“Okay, everything looks good,” they nod and hand me a small plastic receipt, “Go ’round the corner and one of our technicians will be with you shortly. ” I’d been donating blood to ZLB plasma for the past few months, ever since I’d left Lana and the luxury of Kenwood for this small one bedroom apartment in Stadium Village. Twice a week I would come here, less than a block from the apartment that Chris had let me use while he was deployed in Iraq. He was just a young boot-ass then, always getting in trouble for directing snide comments toward an un-amused Lieutenant Brumm or Sergeant Landsverk.
For half the deployment, when I wasn’t shuffled from the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) to the Company Commander’s Personal Security Detail (PSD), I was with Brumm and his squad: Chris, Cox, Landsverk and the rest. With his close friend, Cox, dead, I wondered if Chris didn’t feel sorry for me or maybe he simply related to me, my own brother’s death, when he’d offered to let me stay in his place. The technician greets me wearing a white lab coat and plastic safety glasses, “Bed number thirty four is ready for you.
Let’s get you all set up and on your way,” they nod as they check a handful of boxes of their clipboard. We pass a long row of people laying back on examination tables with tubes leading from their arms to plastic medical bags at various degrees of fullness: thick yellow liquid bloating the bag as pinkish liquid courses back to the arm in the tube. The paper sheet crinkles atop my designated bed as I lay down with my arm outstretched. The technician swabs a cotton ball soaked in alcohol against the inside of my arm and wraps the rubber tourniquet tightly against my bicep.
The vein throbs underneath. I look away then feel the sharp stab against my skin of the needle into my arm. “How do you guys train for this, anyway? ” I ask as I study the tube flowing out form my arm. “We have to puncture a balloon without popping it,” the technician nods while they pull the tourniquet from my arm and place a small piece of tape over the neck of the needle. On the small screen of the television set hanging from the ceiling in the blood draw area, Jack Black sweeps his hand across the stage and presents an angry King Kong to a shocked onscreen audience.
A blonde woman, panicked, hands tied to posts, whimpers gracefully for the camera. “Save me,” her eyes cry silently. Denver, I think back. My eyelids feel heavy. Fucking blondes. “Dakota, I have a feeling that it’s better that you don’t come,” the text message from Kristen stated on the tiny screen of my phone. My stomach felt heavy as I stood on the sidewalk outside Whitey’s Pub. “Uh, the plane leaves in four hours,” I slowly entered into my phone with my right-hand thumb, “And I didn’t get insurance for the ticket. I open the side door back inside the bar and order three lowballs of whiskey. The weekend before, Kristen had been in Minneapolis, frustrated-ly pulling her rolling luggage through downtown Minneapolis while we search for appropriate accommodations. I hadn’t wanted to bring her back to Chris’s place in Stadium Village, so I’d hoped she might pay for a hotel room downtown where we could lay about and enjoy each other. She’d been under the impression that I should have taken care of such considerations before she’d arrived. Maybe so, I wondered, but would she have done the same for me?
It wasn’t my idea, at all, for her to visit, but she insisted. Now, here she was, blaming me for not having it all together at her convenience. We sat at three in the morning in a pizza shop near the downtown light rail station as I finished a three-meat calzone. We waited for a room to open at Saloon Hotel, the cheapest and only available room we could find this morning. Taking the light rail back downtown from the MSP airport where I’d met her, I’d been written a ticket for not purchasing the requisite fare for the ride. True love, I thought to yself as I reread her texts, this was not, but it could be fun and I’d never been to Denver. I’d awoken at the end of that weekend in Denver inside Remy’s apartment. It was dim, quiet, empty. Kristen and her two gay friends had said something about grabbing something to eat. I lazily rolled out of bed. I heard the front door close. A cacophony of mingling voices echoed through the walls. I sat forlorn on a bare mattress in the middle of the barren living room floor as Kristen scowled contemptuously at me. “I need to get fucked,” she simmered as she waved Remy toward her.
She got on her hands and knees and started making the hump-hump shake with her ass like she was getting pounded by a varsity high school football team. “God, I can’t wait to get to my big bag back home,” she sighed suggesting her arsenal of dildos. I looked at my watch. I should be thanking her right now, I think to myself. This is making this so much easier. The switch that gets flipped tat allows me to take or leave anything, that can dangle a litter of puppies over a fiery volcano, the conscienceless-ness, it was flipped as easily as that.
Drive past a montage of dead baby parts outside the wreckage of the short bus. I couldn’t care less. Before any of this happened, I sat in Whitey’s waiting for a taxi to take me to Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and I bullshitted with the bartender. I called James to let him know I’d be heading to Denver for the weekend. Drunk. I told him about her weekend in Minneapolis, her grandmother passing away, her ex-boyfriend. Her grandmother passed away, I could never fathom her special pain, I spit silently.
“You do love the, ah, uncharitable ones, don’t you,” James sighs over the phone. Look,” James continued, “Just call her and say everything’s alright, but you’re not going to Denver this weekend. Take a step back. Breathe a little. Don’t press the issue. ” Instead, I sent her an angry text message: Fuck it. Keep whatever of my money you have. I know I was just your go-to fuck thing while you got over your ex. Bye. Trick. “How could you say that? ” her words buzzed on the tiny screen of my phone, “Don’t come out here. I’m grieving, and. ” I deleted the message without reading the rest then sat back at bar.
After several more whiskey shots, I left the bar for the light rail transit station. I imagined the taxi driver sitting outside Whitey’s for the passenger that would never come and I smiled as the train rolled along the tracks toward the airport. Inside the empty terminal, I threw my green duffel bag on the linoleum floor and tenderly I laid down, using the bag as my pillow until 5:11 am, when the bustle of the busying airport awoke me. Hazily, I lurched to the ticket counter. I pondered odds, fateful chance, the erratic winds, be they destiny or chaos, which carry us through our days.
I’d gone to Australia on a whim, a road trip to Key West at a mere suggestion, which if I discounted my arrest one drunken night was well worth the thirteen hour drive there then the thirteen hour drive back, I’d figured I could simply go to Denver to see what I could see. “Check in for Denver flight,” I moaned as I placed my duffel bag on the check-in platform. After slowly plodding through security, the wand-ing and terse pat down by stoic TSA employees in blue latex gloves, I texted Kristen. I’m going to Denver, I thumbed on the keyboard, but I’m planning to enjoy it on my own.
I just thought you should know, so you wouldn’t bother me this weekend. I pressed send. This girl, I’m beginning to see that she’s very, I think for a moment, she’s convinced in the ascendency of her wishes. I fell asleep easily on the plane, and after a hurried changeover in Milwaukee, the plane touched down at Denver International. A hazy, snow-crowned mountain lingered in the distance. Vast grey-beige nothingness between here and there, slithering heat vapor reflected flickering sunlight, blackened asphalt stretching toward the metallic concourse while the plane slowly taxied toward the accordion jet bridge.
Through the concourse, I stoically meander to the smoker’s lounge: it looked like a diner encased behind thick viewing glass, a zoo exhibit, obese travelers puffing on cigars, cancer sticks, pipes. Thick grey tendrils of smoke scratched my eyes as I searched for an empty seat in the lounge. “Got’ta order something, if you want’a stay,” a voice calls from behind me. “Fucking entrapment,” I sneer and order a gin and tonic cocktail from the bitch, salt-and-pepper curls of hair bled into bleached blonde highlights, her muffin top bulged through frayed beige slacks as she continued on without another word.
She returns with the drink tersely placed in front of me. The cocktail napkin sticks to the bottom of the glass as | gulp the contents down then place it, empty, back on the table. I slide a crumpled ten dollar bill halfway under the napkin then crush out my second cigarette and leave for the baggage carousel. I sling my worn olive duffel bag over my shoulder and search for the exit. Down an escalator, I follow the signs to the underground tram. Shuffling hurriedly for the sliding doors as they close, I elbow my way into the car as the passengers dimly stare at me. A few short stops, I exit and find a shuttle bus for the heart of the city.
The rest of the afternoon I spent walking up and down the 16th street mall. My phone buzzes. I look down at the screen: “Are you here? ” “Yes,” I type with my thumb. I wander through a courtyard to a small coffee shop with outdoor seating. My phone buzzes: “I need to see you. ” “I’d rather not,” I type then as I take a long drag from my cigarette, I shake my head and delete the message. “I’m at a cafe. Let me know when you’re off work,” | text then pressed send. Instantly, a feeling of dread ripples over me. Two hours pass before I felt my phone buzz again, “I’m on my way. Where are you? “