The Vocabulary of Guns

59.

In the time that I am writing about, Baton Rouge was still obscured by trees. It was a magical sensation to pass the Highland Road exit and then you knew you were close to the city, your one hour drive already over if the capital was your destination or the campus of Louisiana State or one of the big ass chemical plants that spawned Dantean scenes into the night air. The rich families were still rich in 1984 and they held the land that was bisected by the Interstate. Hardwoods, clean woodland, palmetto-thick in summer, ghostly and black in the winter. It gave one a pleasant feeling after miles of weedy willows and then the slow rise into higher land until you came upon a forest amidst the south Louisiana sprawl of trailer homes and strip malls and Cajun this and coon-ass that. You could have been a traveler in a medieval time, arriving on horseback from the Palatinate, a crusader returned from the wars, a conquistador home from darkest Peru. And then you’d round a bend in the road, the highways converging together, the 12 meeting the 10 and the medieval keep would be seen rising above the growing town. In this case, the keep is the Hilton Hotel, twenty-five stories of white cement and lights burning over the commercial byways. You enter the city in your father’s car, passing the hotel. You’ll know in your bones that you’ll have a history in that tower. In an instant you’ll see it all, yourself behind the front desk, checking in the Mr. Lou Brock, yourself in an argument with a black Baptist preacher, yourself stealing money from the till, shoes from the shine man, jewelry from the safe. Nine months will pass in the bat of an eye, nine months that spawned huge friendships and mountains of deceit. You’ll see yourself screwing a stewardess on the floor of her hotel room. You’ll see a knot of crazy bellmen, your drug smoking, acid eating, novel writing friends. Through them, you’ll meet Bukowski. You’ll meet people who think nothing like you and you’ll like that feeling. You’ll meet dudes from Houma and Thibodaux and Houston fucking Texas. You’ll meet dudes running away from married women, dudes running away from adulthood, dudes fated to die young. All in a moment as you pass the hotel. The blue sign will be changed to red as the years pass and the nation stops fearing the Russians. You’ll escape with something less than your dignity, able to quit (thank God) before they fire you. You’ll place a phone call from somewhere alien like New York or Los Angeles or Miami, begging in no uncertain terms for your one ally left at that place to give you a good recommendation so you can escape whatever hell you and Bukowski have found yourself in. She will and therefore you will. And someday if you have half a brain left and any kind of nutsack, you’ll come back to the Hilton Hotel, all the Hilton Hotels of your past and you’ll ask to see the manager, Larry or Steve or Peshawar or Dao or Rita or Susann or Nancy or Kate. In this case, it will be Tom, Tom something, like two first names, Tom Frank perhaps. And the clerk who you do not know will ask who you are. You’ll give your name, Gabriel Doucette, you’ll say, a proud name, an ancient name, a name with its own street in a not so faraway town and you’ll think how you’ve sullied that name that was picked out with such care and you’ll look around the lobby of the hotel where you know no one anymore and that’s a blessing, no, Henry is still here, the only black bellman, tall and handsome and a little grey at the temples, he remembers you and shakes your hand, lovingly hugs you and says, ‘What’s up, where you been man?’ so country you could kiss him, and you’ll say where you’ve been all this time, France maybe or Oregon or the Bahamas or Mexico or England or Canada or Hong fucking Kong, anywhere but Baton Rouge and he’ll say, ‘Man that’s what I need to do, get out of here,’ but he won’t because he can’t, the wife, a baby, maybe two. He’s stuck and you’re free to fuck off the rest of your life. And then you’ll hear your name. ‘Gabriel.’ And you’ll turn around and Tom the Hotel Manager will be standing there waving you into the suite of offices behind the front desk. He still has the same haircut, mustache, brown shirt and yellow tie. As you walk into his office you’ll catch the eye of the food and beverage manager who knew you were a thief. She’ll look at you like you kick kittens and then you’ll sit across from Tom. Where you’ve sat before, denying everything, lying through your eyes, your whiskers, your yellowing and strong, hard teeth. With a Batman button on your oxford cloth shirt. Batman oughta put you away. And now Tom says, ‘What can I do for you?’ and he looks at you like you screwed his wife. And you tell it all. You tell it ALL. You tell how you stole and lied and lied and stole. And you say that you have no excuse, you’re not here to make an excuse, only to ask forgiveness and to promise that somehow, someway, you don’t know when, you’ll pay that money back, however much it was, you don’t know and you never will. And there will be a moment of silence in that ugly little office with the pictures on the desk of his wife and two daughters, gawky girls holding fishing poles. And then he’ll say, ‘I knew you were lying and I knew you were stealing. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Doing what you did today, coming in here and admitting what you’ve done, that took guts. That’s what a man does. He admits his mistakes. He doesn’t lie to others because he doesn’t lie to himself.’ And he’ll go on and you’ll sit there listening, not believing it, waiting for the cops to arrive or someone to throw hot coffee on you or spit in your face but they don’t, they won’t, not at all, not a bit, Tom will stand, you’ll stand, he’ll shake your hand and say this, the final nail in the coffin of your past, ‘If you need a job, come see me. We’d love to have you back.’ And you’ll go. You’ll walk out the door feeling a new man. ‘Goodbye,’ you’ll say to Henry and he’ll say, ‘You look out now, baby. I’ll be seeing you.’ And he won’t and you won’t. No need. They’ll be no need ever to ever go back through the doors of the Hilton Hotel again.