Cheeseland by Randy Richardson

Author:Randy Richardson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eckhartz Press
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

The Boeing 727’s wheels bouncing on the ground jolt me awake, and I’m disoriented at first until my eyes adjust. I notice the passenger to my left who’s got a lap full of paperwork and seems oblivious to my staring at him. Then the pain takes over and I re-close my eyes and put a hand to my forehead, which drips with perspiration. As I ease my eyes open again I see the culprits: six mini-bottles of vodka lined up in a row in the seat pocket in front of me. All empty. When I reach for a napkin to wipe my forehead, the bottles come crashing down. Now my neighbor notices me. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. His annoyed glare says it all.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hangover, but then it’s been a long time since I’ve been back to the place where I grew up. Almost thirty years. I can’t believe I’ve been away that long. I can’t believe I’m back.

I lift the window shade, and I wince at the brightness of the dawn’s rays. I’d left in the midnight darkness of San Francisco and now awaken to Chicago’s morning, feeling groggy, tired, and in pain that I haven’t felt since I was a teenager overindulging in Southern Comfort. When an audible sigh escapes my mouth, my traveling neighbor shoots me another annoyed glare. I turn away.

∼ ∼ ∼ ∼

How would my life have been different if I’d never met Lance? Would it be? Or would I be exactly who I am now? Am I what I am now because of him, or in spite of him? I’m an adult without a childhood because I’ve been unable to even speak about it for all these years. My wife gave up asking me about it ages ago. I always told her, it’s just not worth talking about. She always says she understands, but I know she doesn’t. How could she?

All these thoughts spin through my head as the cab crosses over the Little Calumet River, which hides under a misty morning fog. When I was a freshman, two seniors in my school killed a convenience store clerk in a robbery and tossed the gun over that bridge. At least that’s what one of them testified during the trial. They never found that gun and one of them—the one who didn’t talk—walked free.

Images flash by my eyes as we speed along 142nd—a motel offering 4-HOUR RATES and another with A WHIRLPOOL IN EVERY ROOM, barred windows on Lucky Sam’s Liquors, the neon glow from the currency exchanges that seem to dot every corner.

From a distance the big round face of Curley the Clown stuffing a hot dog in his mouth brings a smile to my face. But then my smile fades when we get close enough to see the boards that have been nailed over the windows and doors of the place where I’d hung out as a kid.

Seeing the remnants of Curley’s triggers a grumbling in my stomach.

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