Nights are bad. I can't sleep even after I take Valium, which only makes me drowsy enough to pace the short length of the compartment, trying to keep my balance as the train speeds through deserts, stopping suddenly, without warning, jerking me forward in the dimly lit cabin. Opening the curtains, I can't see anything except the tip of my cigarette illuminated in the window's reflection. Announcements are usually made about sand being blown onto the tracks and there is one, at about three a.m., that involves a coyote. Falling asleep for a while, I wake up as the train passes through some kind of electrical storm on the border of Arizona. It is completely dark, then suddenly in a flourish of purple, violet lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating small towns for seconds at a time. As the train passes through these towns, you can hear warning bells, the glow of red flashing, the headlights of a lone pickup truck, waiting, as the train passes, lumbering on into the night, and these awful towns pass by, getting smaller, farther apart from each other, and I came by train not because I don't like to fly and not because I wanted to see the country but because I do not want to spend an extra three days in Los Angeles with either my father and Cheryl or Graham or my mother. A closed mall, a neon gas station sign, the train stops, then moves on, the uselessness of postponing the inevitable, the closing of curtains.
The next morning, at breakfast, I meet a rich boy from Venezuela, wearing an Yves Saint Laurent sport jacket, who is also going to L.A. He has recently been to El Salvador and he keeps talking about how beautiful the country is and how people put it down far too often, about the Lionel Richie concert he attended there. While we wait for breakfast, the boy flips through a new copy of Penthouse and I stare out the window, at endless patches of fields and rows of refinery towers and trailer parks and radio relay towers jutting up from red clay ground. I open a notebook I brought with me and try to organize some papers I still have to rewrite from last term but I lose interest as soon as I start. The train stops for a long time in front of a Pizza Hut in some nameless city in Arizona. A family of five comes out of the Pizza Hut and one of the kids waves at the train and I'm wondering who takes their kids to Pizza Hut for breakfast and then the Venezuelan boy waves back to the kid in front of the Pizza Hut, then smiles at me.
I eat my breakfast slowly, pretending to concentrate on stale hash browns and hard, black-on-the-bottom pancakes so that the boy from Venezuela will not ask me anything. Sometimes I look up and out the window at pastures and at the cattle grazing in them. I pull a Valium from my pocket and squeeze it between my fingers. Except for the rich boy from Venezuela who has been to El Salvador, the only other person remotely my age is a homely, sad-faced black girl who is staring at me from across the dining car, which causes me to squeeze the Valium harder. I wait for the girl to turn away and when she finally does I swallow the pill.
"Headache?" the Venezuelan boy inquires.
"Yes. A headache." I smile shyly, nodding.
The black girl glances once more at me and then gets up and is replaced by this totally fat couple who are wearing lots of turquoise. The Venezuelan boy actually looks at a centerfold and then at me and grins and my father was probably right when he told me on the phone two weeks ago, "You should just take MGM, baby," but I'm amazed at how every now and then the ground seems to drop out below the train as it passes over rivers the color of chocolate or a ravine.
I call Graham, my brother, from an Amtrak station in Phoenix. He is in a hot tub in Venice.
"He's going through with it," I say, after a while.
"What a scandal," Graham says.
"He's going through with it," I say again.
"Who cares?"
"You sound stoned."
"I'm not."
"You sound sad when you get stoned. You sound stoned."
"I'm not stoned yet."
"I'm looking at a huge slot machine, the size of a double bed," I tell Graham. "You should talk to him." I light a cigarette. It tastes bad.
"What?" Graham asks. "Why are you calling me?" and then, "Talk to . . . him?"
"Aren't you going to talk to him?" I ask. "Aren't you going to do something about this?"
"Oh man." I can hear Graham inhale, then blow something out, slowly. His voice drops three octaves. "Like what?"
"Just . . . talk to him."
"I don't even like him," Graham says.
"You just shouldn't sit back and watch him do this."
"Who said I'm watching the fool do anything?"
"You said, Graham, you said . . ." I'm on the verge of tears. I swallow, try to control myself. "You said she has seen Flashdance nine times." I start sobbing quietly, biting my fist. "You said it was her"—pause—"favorite movie."
"She's seen it probably . . ." He stops. "Yeah, nine times is probably right."
"Graham, please, just for once . . .”
"She's not that bad," Graham finally says. "In fact she's sort of hot."
Valium, peering past the curtains, Spanish-style train stations, signs that announce NEEDLES or BARSTOW, cars driving through the desert at night toward Las Vegas, raining again and harder, lightning illuminating billboards on a road heading to Reno, huge drops of rain hitting the window, splattering apart. My reaction to being startled: a blink. Someone calls out over the intercom: "Anyone who speaks French please come to the lounge area" and the request seems tempting, seems so beside the point that it moves me to brush my hair, pick up a magazine and head for the lounge area even though I don't speak French. When I get to the lounge area I don't see anyone French or anyone who looks in need of assistance from anyone French. I sit down, stare out a window, flip through the magazine, but there's a drunk woman across from me who seems to be talking to herself but in fact is talking to the fat couple in turquoise, who are trying not to pay attention to her. The woman keeps talking about the movies on HBO she has seen while staying at her son's house in Carson City.
"Did you ever see Mr. Mom?" the drunk asks, her head lolling forward.
"No," the fat woman says, her arms folded around a turquoise purse that sits on, in, her lap.
"Darling little movie—just darling," the drunk says, pausing, hoping for some sort of response.
A poor-looking couple with three small children walk into the lounge and the mother starts to play a game involving rubber bands with one of the children. I'm watching the smallest kid eat a packet of butter I was hoping he wouldn't.
"You didn't see Mr. Mom?" the drunk asks again.
The woman in turquoise says "No." Her husband fingers his string tie that has a small piece of turquoise at the end of it and recrosses bulky legs.
The noise from the children, the meanderings of the drunk woman, two giggling college girls talking about Las Vegas irritate me but I stay in the lounge area because I dread going back to the small compartment, which reminds me of my destination. Another cigarette, lights above flicker, then dim. The train passes through a tunnel and when it emerges outside again there is no tangible difference. One of the little kids screams playfully, "God is gonna get you, God is gonna get you," and then, louder, "father, father, father," and the little boy who has eaten the pack of butter is pointing at his father, eyes wide, tiny mouth parted, looking up at him for guidance. The father belches, pulls out another Parliament, lights the cigarette, then looks at me and he's not bad-looking.
Back at my compartment, an hour later, a black porter is straightening up the room. He has finished making the bed and cleaning the small stall called a bathroom.
"Where are you going?" he asks me.
"Los Angeles," I tell him, standing in the corridor, waiting for him to leave.
"What's in Los Angeles?"
"Nothing," I finally say.
"I've heard that before." He chuckles grimly, then, "Going for a visit?"
"My father is getting married."
"Is she nice?" The porter lifts a bag from the wastebasket and ties it.
"What?"
"Do you like her?"
The train begins to pull,
then slows down, the sound of brakes, the sound of the train sighing.
"No."
"We'll be getting there soon."
I meet Cheryl over the summer when I'm back in L.A., doing nothing. I have heard about her somewhat from my father when he calls my dorm on Sunday nights, but he is always ambivalent and whenever he hints that he is close to her he pulls back shyly and doesn't follow through. What little I have learned comes from Graham: tan, streaked blond hair, thin, twentyish, a vague aspiration to be a newscaster. When I press Graham for more than this, Graham, stoned, offers: Cheryl constantly, desperately reads Sydney Omarr's Guide to Pisces 1984; Cheryl loves the movie Flashdance, has seen it five times since last year, when it came out, and has ten ripped sweatshirts with the word MANIAC on them; Cheryl works out to Jane Fonda tapes on the Betamax; William fed pizza to Cheryl at Spago. These descriptions are always followed by a barely audible "Get it?" from Graham. When I would start to unravel, ask him how, Graham would say, "It's not like you've never dated a ski instructor. It's not like you've ever cared."
I am not even sure if my parents' divorce is finalized, but two days in August, after having stayed at my mother's without being able to find her, I drive down to my father's new condo in Newport Beach and Cheryl suggests that the two of us go shopping. Bullock's, Saks, a Neiman Marcus that ' Just opened, where Cheryl buys a horrible-looking olive leather jacket with Oriental print splattered all over the back of it, something my father will probably wear. Cheryl speaks highly of a book I have never heard of called Megatrends. Cheryl and I have fruit juice and tea at an outdoor café across from the mall, called Sunshine, where Cheryl seems to know the young guys working behind the counter. Juice-sweetened tofu, herbal teas, frozen yogurt. Cheryl is wearing a neon-pink sweatshirt, ripped at the shoulder, the word MANIAC in sky blue, and the shirt jolts me out of something and into something else. Cheryl is talking about the soap opera she watches, about a man who is trying to tell his family that he is still alive.
"Are you okay?" Cheryl asks.
"Yeah. I'm fine," I say sullenly.
"But you don't look too good," Cheryl says. "I mean, you're tan but you don't look happy."
"But I'm okay."
"Have you ever taken zinc oxide tablets?"
"Oh yeah," I say. "I take them."
"But are you still smoking?"
"Not as much."
"Your father promised me he's going to quit," Cheryl says, spooning yogurt into her mouth.
"Uh-huh."
"Does Graham smoke?"
"Yeah. A pipe too."
"Not a pipe," Cheryl says, horrified.
"Sometimes. It depends."
"On what?"
"On whether he would rather use rolling papers," I say and then, when this comment is returned with an uncomprehending took, I offer, "Or if he's lost his bong."
"Do you want to join up for that aerobics class I'm taking over at the plaza?"
"Aerobics class?"
"You say that word like you've never heard it before."
“I’m just tired," I say. "I think I want to go."
"This is kiwi tofu," she says. "I know it sounds totally crazy but it's good. Don't make fun, okay?"
"I'm really sorry.
Later, in the new Jaguar my father bought her, Cheryl asks, "Do you like me?"
"I think so." I pause. "I don't know."
"That's not good enough, honey."
"But that's all I can tell you."
The train arrives in L.A. at dusk. The city seems deserted.
In the distance are Pasadena hills and canyons and the small blue rectangles of lit pools. The train passes dried-up reservoirs and vast, empty parking lots, running parallel to the freeway then past a seemingly endless row of vacant warehouses, gangs of young boys standing against palm trees or huddling in groups in alleyways or around cars with headlights on, drinking beer, the Motels playing. The train moves slowly as it eases toward Union Station, as if it's hesitating, passing Mexican churches and bars and strip joints, a drive-in where a horror movie is playing with subtitles. Palm trees are highlighted against a shifting orange-purple mass, a sky the color of Popsicles, a woman passes my door, mumbling loudly to someone, maybe herself, "This ain't no Silver Streak," and out the window a young Mexican boy in a red Chevrolet truck sings along with the radio and I'm close enough to reach out and touch his blank, grave face, staring straight ahead.
I'm in a phone booth in Union Station. It's hot, even for December and night. Three black boys break-dance next to the phone booth. Sitting down, I pull out my phone book and dial my mother's number carefully, using my father's credit card number. I hang the phone up quickly and watch the break-dancers. I light a cigarette, finish it, then redial the number. It rings thirteen times.
"Hello?" my mother finally answers.
"Hi . . . It's me."
"Oh." My mother sounds flustered in slow motion, her voice disembodied, a monotone.
After a while I have to repeat what I just said.
"Where are you?" she asks tentatively.
"Were you asleep?"
"What time is . . . it?"
"Seven," and then, "at night."
"Not really," she says, dazed.
"I'm in L.A. right now."
"Um . . ." My mother pauses, confused. "Why?"
"Because. I took a train."
"How was . . . the train?" my mother asks after a long time.
"I . . . liked it."
"Why on earth didn't you take MGM?" my mother asks tiredly.
The boy from Venezuela walks by, sees me and smiles, but when he sees that I'm crying he gets scared and moves quickly away. Outside, a limousine waits, idling at the curb. A driver holds up a sign with my name on it.
"Well, it's nice you're back . . . hmm," my mother says. "Um, yes." Pause. "This is for Christmas, right?"
"Have you spoken to Dad?" I finally ask.
"Why . . . would I speak to . . . him?" she asks.
"So you don't know?"
"No. I don't know."
I sit down in the lounge area as the train begins to pull out of L.A. I have a drink, look through Vanity Fair, take a Valium. A couple of surfers come into the lounge and drink beer with the two college girls who were talking about Las Vegas. An elderly woman sits next to me, tired, tan.
"You heading up north?" she asks.
"Yes," I say.
"San Francisco?"
"Near there."
"What a pretty place." She sighs, and then, "I guess."
"Where are you going?"
"To Portland."
"Is that where this train is going?" I ask.
"I hope so," she says.
"Are you from L.A.?" I ask, buzzed from Valium, Tanqueray.
"Reseda."
"That's nice," I murmur, leafing through the magazine, tranquil, having no real idea where exactly Reseda is, only a partial understanding. My eyes skim pages of advertisements that show me the best way to live. "That's so nice." I slowly hand the magazine to the woman, who takes it from me in the same spirit in which it is offered even though it looks as if she doesn't want to.
6
WATER FROM THE SUN
Danny is on my bed and depressed because Ricky was picked up by a break-dancer at the Odyssey on the night of the Duran Duran look-alike contest and murdered. It seems that Biff, Ricky's current lover, called Danny after getting my number from someone at the station and told him the news. I walk in and all Danny says is "Ricky's dead. Throat slit. All of his blood drained from his body. Biff called." Danny doesn't move or explain the tone in which Biff relayed this news and he doesn't take off the Wayfarer sunglasses he's wearing even though he's inside and it's almost eight. He just lies there watching some religious show on cable and I don't know what to say. I'm just relieved that he's still here, that he hasn't left.
Now, in the bathroom, unbuttoning my blouse, unzipping my skirt, I call out, "Did you tape the newscast?"
"No," Danny says.
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"Why not?" I ask, pausing before putting on a robe.
"Wanted to tape 'The Jetsons,' " he says dully.
I don't say anything coming out of the bathroom. I walk over to the bed. Danny is wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a FOOTLOOSE T-shirt he got the night of the premiere party at the studio his father is executive in charge of production at. I look down at him, see my reflection, distorted, warped, in the lenses of the sunglasses, and then, carrying my blouse and skirt, walk into the closet and toss them into a hamper. I close the closet door, stand over the bed.
"Move over," I tell him.
He doesn't move over, just lies there. "Ricky's dead. All of his blood drained out of him. He looked black. Biff called," he says again, coldly'
"And I thought I told you to keep the phone off the hook or unplug it or something," I say, sitting down anyway. "I thought I told you that I'll take all my calls at the station."
"Ricky's dead," Danny mutters.