Vertical by Rex Pickett

Author:Rex Pickett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction:Humor
ISBN: 9780615392189
Publisher: LOOSE GRAVEL PR
Published: 2010-12-15T04:30:59+00:00

chapter 11

Bright sunlight poured through the diaphanous drapery and exploded our suite into white. Jack was still asleep when I emerged from the shower. I glanced at my watch: already 8:30. My trusty iPhone zeroed in on a nearby Wells Fargo that opened at 9:00. I roused Jack, who spluttered awake, as if plucked out of a fairy-tale world of beautiful nymphs and great ogres only to discover himself in a hospital with his limbs in traction.

“Wha-, wha-, what?”

“Get up, Jack.”

“Where are we?”

“Redding. And it’s going up a degree every five minutes and I want to get the fuck out of here. I’ve got to go to the bank. I want you to shower quickly, pack up, take our bags down to the lobby and meet Joy and my mom for breakfast. I’ll join you in an hour, tops.”

Jack pulled a hand over his face as if some bit of prestidigitation would magically transform him into a prince, then, coming fully into consciousness, said, “All right.”

At the open door, I threw him a backward glance, admonishing, “I’m sure my mom’s already up, so don’t make them wait, okay?”

I closed the door on him before he could answer.

Unlike the parched and desolate-looking Fresno and Merced, the modestly-populous Redding is nestled in a valley surrounded by picturesque mountain ranges. It’s not as aesthetically condemnable as the former two. As I followed the GPS instructions to the Wells Fargo branch, I noticed how the city itself was lush with foliage. Still, it was mind-bendingly hot.

I withdrew $10,000 in cash. No fewer than three bank employees were involved in the transaction. First, it couldn’t be done (the teller); then I needed to show three IDs (the supervisor); then I needed to sign my signature on a score of documents. Then, that still not sufficient to get my hard-earned cash, I had to wait while my home branch faxed a copy of my original signature up to this Redding branch I had wandered into unshaven and dressed like an artist who probably wasn’t one. Since the original signature card was dated by fifteen years, and since I had drunk thousands of bottles of wine in the interim, my signature had deteriorated alarmingly. Eventually, after much hand-wringing, they went back into their vault and brought out the cash. The supervisor, nervously looking around at the other customers waiting through this interminable transaction, actually asked whether I wanted to call someone for a security escort.

“This isn’t Vegas, Stu,” I said, reading the name off his ID plate, irritable that they had dragged this out so long. “Just give me the ten Gs and I’ll take my chances with the local recidivists.”

He threw me a suspicious look, then counted out–with deliberate slowness–the hundred Ben Franklins.

Back at the Holiday Inn I found Jack, Joy and my mother chowing down in another corporate-looking dining room–green carpet, fake wood tables, disc-herniating chairs, insipid food prepared by minimum wage earners with little or no cooking experience, and dilatory service.

By ten o’clock we were back on I-5, barreling for Oregon.

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