Read Online The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin - Free Book Online

said a few things to me, then took me into his office and sat me down in one of his leather chairs. He was an all right guy, but he was mad and he wouldn’t stop talking about how mad he was.Then he started up on his business, his family, honor, pride, and sales. I didn’t say anything, and when he was done I just thanked him for the job. I went to the accounting lady, got my last paycheck, and left.
    After I cashed it, I walked over to the Gun Rack where my friend Tommy Locowane worked for his Uncle Gary. The place was an old brick building on Wells Street. It had been around for years, ever since I could remember. On the left was a pet store, and on the right a carpet store. The pet store was an old place too, a place where my mom would buy fish for a tank we had when I was a kid.
    That morning Tommy was alone sitting at the counter eating breakfast.
    ‘Want an Egg McMuffin?’ he asked when he saw me. A radio was playing in the background, and he was reading the newspaper.
    ‘All right,’ I said and leaned against the counter. He handed me one then got up and went into the back room and came out with a cup of coffee in an old Harrah’s coffee mug.
    ‘Sugar only?’
    ‘Yeah,’ I said, took the cup from him, and set it on the counter.
    I’d known Tommy from when I was a kid, from high school. We’d been friends since the day we met. His mom had left them back then, and him and his dad fought all the time after that.
    His dad would hit him, give him a black eye, bruise his ribs, things like that. So he began to stay with Jerry Lee and me. He did that on and off until he was seventeen, when he finally moved out of his dad’s house for good and in with his Uncle Gary, his mom’s brother.
    Tommy’s half Scottish, half Paiute Indian. His build is average,but he’s gaining weight all in his stomach and in his face. He eats worse than me or even Jerry Lee. Cans of Dinty Moore Stew and candy bars, fast food, and twelve-packs of soda. He’s always drinking soda, always has one open. He’s not good looking either, girls don’t like him.
    ‘Sorry to hear about your brother,’ he said and shook his head. ‘I went by yesterday and sat with him.’
    ‘I’m going by this afternoon,’ I said.
    ‘Why do you think he did it?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
    ‘Must’ve hurt,’ Tommy said.
    ‘Yeah,’ I said.
    ‘The last time he was in the hospital was for his leg too. It was almost a month he was in then, wasn’t it?’
    I nodded.
    ‘You know, seeing him in there like that, I couldn’t help but think about that night we all hopped that train. That was one of the worst nights I’ve ever had.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about that as well,’ I said.
    ‘It’s hard not to,’ Tommy said.
    The phone rang then and he answered it. It was his uncle, and as they spoke my mind wandered back to that night by the railroad tracks.
    Jerry Lee, Tommy, and I were at our old house, the one my mom left for us. We were drinking in the kitchen. I was fifteen. We decided we’d catch a freight train to San Francisco. I don’t know why exactly, just one of those things we used to sit around and think about. An adventure. We all dressed in our warmest clothes, and I had a pack and filled it with beer, some beef jerky, and acouple blankets. We walked down Fourth Street and then cut over to the tracks and sat in the darkness, drank beers and waited.
    But hours passed and nothing happened, no train at all. I remember Jerry Lee had fallen asleep against a concrete piling, and Tommy and I were still drinking when a train finally came heading west. I can’t remember what time it was, but it was late, probably near dawn. I shook Jerry Lee awake as the train arrived, and we all got up and stood ready to catch it as it slowed through town sounding its horn in the quiet darkness. There were a few lumber cars and on them there were pockets where you could hide, so we decided we’d try for one of them. We picked a car and ran alongside