The Not-So-Great American Novel
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Crap. Here I am in the future, or whatever this really is, and my only link to the past—my past, anyway--is royally pissed. And here I was, assuming that things got better as you got older.
Without thinking, I stand up, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the diner's floor-to-ceiling window, which opens to a busy city street. Crap. I am old. Or at least I look it. Glancing back down at the newspaper on the table and doing some quick counting on my fingers, I figure I should be about 30. The face looking back at me, though, would be wildly flattered by that guess: Long, greasy hair with a dowel-sized white streak on one side, more than a few wrinkles, ruddy cheeks and a nose red enough to border on the clownlike. Plenty of not-so-middle-age folks look like this back home -- unless you have a long attention span, there isn't much to do in Hoople but nurture a decades-long drinking habit -- but back home, anyone with hair halfway as long as mine would have never made it further than three steps inside a bar.
I walk to the counter, trying to peer through the porthole-like windows to the kitchen. Instead, I manage to get the attention of the rotund, middle-aged woman scowling behind the counter. Not that I'm anyone's idea of a prize myself at the moment, mind you, but at least I'm not glaring at anything that moves with sheer hatred. "'Help you," she asked, a phlegmy cough substituting for the question mark.
"Uh… yeah," I say, startled by my own raspy voice. Geez, I must have spent most of the '70s smoking. "Can I talk to Daphne?"
The waitress turns her head and spits, or at least makes the sound. "Forget it," she snorts. "You and all of your creepy friends can talk to her on her own time. How long have you been sitting over there, staring at that goddam paper over a cold plate of eggs, anyway?"
13 minutes? 13 years? God, I don't know. "I-I-"
"Just get out," she says, pointing to the exit. "If you want to talk to her, her shift ends at 7." I shuffle out, almost too distracted by my own reflection in the window to hear her finish, "And tell the rest of your over-the-hill greaser buddies they're not welcome here, either!"
As the door to the diner swings shut behind me, I walk out into 1984. Wow, it's warm in the future -- palm trees line the street, which is jammed with tiny, plastic-looking cars that somehow fail to enthrall me. I'd always figured we'd be zipping around in flying cars by then. I mean, by now. Then I remember—Los Angeles. Explains the palm trees, but not much else.
I look at my watch. It's about 2 in the afternoon. Not knowing what else to do, I start walking in the general direction of the marquis of a movie theatre a few blocks down. Even though the only things I see that suggest I'm visiting the future are the tiny, crappy cars, I'm starting to feel wobbly, kind of like I have the bends. Sitting down in a dark theatre would probably do me good.
As I walk up to the theater, I pull out my wallet -- at least I have a wallet. And more good news -- there's actually a couple hundred bucks in it, mostly in the form of faded, crumpled twenties. I walk up to the counter and say, "One, please."
"That'll be six dollars," comes the voice from behind a thick sheet of what I assume is bulletproof glass. Damn, the future's bland and expensive. But I'm flush with cash, so a minute later I'm in a dark, nearly empty theater watching something called Footloose. The music's pretty strange -- there's not a guitar riff to be heard anywhere -- but I suppose I ought to be able to relate. It's about a big-city kid who moves to a small town and gets pissed off at their small-minded ways, so he runs off to an abandoned steel mill, smokes a cigarette and… starts dancing. Angrily dancing. Maybe that explains why the one kid I knew in high school whose family moved to Hoople from Omaha moved back after about three months. I never saw him dance, though.
The movie ends and the lights come on. I feel no less numb or washed out, and I definitely don't feel like dancing. A check of my watch confirms I have way too much time on my hands before Daphne's shift ends. Fumbling around in my pockets, I come up with the world's most crumpled pack of cigarettes and a set of keys, including one from the Normandie Motor Lodge, with the room number -- 12 -- and address right on its oversized tag. At last, a break. Or at least a break for an hour or two.
A desultory thumb from the ticket-taker points me out the door and around the corner to the motel, which is only slightly less squalid than I imagined. The key easily slides into the lock for Room 12, though, and I hit the light switch next to the door. A tiny lamp on the battered nightstand makes a valiant effort at brightening the room, but doesn't get much further than a weak half-circle revealing a rumpled bed, the sheets partially pulled off the mattress. Daily maid service doesn't appear to be among the Normandie's amenities.
I take a look in the mirror bolted to the cinderblock walls above a cracked porcelain sink. The same creepy, time-worn face looks back at me, and I'm glad the room isn't any brighter. I try to flip on the TV, which doesn't work, and lacking anything better to do, flop backwards onto the bed, which groans before absorbing me like a vat full of marshmallows.
So far, 1984 pretty much sucks. I try to remember Al and Jimmie's words of wisdom, but beyond a fading mental image of a blackboard full of circles and lines, I come up blank. Hopefully Daphne will be able to clue me in on the game plan. Actually, I'll be lucky if she doesn't try to mace me when she walks out of the diner in a couple of hours.
Bored, I pull out the wallet again. No driver's license, which seems kind of odd. There's just the cash and a small piece of paper, which looks like it was crumpled up, then unrumpled and stuck in the wallet as an afterthought. I absentmindedly turn it over, read it, and bolt straight up in the bed.
"Oh, shit," I whisper. The card is a business card, and it reads "David Gruber, Esq., Talent Manager, G&H Records." A post office box follows in smaller type, meaning I can safely assume it's not a wildly successful label, but before I can think about that, I'm racing over to the mirror, nearly tripping over the tangle of bedsheets in the process, to look at myself again. Myself? The hair's longer and whiter, but I'm starting to get a feeling that the "G" in G&H Records is definitely not me.
And it isn't. The face staring back at me is my father's. And if the "H" in G&H is who I think it might be -- has to be, really -- I'm not sure Daphne's really going to want to give me a hand. At least, not unless it's firmly attached to Molly's collar.
