Chapter 6
Olivia continued to ignore the conversation. She drove them further to the west and they passed no towns -- only jagged rocks and small hills. The initial thrill and the subsequent thrills were fading in the openness, no matter how fast they drove or how little they slept. Fatigue facing novelty is ever what the kids in life foresee.
"Baby look at this straightaway! I bet it's like ten fucking miles." Olivia said.
"Well you absolutely have my blessing if you need to test the engine on this car. Shove your foot down and go, asking questions later in the future..."
"It's my car, fuckface!" Kjell said.
"Ignore my brother, he's in a cranky mood from all of the movement and excitement. Do you think this can go one-twenty?"
Without waiting for an answer, Olivia accelerated the car from their already tremendous speed. Even Alessandro stirred some and he seemed pleasantly in sorts by what he saw.
"Oh my god the fucking car is vibrating!"
"It's perfectly normal my dear. Just get it to one-twenty and we can sleep easily tonight."
One hundred five, one hundred ten, one hundred twelve. They seemed to ever be making it halfway to their target. Kjell by this point had curled his face up into his arms, from a place of frustration, and was refusing to look through the windshield.
"Don't stop now!" Carson shouted.
Olivia was shoving the pedal into the floor and they were still accelerating. The pistons beneath them were rattling with joy. A few seconds later they pushed the car to one-nineteen, then one-twenty, and then Olivia took her foot off the gas and they all flung forward the same as if she'd hit the brakes. In no time they were back to eighty-five.
"Oh my fucking god! I can't believe you made me do that."
"Baby I didn't make you do a thing. I simply provided the suggestion."
"Yeah but I would have pretty much never fucking done that. I'm about to have a heart attack."
"Perhaps if we listened to Air it would help?"
"Oh God." Kjell said, just mustering the nerve to look around. "By the way Carson, the next time she does that I'm going to rabbit punch you. I don't care if Dad writes me out of the will."
Montana was next, with hidden gullies and long wooden fences. Marcela had told stories of the barren hills of southern Chile, as the mountains flattened out into the sea, and little cliffs ran right up against the water. Tierra del Fuego it was called, with its legends of the burning spirits, and even of the dragons. Someday Quentin would see that too, and it instead of this would be his world. Could it be this ethereal?
They drove straight through some Crow houses. Olivia made a wrong turn down a street that had no exit. They turned around and people looked at them confused, including a little kid on a pony which they let walk around the yard.
"Everyone’s staring at us." Olivia noted.
"I think this is another instance of us not fitting in." Carson said.
Turning around they had to go through more streets and alleys. There was junk all over the place. A big case of Mountain Dew was sitting on the ledge of one of the houses. Cheap toys were strewn about the patchy front yards. It was a desolate wasteland, sporting the bare crumbs of the economy as its scenery.
When they finally saw the mountains it happened unexpectedly. The empty rolling hills all looked the same until they cleared away to something bigger. Quentin was still just seeing small ranch houses and the occasional clump of trees around a well or a creek, and then there was a short hill ahead to the left and to the right, no more than a mile in the distance. When the road turned to go between them, there was a transcendent white wall of snow and clouds, blocking the horizon. The presence of the Rockies cut through the thin layers of the atmosphere, and wisps of vapor curved over the peaks like a waterfall in slow motion.
He felt like they were driving through the wrong end of a telescope, shrinking more with every foot they gained in altitude.
"Yo, wake the fuck up dude."
It was Olivia. It was dark outside. They were in the parking lot of a motel.
"What is this? I thought we were doing the whole get crunk and take speed and drive all over the place in one shot thing." Quentin replied.
"Yeah well, here we are."
Their room had two large beds and a carpet with cigarette burns. Kjell walked directly to the bathroom, stooped down on his knees, and vomited mightily, heaving twice at the end. He took two large gulps of water and spat those out into the sink before he walked back to them.
"Well I'm about to collapse. You kids have fun." he said. Two minutes later he was out cold on one of the beds with all of his clothes still on.
As for the rest of them, there was a casino down the street that Carson had noticed. After a couple minutes of cajoling they agreed to follow him there. Inside there was a bar, about fifty slot machines, and one poker table.
"Yes, this was my secret hope." Carson said when the saw the card game. Without hesitation he walked in that direction. Trailing behind him were Quentin and Olivia.
"I'm not fucking playing that game. It's so boring. You just sit there and watch cards come past you for hours?" Olivia said.
""I think the fun comes from getting rich and analyzing human nature under stress."
"That never happens when I play."
Alessandro also put his name on the waiting list to play. Quentin and Olivia stood with him for a moment but the novelty was not long in wearing off.
"Let's walk around for a little bit. My legs are so stiff." Quentin suggested. There was room to stroll around without getting bored in five minutes. The drinks were all free except for the booze and they both poured out the coffee into little styrofoam cups, and then they joked about the slots. There were machines with pirate cartoons, ones with little bags of money on the front, a couple with Egyptian pyramids, and then some classic machines with 7's and BAR signs spinning and failing to come through, at least for the old woman they were watching.
Around them there were old men in cowboy hats, overweight women, and young guys in wife-beaters or flannel shirts. Olivia and Quentin traded their impressions of everyone.
"We're definitely not in Kansas. There are some real western adventurers here I'd say, though these are kind of the dregs." he said.
"You don't say. I wouldn't be surprised if at least three of these guys have raped someone."
"Someone or something. I hear it gets lonely out there with the sheep and the horses."
"I knew you had a sick mind somewhere in there!" she laughed.
"Are you going to play any of the games?"
"I gamble in other ways. Yourself?"
"I haven't before. Maybe I'll run ten bucks through a slot machine." he replied.
Olivia took out her cigarettes and they each took one, smoking and drinking coffee while he spun a machine with the pyramids on it. Each spin had $0.10 behind it. He did this for ten minutes, until he had a couple of dollars left, and then cashed out his ticket.
"Well that was fun." he said.
"It's all rigged. Casinos, loans, jobs, mortgages, interviews, car titles..."
"Olivia, it was eight bucks." Quentin said, laughing.
"Find an edge and bet big. That's your only hope."
"It doesn't have to be this huge serious thing. You're the one who made me play anyway."
"Baby, as if. I didn't make you do anything. You sound just like I fucking sounded with Carson earlier."
They stepped back over to the poker area and there was a hand being dealt out to Carson and the other players. Carson gave a little wave but then his cards came and he locked his expression down like a suspect, tossing in a raise when the action came to him.
"Let's get a drink." she said.
There was a small bar and it was quiet with the lights dimmed down and on TV the whole March Madness thing was still going on the same as Thursday evening, though the volume was silent. The entire time they had been driving around, away from the world, this tournament had been in progress an
d his own bracket was either dominating or it wasn't. Even in Montana there were a couple of old men at the bar discussing who had made the Sweet Sixteen, but nothing else that weekend had any relevance and he felt guilty for how Olivia was making him feel about the rest of his life.
"My phone is so cashed. I've never been to any of these places that we're driving, I'm not sleeping enough, and everything in the world could have totally fallen apart in these past two days -- I'd be sitting here oblivious." Olivia said with a tiredness in her voice.
"Tell me about it." Quentin said, yawning. He pulled his phone out to show her it was dead, and agreed that he was completely out of touch with reality.
"I'm going to sleep for an entire day when we get to Seattle. You know Carson and Kjell have an enormous house there, or I should say their parents do. Did either of them mention that?"
"I didn't know that."
"Well basically they live in the nicest part of Seattle, almost."
"Ok."
There was a brief pause before Olivia added, "It's a great place to have a party."
She leaned back in her seat and he felt the smallest twinge of self-antipathy. He was also tired but in a way that affirmed his existence and he wanted this moment in time to stretch indefinitely, the same as he'd wanted them to stay in the Badlands for the rest of forever.
After the third rum and coke, Olivia's face took on a more downcast expression. He hadn't considered the possibility that drinking together would turn her melancholy.
"What do you think of Carson?" she asked.
"Carson? The Carson who's playing poker in the card room?" he replied, taking a drink.
Olivia nodded.
"He's great. I've had a great time so far."
She looked like she hadn't even heard him. The unchanging expression on her face forced him to say more.
"He's a little wired of course. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. That doesn't mean he's not a good guy." Quentin said, not sure if he was telling the truth and less sure if he knew the truth to begin with.
"Bullshit."
"Ok." Quentin said. Again they drifted into loaded silence.
"You're gonna have to do better than that. I've seen too many guys bullshit around in my day."
"When was your 'day', exactly?" Quentin said, grinning.
"Wow, you're a better guy than I gave you credit for. Just be snarky like that and you'll be fine in life. Don't take shit from nobody. Least of all from women."
"Alright, you asked for it. Carson is the kind of guy who gets a huge welcome and wears it out just as quickly. He acts like he knows ten times as much as he really knows. He's highly entertaining but extremely untrustworthy"
"I'm impressed." Olivia said with mock applause. "There's actually a fucking brain behind that chiseled facade of yours."
"Yeah, maybe. That's enough about Carson though. Remember when you were going to narrate your entire life story? When did that ever happen?"
It was around this time when last call came from the bar. Olivia ordered a final rum and coke and Quentin also asked for a beer.
She turned her head back and looked him directly in the eye.
"I'll tell you every fucking little thing you ever wanted to know about my inconsequential path through life, but I'm not finished yet. You see Carson over there?" she asked, pointing all the way over to the other side of the gaming floor. He was faintly visible from their distance, but it was possible to distinguish him.
"Of course."
"I'm starting to think that I don't ever want to see his god damn face for the rest of my life when we get back to Washington. He was something different in the past -- something different six months ago even. I almost flew straight home from London."
"I see."
"And that's secret, mind you. I'd better not hear that you went and told Kjell during one of your benders in two weeks."
"Does it matter? You just said you never want to see him."
"Like fuck it matters. I might feel completely different about him in two days. That's why life is so stupid complicated."
Their drinks arrived and Olivia drank hers quickly and violently.
"Alright, I won't say shit about it. So where were you born?" he asked.
Olivia laughed. She laughed to the point of hysteria, dropping her head down on the table against the bend of her right elbow. It took several seconds for her to regain some semblance of her poise.
"Oh my God," she started, still grinning, "You get me here after all of this time and the best thing you can ask me is where I was born?"
"That was just, you know, question one."
"Well... you might say I was born in Seattle, Washington on December 21, 1979. Or you could say I was born the first time I got fucked or when I got my eyebrow pierced. Or you could even say I was born this morning when I saw the shadows of those rocks we slithered through. They're all right answers."
"So you've been born again, and born again again."
"And again and again, every morning my dear."
"Is that all I need to know about your life?"
"My dad was in the Army. I was born in Seattle and my family has lived in the same house my entire life. It's probably the most boring kind of childhood you can imagine. I'm a townie, really."
"Hey, at least you're a townie in Seattle."
Olivia had a cigarette lit in her hand and she took her first drag from it.
"Also, I'm half black -- but you probably knew that already."
Quentin nodded.
"I'm also half Asian. Filipino to be exact, which is a completely different thing. But to the rest of the world I'm black. To the rest of the world if you're half-black and half-whatever, you're never half-whatever."
"So you're basically like Tiger Woods."
"God, what an astoundingly dumb statement." she said, but she was laughing again. When Olivia was drunk her laughter meant a thousand different things.
"For what it's worth, I don't give a shit." Quentin said.
"Yeah yeah yeah. I believe you."
"Honestly, I don't."
"Don't ever say 'honestly' again. It makes you look like a liar."
"I only said it once. And anyway, we should stand up and leave. I think they're closing the place down here."
Indeed the lounge was closing but the casino was still open. The poker game showed no sign of stopping and Carson still had money on the table. Quentin started to walk over in his direction but Olivia grabbed him by the elbow.
"Let him play all fucking night if he wants. I don't feel like talking to him right now."
"So what now?"
"Let's go back to the motel and get stoned. I could use a fat joint and about thirteen hours of sleep."
It was freezing outside. Olivia had a red track jacket. Adidas. Quentin had nothing but extra shirts. The air was as clean as air could get, blowing in from different directions, cool and thin. He had never smelled air so clean in his entire life. There was some part of the moon reflecting at them over the dark silhouettes of the range they were shielded by.
Kjell was still face down in their room, having barely moved from hours before, except that now his shirt was missing. Olivia rifled through her bag, found the weed, grabbed her papers, and carried everything to the counter by the sink. A couple of minutes passed and she told Quentin to come with her to the washroom.
"The washroom? What the hell?" he replied.
"If you wanna smoke a joint outside in this town, be my guest." she said, turning on the fan.
Thus it happened that a moment later she was sitting on the toilet with the lid down while he rested on the ledge of the bathtub while gray smoke lifted towards the ceiling and into the fan vent. The door was closed with a wet towel in the crack and it reeked unbelievably in their cloistered world.
"Do you have the slightest idea where we are? I don't even know what town this is." he said.
"I just want to find a market tomorrow and buy three pounds of strawberries."
>
"Olivia Dupree it's forty-nine degrees outside. You think you'll find someone to sell you strawberries?"
"I'm fucking ruminating."
"We've got to walk around somewhere. This room is a joke."
Their joint ended and she threw it into a soda can. He stood up to open the door and leave but she blocked it with her arm and looked at him until she caught his eye.
"One more question before we go out there."
"Yes."
"Do you want to kiss me?"
"What kind of a fucking question is that?" he replied.
"It's an honest one. Just tonight and just a kiss."
"You're crazy." he said. She chuckled at his phrasing.
"You’re so serious. There are bombs falling down all over the world and they can't keep the lights on in New York. Do you really think it will make a bit of difference if we kiss for just a moment?"
Quentin said nothing. It was fleeting, surreal visions of February and April that came to him, mixed with the uncontollable thoughts of the next two minutes. All against the empathic face of the bathroom door, separating them from anything related to the room, the parking lot, the town, the casino, or the outside world at large.
"And don't pretend like you haven't looked at me like that yet. You act like you're so inscrutable." she grinned flirtatiously.
"I don't fucking act like anything."
"Sit down." she said, grabbing his hand, and he felt himself sitting on the floor and saw her sliding down next to him, and their lips pressed together for several seconds, right up to the moment that his hand drifted to the lower part of her back. She shook her head and winked at him, stood up slowly but deliberately, and opened the door. She left the room and he failed to follow suit.
Something was stronger about the buzz that night. Either he had smoked more or the situation enhanced his perception of the effects. His memory seemed to recognize the importance of the moment and was working on overdrive to burn all of it into his temporal love. Was infidelity simply that which made the heart beat stronger? Was stealing a kiss not the same as stealing a glance? And had he not been thinking of Olivia for days, catching moments where she looked sublime? It wasn't like anything serious had actually happened.
And yet there he was, sitting on the floor in a cheap Montana bathroom, not even able to name the town he was in. Barely able to string together a story for why. It was only when he spent too long trying that he finally stood up.
Kjell was still passed out in the main room. Olivia was nowhere to be seen. He went outside to the parking lot, assuming that he'd find her smoking. She wasn't out there. From the edge of the street, however, Carson and Alessandro were returning and Carson was talking loudly.
"... that's what you have to keep in mind. A lot of these players, they come in to make a big score. They're not thinking about what the best play is. They either want to win a few hundred bucks right now, tonight, or they don't care what happens. They always do something stupid eventually. Presuming they know what they're doing in the first place... "
Quentin gave a perfunctory wave as they approached the room.
"Hey Quentin. What are you doing out here?"
"I was catching some fresh air and looking for Olivia." he said.
"She's not in the room?"
"Nope."
Carson nodded and interpreted this information in his head for couple of seconds.
"I wouldn't worry about it. She does this sometimes."
"So what, just leave her walking around wherever the fuck we are?"
"We're in Butte, Montana. And no, if she doesn't show up in an hour or so I'll drive around and find her. How long has she been gone?"
"That's the thing actually. Maybe twenty minutes." Quentin said a little tentatively. He did not want to get into a conversation about what had happened earlier that night.
"Oh, then she's definitely just walking around chain smoking and reflecting on the ruins of her future. I'd go find her now but it would piss her off. She hates being followed."
"I see." Quentin said.
"Well I could use a joint in any case. How about yourself?"
It was on the tip of Quentin's tongue to say no, but instead he let himself be carried along by the momentum of the night's events. And so, strangely, he found himself in almost the identical spot in the bathroom with Carson and Alessandro, taking the identical precautions, and they talked about the geology of Puget Sound, the state of the American real estate market, the nature of home equity loans, the rise of Jimi Hendrix, whether Peyton Manning or Tom Brady was the superior quarterback, and so on. And just at the time in which they had exhausted their energy and resolve, Olivia tiptoed in through the door and within minutes the room was pitch dark and deathly quiet.