Chapter46 – The last lap to Louise
Confident that her place was a close as she said I decided
to walk, leaving everything in the room except for the letter and my leather
jacket. I thought about purchasing gloves, but the lobby didn’t offer any. So I
struck out into the stormy weather, gritting my teeth and hoping I could reach
Louise’s door before I was in need of hospitalization.
The walk proved longer than Louise’s directions might have
indicated, but I had began to get used to the colder weather, so I arrived at
her door – which turned out to be another motel – without suffering any
permanent harm, and without sighting the dark windowed Cadillac I believed I
would encounter along the way.
I rang the bell, then when that seemed to get no response, I
knocked, pounding overly cold hands on the colder metal so that my fingers
stung at contact.
The half mile walk from my motel to Louise’s had chafed my
face, and neck, and numbed my toes that only when I stopped started to ache.
But it was not from cold that I shook as I waited, but from
the anticipation of a moment I had traveled more than 4,000 miles to reach.
I had not seen Louise since that day when the Army
recruitment sergeant swept me out of work, leaving her shocked expression as my
most lasting memory.
What would she think, seeing me in shaved head, rather than
the long hair I had boasted of when working with her in the print factory back
east? Would she like the new me as much as she had the old?
Someone stirred beyond the door, a muffled voice calling
ahead of her hurried footsteps to say she was coming.
When the door opened, I found the same Louise I had always
known standing there, dressed in sweatshirt, sweat pants and thick white tube
socks, instead of the skirt and blouse she wore at work – but she still had the
same haircut, a bubble of blonde hair surrounding slightly puffy cheeks giving
her a look that made me think of Doris Day.
She had, however, a blister on her lower lip, and lifted her
hand to hide it when she noticed I had noticed it, like a shy girl fearful she
might make a bad impression
“Hello,” I said.
She stared at me, her blue eyes focusing first on my face
because that was the only thing consistent with the person I was before, then
at my hair, then at my leather jacket.
Any doubts about her wanting to see me ended when she rushed
into my arms, her small 5 foot 2 inch frame engulfed by cool leather, her
wounded lips seeking out mine in a kiss so full of passion we might still have
stood on the bus stop back east with my hands up her blouse.
The cold, however, quickly consumed her since she was ill
dressed to deal with the stiff wind blowing from off the highway.
“Come inside, it’s too cold to be messing around on the door
step,” she said.
I stepped over the threshold, moist warm hair caressing my
face as her lips had just done, easing the sting of the walk, though my fingers
and toes for a moment seemed to ache more as they frost left them.
“You look so different,” Louise said, standing back to study
me more closely in the brighter light of the vestibule, her admiration growing
with each inch of me she took in. “Army life treated you right.”
“It treated me like shit, but I got a lot of exercise,” I
said, laughing.
“But it changed you.”
“Only on the outside,” I said. “Inside I’m the same old me.
Lord, I missed you.”
“Is that why you never wrote?”
“I’m terrible with letters. I didn’t even write home to my
mom, and she sent me three or four letters a day.”
“Would you like something warm to drink?”
“Do you have coffee?”
“Sorry, no, only tea. But we could go out and get some if
you really want coffee,” she said, glancing back at the interior. Unlike my
accommodations, hers was a full apartment, one of several that rented by the
month rather than by the night, with several rooms, the first of which had a
couch, several tables, several lamps and a TV. Thick gold-colored rugs covered
the floor and leaf-patterned drapes guarded the windows against a draft.
“But it’s cold outside,” I said.
“I know. But I’ve been cooped up in this place for days on
account of the snow and I would love to get out and stretch a little. Do you
have a car?”
“No car,” I said. “I came up from
“How did you get here from your motel?”
“I walked.”
“In this weather?”
“Hey, I wanted to see you.”
She smiled at that, her eyes flashing with a little of the
old look she gave me at the factory when I promised to meet her at the bus stop
after work, as if anticipating a future pleasure.
“We could take a bus somewhere, I suppose,” she said.
“Or we could call a cab. I’ve got plenty of cash.”
“Really?”
“More than you can imagine.”
“That’s great,” she said, her hand finding mine to give a
gentle squeeze. “I’ll go get dressed.”
She vanished to the left, through an arched doorway that led
to the bathroom and bedroom beyond that. I eased into the living room, taking
comfort at the warmth. Posters decorated several walls, mostly scenes of
But as warm as the place was, and despite its soft fringes,
some darker feeling stirred – some secret trouble that seemed to electrify the
air in a strange way. It made me edgy the way seeing the Cadillac had, as if
foreboding some future trouble. Perhaps I had caught some look or feeling from
Louise, some subtle shadow hovering in her eyes that her talk had helped
disguise, something that I felt more strongly now when she was rattling around
for clothing in the far room.
A quick study of the room also revealed that Louise did not
live alone, but shared the apartment with one or more women, who had left
tokens of their own living here in photographs and open books. One of her
roommates was apparently a college or university student from the open text
left on one of the tables along with a notebook filled with scribbled text so
hurried in its jotting that the words seemed written in a foreign language.
Despite the shadow of darkness I had felt in Louise, her
voice rose from the far room as she sang – her voice slightly shrill although
not out of tune – songs from one of the Judy Collins albums she would later
play to death when I brought her back to LA.
When she reappeared, Louise had transformed from the
slightly baggy soul who had greeted me in sweat gear to the girl who had
stirred me up so passionately on the bus stop back east, though her lip was
marred slightly with the cold sore. Her form had reemerged in tight blouse and
jeans, although she quickly erased all sight of her natural curves by donning a
goat skin coat with massive hood which turned her into something that resembled
a small polar bear.
“All set,” she said.
“That’s a remarkable coat,” I said.
“And expensive. It was a gift from a friend who thought I
needed something to keep me warm in the mountains. I lived in the mountains for
a while before I moved here. I hope you don’t mind, I already called for a cab.
It should get here shortly. Would you like something to eat while we wait? I
still have some turkey left from Thanksgiving. I couldn’t eat the whole thing
by myself – though I did feed some to Bitsky.”
“Is that your room mate?”
“No, my cat. My roommate went home for the holiday. And if
you knew my friends you would know why I spent the holiday by myself.”
“I was alone, too,” I said, still feeling the pang of
spending my first Thanksgiving away from my family. The year before Hank and I
had gone to the Macy’s Parade in
Louise started to say something, but was distracted by the
honk of a horn from outside.
“That must be the cab,” she said, casting a quick glance
around the apartment, sighed, then took my hand the way she had back east those
few times when our shifts ended at the same time and we could walk up the hill
the bus stop together, as if we were still back east and working at the print
factory, no army service intervening, no crime committed, no trip west to find
her after she had fled her parents.
As we eased out into the cold air again and she fiddled with
the keys to lock the door, I noticed how her face had aged in the many months
since I had seen her last – no aged was wrong. Her face had taken on greater
cares as if she had seen as much in those months as I had, although her
experiences left more visible scars on her than mine did on me.
When we got to the cab, the door wouldn’t open, and the
driver cursed, climbed out to run around the car.
“The damned thing always does this when the temperature gets
this low,” he grumbled, struggled for a moment to pull the door open as I had,
then finally, in frustration, he kicked it causing something to snap. The door
opened before us. “Just gotta let it know who’s boss.”
Then as we climbed in the back, the driver scurried around
the cab again, climbing the wheel just as we pulled the back door closed again,
leaving me to wonder if this was some kind of trap arranged by the police or
worse, and that I would not be seeing freedom again.
The interior of the cab was cold and stank of stale
cigarette smoke. Louise leaned closer to me, opening her coat a little so as to
let me slip my arm around her – her breasts pressing against my leather jacket,
and though I could not feel their softness the way I had when we had pressed
against each other at the bus stop back east, I was extremely aware of how
close she was, and she knew it, smiling at me, her blue eyes full of suggestion
as she stared into my eyes. She told the driver where she wanted him to go, and
in a moment, we were speeding back down the snow covered highway at a pace I
considered reckless.
I searched the roadway for a sign of the Cadillac, but saw
nothing, except pickup trucks, buses and a few other equally reckless cabs, and
the massive bulk of the snow-covered mountains stretching up above us on every
side. Where we were going, I hadn’t a clue, but I knew that I could not go back
west again without Louise accompanying me, and as we traveled – cap wheels
skidding on the slick pavement the whole way – I wondered how I was going to
broach my request, especially considering all I had to offer was a roach
infested apartment in the rough neighborhood of East LA, and the prospect that
a cop or mafia muscle man might make an appearance at any time.
Then, Louise stirred at my side, and I looked down to find
her staring at me again.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
“We’ll talk when we get to where we’re going,” I said,
easing my lips closed to hers, and despite her blister, we flashed back in
time, all thoughts of what might happen evaporating as I thought of something
much more pleasant, the next step from the bus stop we could never take back
east for lack of a place to do it.
I had a motel room waiting, and I was pretty sure I could
talk her into going there once we finished coffee.
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