“So what are you saying?”
“What do you think I’m saying? I want you to come out to Hollywood with me.”
Ruth paused to let a little Fresca fizz escape through her nose. Maggie offered her a napkin. “Anyway, I told him I would. Right then and there. That’s why it blew my mind when I found out what he did right after Pat died. I didn’t know he was that obsessed over him. I know we’re all a little crazy — everybody in their own twisted way — but he was smart and he had so much promise, and Mags, you should have heard how he’d go on about things he was passionate about — politics and gay rights and things you’d never think might live inside that brilliant brain of his. And then he does something like this — something so, so, so stupid. Deadly stupid. What the fuck is wrong with people? Why are human beings so fucked up?”
“Don’t ask me, Ruth. My family should be on the cover of Fucked Up magazine.”
“So everybody says Hollywood is this messed-up town and all the really crazy people gravitate there, but you know what? I don’t think Hollywood’s any more messed up than Bellevenue, Mississippi, or Armpit, Minnesota, or any other place. So I’m going out there to write screenplays about messed-up people and see if I can’t make a living at it.”
“What are we gonna do without you?”
“You don’t think we’ll be in touch? For Chrissakes, Mags! Herb and Lucille’ll be tugging me back home for visits on every holiday that has something to do with either Jesus or the Pilgrims, plus ya’ll will all be looking for excuses to come out to L.A. and sleep on my floor, just watch.”
“When are you leaving?”
“As soon as I can. Viv won’t like it. She’s asked me to move in with her twice already.”
“Will you miss her?”
“Of course I will. I really like Viv, you know that. But I don’t like it here. Everybody wandering around, waiting for something to happen and then when something does happen, it’s horror-movie shit. It’s like what those people in London went through during the Blitz.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, I’ll tell you: you sit around and drink your tea with nervous hands and talk about puddings and then some German flies over your house and drops a bomb on you. That’s kind of what we got now. Mind-numbing boredom followed by sudden apocalypse and then whoever’s still standing when all the dust settles gets to go right back to being bored again.”
“I think you really are going to make it as a writer, Ruth.”
“Thank you, doll. Do you want to go over to the casino with me? It might be nice to have someone else in the room when I have to drop the arrivederci bomb on Viv.”
Maggie shook her head. “Do you mind if I don’t? It’s so peaceful and quiet out here on the patio. I like watching the way the clouds darken up before a storm. Sometimes I really like storms, Ruth. I like getting blown around by forces that have absolutely nothing to do with human beings. It reminds me that as much as we think we’re in charge of our destinies, we aren’t. We’re just leaves in the wind.”
Ruth got up. She walked over to Maggie and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
Vivian Colthurst took it better than Ruth thought she would. Partly because Ruth left the window open for Vivian to move out to Hollywood herself if she liked, “maybe after I get myself established. Otherwise, it would be a step down for you, Viv. I know you like your supervisor’s job at the casino and I don’t know how many casinos there are in Southern California, let alone whether you could find another job like the one you have now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Vivian. “You know what? As a little going-away present, I’m gonna time-clock you in for the next two weeks. That way you’ll have a little extra money for your move.”
“That’s very sweet, Viv, but won’t that get you into trouble with the casino?”
Vivian laughed and shook her head. “With all the money they’re making here? I feel like I work at Fort Knox.”
Will, unlike Jerry, had hung around the casino while payroll prepared his final paycheck, blowing money he didn’t have at the blackjack table. The fleet boss, Mr. Matthews, had gotten word from Ms. Touliatis in Human Resources that several of the gaming floor cocktail waitresses were getting ready to file sexual harassment complaints against the three drivers, and besides, this University of Mississippi frat-boy posse was bad news any way you looked at them. One had just died — actually died! — from injuries he’d gotten from some kind of fight he’d been in, and then his friend, probably high on Angel Dust or something, had jumped to his death out a goddamned window. In Mr. Matthews’ day, the worst you could say about Ole Miss fraternity brothers was that they were lazy. Case in point: they didn’t lift a finger to keep James Meredith from attending classes at the school, preferring, instead, to keep to their frat houses and guzzle beer while the upright white citizens of Oxford (like Matthews) had to do all the rioting on Ole Miss’s behalf.
Ruth was at the casino too. She was in the changing room for female staff. She was alone. It was late afternoon on a weekday — a slow time. Even the geriatrics had already boarded their senior center buses and were headed back to Memphis.
Ruth was pulling out what few things she’d been keeping in her locker. She was putting them in a grocery bag. She wasn’t aware she was being watched. Will stood in the doorway. He coughed. She turned. “You’re not allowed in here,” she said evenly.
“I’m not in there. I’m standing out in the hallway.”
“Please go away or I’ll get a security guard.”
“How are you gonna do that? I’m blocking the door.”
Ruth put a couple of other things into the bag and slammed the locker door shut. She stood next to the bench, staring at Will. Will stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“We’re not going to do this,” she said, still without a trace of emotion.
“Do what?”
“You know what. Take one more step and I’m screaming my lungs out. I have big lungs.”
“Of course you do. You’re a fat pig.”
“What are you? Ten fucking years old?”
“I have a knife.”
“Show me the knife and I start screaming.”
“I can do a lot of cutting before somebody gets here.”
Ruth expelled a large volume of air through her nose. “That’s the biggest problem I have with men. They’re so fucking, fucking predictable. Whenever anything bugs them, whenever they don’t get their way, they just summon their inner caveman and go ugga-chugga atavistic on everybody’s asses. It gets old real fast, Billy.”
“So then you do think I have something to be upset about.”
“I’m sure you do. It all fell apart, didn’t it? That goddamned game of yours. Two of your friends are dead. I can’t even get my brain around that. The five of you — you all came from good families. You had your tickets written and you screwed it all up because men do that, don’t they? Men never grow up. Mentally and emotionally, they don’t seem to get very far beyond the fifth grade.”
Will grinned. “Oh, that’s me, right?”
“To a tee, Hur-ca-lees. You come in here with your tighty-whities all in a wad because I got you fired from this stupid casino that you didn’t much enjoy working for anyway, but you’re still gonna find some way to take your revenge. What are you thinking about doing, Billy Boy? Are you gonna try to rape me like your friend Tommy raped Jane? Are you gonna cut me all up with that secret knife of yours? Will this make you feel better? What do you want to do?”