Dead Ends

            Slept away the morning of Christmas Eve on a flight into Houston, overcoming the futility of blue balls with dreams arisen through the transcendent ecstasy of bleary high altitudes.  Washed out bloodsuckers falling from the feathers of an exotic bird like meteors at the end of a bad movie with lots of big plastic guns.  Dreams.  The promise inherent in the number of a buxom Texas brunette whose bed I ended up in once a lifetime or two ago.  Dreams.  The hastily delivered goodbyes in Chicago.  The 200 dollars I have left and the outstanding message in my voicemailbox from work asking when I plan to return.

            I feel sore.

            "More," I said, indicating the bar full of empty glasses, "we need more of everything."

 

            The funereal stream of cars outside baggage claim, the nondescript van to slink me to my hotel, taking a surprisingly long time to reach the highway during which time I imagine that at any moment the enormous driver will turn around and chloroform-gag me with no warning, take me to some unmarked house out in Humble and do horrid things to me before I ever get let go.  The kind of van that looks like all the blood has recently been washed out of the seats.

           

            Which is more real: The swaddling baby Jesus begot by horny angel and dimpled virgin, under a shining parallax of interstellar conjunction, or Golden broken bloody bearded crucified Jesus, suspended in the air above the barroom door with a sprig of mistletoe tied around His pained and skinny pointed feet?

 

            Twin beds and a stainless steal Kleenex dispenser beside a bolted-down TV.  The end of the toilet paper folded into a pleasant little triangle, seven drawers and only a Bible and a phonebook to fill them.  Nigel used to work at a place out on Smith Street.  By the time I'd showered, shaved, dressed in my best wrinkled Dockers and striped shirt with the uneven collar from Mervins, got a cab into the city proper and walked my way to the address I had written on the bottom of a coaster from home, it was nearly 12:30.

 

                Watching wet blotted beer rings slowly erode away the last definite trace of my brother.  George Strait songs blaring on a big pickup truck out in wet asphalt the parking lot.  Everything is a little wet, a little misty, a little lost, or is it me?

 

            "Mr. Saltzman won't be back from lunch for… nutha half hour I 'magine."

            "I'll wait."

            "Might be easier sometime after Christmas hon'"

            I checked my reflection in the mirror, smiled lopsidedly at the pale masked man without his mask.  Shriveled into clothes he never wears and bravely bearing on well out of his element.  Stand Strong.

            "I only need a minute.  And I won't be here after Christmas."  I gave her Nigel's name.  Asked if she remembered him.  She smiled sweetly and shook her head.  I sat back and looked out the window and thought about the spaces in between the buildings.  Everything bigger in Texas.  Joints expand more.  Contrasts of shade and light engorge the pupil.  Desires enflame with greater passion.  I am in my brother's old office building, closer to him than I have been since I started looking for him, and suddenly his distance seems all the further away.

            Stupid Texas.

 

            "Heya slim?  Merry Christmas stranger?"  D-cup with a not unpleasant smile.  I could hear her 'Har Har Har' laughing with her ugly friend, whose diffident giggles were kinda turning me on.  If I were Nigel I'd have gone home with her by then.  Or the pair of 'em.  As it was I sat at the bar, turned slightly away, sending Mry XMas texts from my lap, and wishing I'd done things differently.

                "Hey Sugar, whoncha come lil closer.  We don' bite… hard!" Har Har Har, giggle giggle, giggle.

               

            "No, I don't know where he went." Period.

            "Didn't anyone call you for references, didn't he leave any forwarding address?"

            "I'm sorry to have to put it blunt like this, but NO.  And even that is more'n I should be telling you.  There are certain rules of confidentiality in place here you understand?"

            "Can you tell me anything?"

            Mr. Saltzman rubbed his hands for a moment and then reached for a dry star-shaped Christmas cookie on a platter on his desk.  "He was only here for a couple of months.  Straight out of school, I barely knew him except for the work he did, which was, to say the least, very good. High caliber that one."

            "That's it?"

            "We're still a very young company, kid.  Turnover's pretty high.  People come and go.  It's a growing industry.  Lots of promising upstarts.  You're his brother aren't ya?  Heard he got a new job, why not call and ask him where he's working?"

"Don't you think I tried that already?"  I shot back.  He straightened in his chair and looked haughty and insulted and I thought better of my snap.  Stay cool Masked Man.  I was glad I'd left my mask back in the hotel room though, starting to feel vulnerable without it.  But I figured this guy never would have talked to me if I'd come in dressed as I normally dressed, asked all the questions and left.  They expect you to show all your cards out front before they give you anything.  "Sorry.  He is my brother.  But he won't answer his phone and  I just thought… I just thought you could tell me something I don't know."

            He hesitated.  A good businessman with information will always assess what advantage might be gained or lost before divulging.  His eyes traveled back and softened into an alcove of remembrance where, I imagine, he too had a brother who was irrevocably absent during the holidays.  I took him to be about sixty.  His office had no pictures of family.  No personal ornaments or mementos of any kind.  Just the walls, the desk and the windows where a cloud rolled away in the reckless Texas blue sky and a swath of midday sun shone in, cushioning us into its bright flavor of intimate sanctity.

            "I did get one call," he said, "but I don't know if anything came of it or not."

            "Who?"

            "I can't tell you who.  But I can tell you the call came from Washington, and you might have better luck there." He got up and opened the door, signaling apparently that we were through.  We shook hands.  "D.C." he said, "and a happy holidays to ya."

 

            "What's your name sweetie?"

She sidles up close, clasping my skinny arm between her breasts.  Breath like Mexican wine.  Beads of sweat on the near empty beer in front of me come into focus, (who knows if its mine?), tastes as warm as blood.  Take and drink, in remembrance of …

Who am I?

"Nigel's brother," I say.

 

                When someone informed me that it was Christmas and the bar was closing I opened my eyes drowsy, angry, and hummed a Christmas song of joy and peace and mosied out of there feeling like shit.  Could've taken those girls home.  But who would I be if I only took what I could get?  Stupid Texas!  Stupid Christmas!  Stupid Nigel!  Stupid Me, taking a piss in the bushes.  Alone in a shining city, rising suspended above the stretched skin of the earth by woven boughs of scattered smoky holiday suburbs where all fallen dreams weave and meander and are lost and are reborn as fucking terminal aspirations that feed the machine.  I walked in the night and had a terrible 4AM breakfast at the hands of a slow and sullen waitress who spilled coffee on my pants. 

Gathered my things at the hotel and checked out while it was still dreamy dark and flew out of there as soon as I could, (Stupid Holiday Commuters).  Rising over the slumbering gaze of Texas thinking Long Lay The World in sin and error, pining…for brothers they cannot save and girls they cannot have and money they are foolishly wasting.

Slept away the morning of Christmas on a flight back to Chicago, another day at an airport waiting for another night, lying in bed next to a girl who I am not sleeping with.

"Stay.  Just  for a few days.  We'll have New Years together!"

"What about him? Won't he— "

"You can go if you want to!"

 

Later, while she slept:

SuppleCinStringSextus: nothing good can come from texas

DMsqdMn17: DC! What the fuck am I going to find in DC?! That doesn't tell me anything!!

                SuppleCinStringSextus: bad news

DMsqdMn17: I'll never find him until he wants me to find him.  And the worst part of it is, he keeps taunting me.

SuppleCinStringSextus: bad news

DMsqdMn17: I should just give up.

SuppleCinStringSextus: bad news.  hey did i tell you i got laid off?

DMsqdMn17: What? Really?

                SuppleCinStringSextus: ya. but more on that later.  its late and I'm going to bed

                SuppleCinStringSextus has signed off.

           

"And that's when I got the news about the postcard."

            "What postcard?"

            "Haven't you been paying any attention at all?"

            "Ohhh! the postcard from Nigel!  From Alaska!"

            "Yeah.  Only, it was dated November 3^rd, and postmarked December 20^th."

            "What's that mean?"

            "It either means he's still up there, which I don't believe.  Or that he gave it to somebody to mail, and they sat on it until now."

          "Why don't you believe he's still there?"

            "Here! Here! I'll show you! This is what it says: