Read Online Crystal Clean by Kimberly Wollenburg - Free Book Online

and more than that, he seemed peaceful. I stayed for two days and at the end of those two days, with my head in a cloud of meth smoke, my brain steeped in chemicals and an overwhelming desire to get away from Garnett, I went home, sold half of everything I owned and moved Andy and myself to Jackpot, Nevada. Population: 1,502.

Chapter 6
     
    I told my parents and Garnett that I just had to get away from the craziness of the city, that I was disillusioned with people, that I’d lost faith in humanity. I needed a simpler life and I needed my brother. I’d lost my job through no fault of my own, I told them, and I simply didn’t know what to do. Moving my son and myself to a desert town where there’s nothing to do except gamble 24/7 was just what I needed to rejuvenate myself and get a fresh start.
    I got a job tending bar, though I’d never done more than pour beer at the local race track. Chuck watched Andy for me, and from midnight to seven am, I worked solo in the only bar in town that had no gambling. Not even machines. It was the bartender’s bar. The place all the other bartenders came after their shifts were over to play pool or darts, listen to the jukebox and drink. No out-of-towners ever went there, because there was no gambling, so it was their own. The place they could unwind, untuck and let loose. A few of them were born and raised in that speck of a town, the most current generation of bartenders and craps dealers. Almost all of them were alcoholics, and most of them liked drugs. In a 24/7 town with nothing to do but gamble and drink, there was a bottomless well of desire for drugs.
    Busses shuttled workers back and forth from surrounding areas. Cars were uncommon in Jackpot. Residents could take the shuttle into Twin Falls, the closest town, to shop just to get the hell out of Dodge, but they were stuck in the middle of the desert. Escape, in whatever form, was a commodity.
     
    When I say that many of the residents of Jackpot were alcoholics, particularly the ones born and raised there, I’m not exaggerating. I met Chris my first night on the job. He was sloshed, acting like a complete ass. I had to ask some of the guys to escort him out of the bar because he was so disruptive. I only stayed in Jackpot for four months, but in that time, I got to know Chris and saw him try to quit drinking three times. I also heard from his friends about his previous attempts. He worked doing hard count, collecting all the coins from the machines, at the graveyard shift at one of the casinos. More than once, he tried to quit drinking cold turkey. He would show up to work with DT’s, his skin and eyes yellow with jaundice, sweating and throwing up, but he never missed a night, and was a hard working son-of-a-bitch. When he was drinking, though, he was so bad, he would pour whiskey on his corn flakes in the morning.
    I got to know and love Chris. He was tough and my heart shattered every time he fell off the wagon. He was in such late stages of alcoholism that one drink would turn him into a raging drunk. He was Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas . He was Jim Morrison in his last days in Paris. The last time I saw him was shortly before I left Jackpot. I was at his apartment and he was trying to get sober again, taking Antabuse but still unable to quit drinking. He showed me pictures of him and his friends, many of whom I served shots and beer to after midnight, when they were in high school. He gave me some of those pictures, smiling, saying he wanted me to remember him the way he was in happier times.
    About a year after I moved back to Boise, I went back to Jackpot for a weekend. His long-time girlfriend told me Chris was dead. He died alone in his apartment of acute liver failure. He was twenty-six years old.
     
    Living in the middle of the desert was akin to living on an island. The people there counted on outsiders to bring drugs into town, and were at the mercy of the dealers who determined price, quality and