I slept around the clock for two days straight. I vaguely remembered getting up and using the bathroom once or twice and then wolfing down a can of raviolis and drinking a soda before falling into bed again. I had worked the long Alaska construction season that summer and I was physically as well as emotionally exhausted from all the work of the season, my divorce and losing Mom. Buying the condo had somehow pushed me over the edge and I guess my body and spirit had simply needed to check-out for a while, so I had slept for two days.
I considered buying the condo a good thing but it had still taken an emotional toll on me, along with everything else that had occurred relatively recently in my life and I suddenly realized with Mom's passing, that now I HAD to be an adult, whether I liked it or not. She wasn't there to guide or encourage Ricky and I any longer. She was gone...
Now, after two days of sleep inside my new condo, I rolled out of bed and got-up, it was seven o clock in the morning and the desert sun was shining through the windows. I shaved, showered and sat down with a hot cup of instant coffee and checked my phone. I wasn't even sure what day it was but was soon up to speed with the weather report and my back-log of texts and voice mails. My brother Ricky had sent another text that was simply a question mark (?). My boss's secretary in Alaska wanted some information regarding my W9 tax form and Hans had called but had left no voice mail other than the sound of the phone being disconnected upon hearing my greeting message.
By eight-thirty that morning I had scanned the internet and located a major car rental agency nearby that sold their used cars to the public. I needed a car and a rental agency was a good place to start I figured. The rental agency was located on the main drag of Laughlin next to the row of large casinos which was only a mile or so from the condo. Putting on a wind-breaker, I quickly finished my coffee and walked out into the morning air.
Walking always invigorates me, not like bicycling but similar. After spending all of my time in a truck that previous summer, I relished physical exercise. I had bicycled my usual fifteen hundred miles that summer but I had pushed myself hard to get it. I had begun bicycling early that spring when there was still ice on the lake-water at Bootlegger's Cove and by the time I had completed my fifteen hundred miles, that fall, there was ice on the water once again. Alaska has two seasons, Winter and Construction, fifteen hundred miles is a lot of bicycling when you work construction in Alaska.
The car rental came into view and a few minutes later I was talking to a young girl behind the counter with a plastic name tag that read "Stephanie" on it. After greeting her warmly, I then made my inquiry about purchasing a relatively late model used car from the agency. Stephanie had replied that, yes the company does have an inventory of liquidated stock available to the public but it's at our Las Vegas branch, not Laughlin, she said.
"Oh, OK, do you have the name of someone at the Vegas office that I could contact about buying a used car on my next trip there?" I asked Stephanie.
"What type of car are you looking for?" Stephanie then asked me, instead of answering my question.
"I don't care whose name plate is on the side of the thing, Stephanie, as long as it's reliable and good on gas." I replied.
"All of our vehicles are reliable and good on gas, sir. Wait here a second ok?" Stephanie said as she left the counter and then went through a door marked "Private".
I poured myself a cup of the agency's complimentary coffee and stood looking out the window at Laughlin. A few minutes later Stephanie returned with a young blonde kid that had "Mitch" stenciled on his plastic name tag. Stephanie then walked over to where I was standing and, leaning close to me, whispered
"We're not supposed to do this, but Mitch is returning a car to our Las Vegas branch right now, you can ride with him as long as you don't tell anyone."
Stephanie was around five feet, four inches tall and had shoulder length brown hair. Her large brown eyes were beautiful and I detected the scent of After-Rain perfume in her presence. She was slender and filled her company uniform nicely and seemed to have a professional yet easy-going disposition about her, just the kind of representation that a successful business would be looking for in someone to work the front counter of an establishment. I suddenly realized that Stephanie was blushing slightly as she stood close to me. She was probably close to twenty four years of age, when a woman is serious about everything in her life and obsessed with "maturity in a man." I suddenly had a strong recollection of Mom's chiding laughter in my head at the thought of me being "mature."
"No reason for me to tell anyone, Stephanie, I'm just interested in stealing a cup of coffee from you and buying a good used car." I replied, as I held up my coffee.
"See Mitch, I told you he was alright." Stephanie said abruptly as she turned to the blonde kid.
Looking at me again, Stephanie suddenly seemed to become aware of the red in her cheeks then and quickly turned on her heel and went back behind the front counter.
Mitch turned out to be a decent kid and after commandeering a second cup of rental car agency coffee I soon found myself in the passenger's seat of a tan, late model Lincoln. Mitch handled the big car with a proficient ease and seemed glad to have company on what I guessed was a fairly routine trip back to Vegas for him. He explained that the rental agency was, in some ways, an endless shell game of rental cars being moved from one location to another to keep up with the supply and demand of travelers and in other ways like a revolving door with a seemingly endless procession of new vehicles coming into the agency and depreciated ones going out and being liquidated. The annual nation-wide number of these revolving rental vehicles and the amount of miles they were driven was staggering.
Conversation soon centered on the Laughlin car agency and Mitch elaborated on some of the local folklore and history of the Laughlin - Bullhead area. He then explained that even though the car agency was part of a national chain, the Laughlin branch was relatively new and still in "probation" phase.
"There are six of us working at the Laughlin branch right now but two more employees are scheduled to come on board after Christmas." Mitch explained.
It was very apparent to me as I listened to Mitch that here was a kid with a strong work ethic that took a great deal of pride in his profession and the Laughlin branch of the nationwide car rental agency. I never inquired what his actual position at the branch was but it wouldn't surprise me to return to the Laughlin branch within a few years to discover that he had been promoted to managing it. He had dirt under his nails and emanated a no-nonsense air about him when it came to discussing some of the intricacies which keep a car rental branch operating at a profit with a steady repeat of satisfied clientele.
Half way into the journey we stopped in Searchlight and got a couple of roast beef sandwiches from a national chain restaurant located inside a tiny strip mall and sat down on some outside pick nick tables to eat. As I began spreading horseradish on my sandwich I asked Mitch if he had any designs on Stephanie. They were both close to the same age and Mitch seemed like a nice kid.
"I went to school with her, she's hot but also married, got two kids now. Her old man's a flake and doesn't work; he's got multiple D.U.I's and wrecked her car with the last one. He smokes a lot of dope and fucks around on her some too I think."
Mitch bit into his sandwich and continued
"They've got a big mortgage together and Stephanie's got those two kids to feed now. I think her mother-in-law helps out financially when she can but even so, some months are pretty tight and Stephanie has to take on a few odd jobs here and there at one of the casino motels or laundromat so she can support her kids as well as that dead-beat son of a bitch she married. I'd like to be involved with her and she knows it but even if Stephanie divorced him tomorrow, she's pretty disillusioned about romantic relationships right now... but it's none of my business."
Mitch looked at me then and shrugged his shoulders as if to imply "What can ya say?"
