrunken and purple in the darkness of the cab; he looked like the victim of a fire.

“Well, at least we’re dry in here, right?” I said. “We’ll give it a minute.” And that’s what it took, about sixty seconds for the hail to abate, and after a couple of heavy curtains of the rain ripped across the hood as if they’d been thrown from somewhere, the world went silent and we could hear only the patter of the last faint drops. “Gil,” I said. “I’m late. Let’s go in.” I looked at him but he did not look at me. “I’ve got to go.” He sat still, his eyes timid, frightened, smug. It was an expression you use when you want someone to hit you.

I started the truck, hoping that would scare him, but he did not move. His eyes were still floating and it looked like he was grinning, but it wasn’t a grin. I crammed the truck into gear and began to fishtail along the road. I didn’t care for that second if we went off the road; the wheels roared mud. At the corner, we slid in the wet clay across the street and stopped.

I kicked my door open and jumped down into the red mud and went around the front of the truck. When I opened his door, he did not turn or look at me, which was fine with me. I lifted Gil like a bride and he clutched me, his wet face against my face. I carried him to the weedy corner lot. He was light and bony like an old bird and I was strong and I felt strong, but I could tell this was an insult the old man didn’t need. When I stood him there he would not let go, his hands clasped around my neck, and I peeled his hands apart carefully, easily, and I folded them back toward him so he wouldn’t snag me again. “Goodbye, Gil,” I said. He was an old wet man alone in the desert. He did not acknowledge me.

I ran to the truck and eased ahead for traction and when I had traction, I floored it, throwing mud behind me like a rocket.

By the time I lined up for the Tempe Bridge, the sky was torn with blue vents. The Salt River was nothing but muscle, a brown torrent four feet over the river-bottom roadway. The traffic was thick. I merged and merged again and finally funneled onto the bridge and across toward Scottsdale. A ten-mile rainbow had emerged over the McDowell Mountains.

I radioed Nadine that the rain had slowed me up and I wouldn’t make it back before five.

“No problem, sonnyboy,” she said. “I’ll leave your checks on my desk. Have you been to Scottsdale yet? Over.”