I say, “I don’t have one. All I have is cash.”
He points at the sign again, and I hold back my urge to ask him if this is how he expected his life to turn out. Instead, I just say, as nicely as possible, “Is there anything you can do? I have no car, no place to stay. I don’t know anyone here. Please?”
He rolls his eyes and throws a form on the table. I say, “Thank you, thank you” as I fill out the paperwork. When I’m done, he tosses me a key.
The room is perfectly fine inside. A little musty, maybe, but there’s a big TV and a huge bed. I pull my phone out of my pants pocket and stare at it. No more texts. I feel a twinge in my chest. I’m sitting alone in a hotel room in San Francisco. Maybe this is my fault? Is there something wrong with me that I feel like Aisha is in the wrong? Part of me is like, No way. Absolutely not. And the other part is cringing as I think about what I said to my best friend about getting gay married. She was happy. She met a girl, and I acted like a jerk. Why is that my factory setting?
I swallow my pride and text her.
sorry.
i’m an asshole. but you knew that already.
i got jealous, ok? i have a place for us to stay. text me
and i’ll give you directions. sorry again.
I wait for her response. My heart pounds.
Fifteen minutes pass, and still nothing. Shit. I really fucked up.
I’m hungry, so I head out to find something to eat. Barracuda Sushi is the closest place. When I see how fancy it is, I order a teriyaki chicken plate to go.
On my own, I think as I jaywalk across the street. On my own. Better get used to it. Apparently I’m not so good at the keeping of friends.
I pass a liquor store, and I stop. So many colorful bottles. So many different kinds of beer too. Those are the most alluring to me.
I stare for a good minute, and I calculate how much cash I have left and how many beers I could buy. I fantasize about feeling nothing.
And then I think about my food getting cold.
I hustle across the street to my room and drink a soda with my dinner. And I feel a little proud because I’m not my father. At least not right now. I have a chance never to be him, or never to become what he became.
After I wolf down dinner, and Aisha still hasn’t texted back, I call my dad.
“So if I told you I was someplace that a seventeen-year-old probably shouldn’t be, would you react like a father or a friend?” I ask.
He laughs uncertainly. “Maybe a little of both? Where are you?”
“I’m alone in a hotel room in San Francisco,” I say.
He draws in a breath. “I thought you were coming home soon.”
“I am,” I say. “A couple days, three tops.”
“Are you drunk? High?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “What? No.”
“So you’re in a hotel room in San Francisco, where you aren’t high or drunk. Do you have a girl there?”
“No, and that’s the problem.”
He laughs again.
“Aisha is angry at me because I’m a dickwad. I thought she was being dickwad-ish, but she isn’t talking to me, so I’m guessing I am and I don’t even know it, which kinda sucks.”
He laughs some more. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I say.
His laugh continues. It’s kind and soft. I want to memorize this feeling, this tingling in my legs that tells me I have a dad and we know each other.
“So you’re having an adventure, you’re crashing and burning, but you’re not high, drunk, or messing around with girls?”
“Yup.”
“What am I supposed to be upset about?” he asks.
“Dad,” I say, a little frustrated. “Is that what you’re supposed to say to your kid who is marooned in a hotel room in a strange city alone?”
“Hey. Baby steps, right?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Nope,” he says.
“Good.”
“Easy for you to say. It sucks monkey cock, actually. I’m jonesing for a scotch and soda.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“Could you stay on the phone with me for a while? That would help,” he says, and I hear that unsureness in his voice again. So I do, and I tell him the story of what happened with Aisha, and he has no advice but does laugh at the funny parts, which is better than nothing, and actually calms me down a bit. He tells me that he and my mom are getting along real well, past fighting for the first time in so long he can’t even remember. She’s super pissed at me, he says. “Better get her something in San Francisco. Something good.”
“I’ll buy her a condo,” I say. “Tell her I’m okay and I’m coming back soon.” Then I ask him if he could imagine us being a family again, and he has to pause before he says anything.
“That would be real nice,” he says, his voice weak.
When he gets sleepy, and he promises me he’s just going to hang up and close his eyes, no drinking, I say good night and I tell him I love him. It’s easier this time. Not easy, but easier.
I hang up and check in case a text came in and somehow I didn’t hear it. No.
I text Aisha again.
i’m worried. Please let me know you’re okay and that you’re coming back to stay with me.
It takes her only a few seconds to respond.
Let’s chill for the night. We’ll talk in the morning, okay? I’m fine. Have a place to stay.
K, I text back.
I turn off the lights and listen to the traffic outside. It soothes me, in a way; it sounds like New York. The shadows of cars traverse the walls and I feel the pulse of the city just outside the window. Maybe there are kids who would take tonight and get drunk or go looking for girls. Maybe part of me is one of those kids, I don’t know. Mostly I just want to be alone right now, and that’s a bigger part of me.
I play the entire volleyball scene over and over in my mind. What I said. My tone. My mood. Why did I have to be that way? If I could go back and change the entire thing, I would. I wouldn’t let my pride take over. I would not make my friend feel bad about wanting to enjoy herself.
Tomorrow I’ll either find out what happened to my grandfather, or I never will. There’s no other way it can turn out. I’ll find Turk Braverman, or I won’t. If I do, he’ll know my grandfather. Or he won’t.
And for the second time in a few days, I find myself doing something I don’t normally do.
Please, God. Let me find my grandfather tomorrow. Please. If you exist, please just give me that one thing. Amen.
THE NEXT MORNING, I shower, get dressed in the same dirty clothes I wore yesterday, and think about texting Aisha. But I don’t want to wait for her before going to see Turk Braverman. And why should I? She can join me when she wants, if she wants. I check out of the hotel and start my walk back toward 36 Prosper Street. It’s chilly again, and I wonder if it ever warms up here.
I ring the bell again. I hear the dog bark again.
My heart sinks. Nothing else. No other sounds.
Then, softly, I hear the patter of slow footsteps. My pulse accelerates.
The knob turns. The door opens.
The old man who answers has extremely thin legs, which I can see because he is wearing white shorts that reach to just below his knobby knees. His upper body is thick and muscled. He looks a bit like he might topple over at any moment because he’s too top-heavy. He has a mustache that has clearly been dyed black because the rest of his hair is salt-and-pepper, mostly salt. His face is craggy and lined; he has two horizontal lines across his weathered cheeks that look like minus signs to me.