day, he didn’t. Flip-flip, like a domino chain. One thing falls, then another. First he got fired. Which turned out to be a disaster, but he doesn’t blame Skip. Friendship aside, you can’t afford to have your employees dumping old ladies in pools.
Margaret carried on as if he’d been screwing up ever since they met and the incident with Regina Browner was the last straw. But he hadn’t been screwing up. He’d come straight home every evening and had mostly cut down drinking. Dunking Mrs. Browner was his first step off the straight and narrow.
That was Margaret’s big break. Her ticket out of his life. And Margaret jumped right on it. She told him their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Relationship. Their relationship. She’d never used that word before. He wouldn’t have been with a woman who talked that talk-show trash. Maybe that’s what hurt most: that he’d spent two years with a woman who could break his heart because their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. And Margaret is going somewhere. By the time she’s forty, she’ll be running UPS instead of just driving one of their trucks. Nolan used to think it was sexy, the brown uniform, the clipboard, the friendly little wave Margaret always gave him, pulling away in her truck. Only a fool would be turned on by how happy a woman looked to be rolling out of the driveway.
It was Margaret’s apartment in Saugerties, so the breakup took care of the home part. Then it turned out that Vincent had less money saved up than he’d thought. He had some unemployment coming, so he stayed around Kingston. He found a weekly rental at the Streamside Motel. No one could blame him for heading straight to the beer and TV and pills. Right around the corner from the motel was one of those Doc-in-the-Boxes, walk-in medical clinics where the personnel were remarkably understanding about his work-related, intractable back pain.
Eventually, he stopped paying the motel owner, Mr. Derjani. The guy never fixed the hot water heater. In Nolan’s mind they were even. But the word on Nolan must have gone out over the Paki-landlord grapevine. Every time Nolan walked through a door, the No Vacancy light flickered on.
Finally, he’d gone to his mom’s, as if he’d forgotten that his mom was now—had been, for a decade or so—married to Warren the Warthog. As if it had slipped his mind that Warren was newly retired from the electric-fan factory and had too much time on his hands. The happy couple live in a trailer near Beacon, which Warren had gotten years ago in his divorce settlement. Warren made Nolan feel at home by asking him several times daily how long he planned on staying.
After Warren passed out snoring, Nolan’s mom droned her Buddhist chant. She asked him to chant with her. There was so much he could chant for. True love. A real vocation. Finding his path, at last. He was sorry, but he couldn’t. It kills him that his mom has spent so long looking for things—a decent man, a home of her own. Peace. Love. God. Whatever. He doesn’t hold it against her. He hopes she finds it before she dies.
Nolan split after two days. He hasn’t been back since. He’d known better than to show up there with his shaved head and tattoos. His mom would think it was her fault for moving around so much when he was a kid. The other potential problem is that since the last time he saw his mother, Nolan has found out certain things about his father—about his father’s death—that she never told him. He guesses he would probably have to bring that up, sooner or later.
After he left his mother’s, he got hired for the night shift at the doughnut shop, and then after he was fired from that, at the Quik-Mart on Broadway in Middletown. The manager told him about a room he could sleep in at an old folks’ home if he slipped the janitor a ten.
That’s what Nolan had sunk to: working nights at a convenience store and sleeping during the day at a cockroach-infested Mafia-scam
Margaret carried on as if he’d been screwing up ever since they met and the incident with Regina Browner was the last straw. But he hadn’t been screwing up. He’d come straight home every evening and had mostly cut down drinking. Dunking Mrs. Browner was his first step off the straight and narrow.
That was Margaret’s big break. Her ticket out of his life. And Margaret jumped right on it. She told him their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Relationship. Their relationship. She’d never used that word before. He wouldn’t have been with a woman who talked that talk-show trash. Maybe that’s what hurt most: that he’d spent two years with a woman who could break his heart because their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. And Margaret is going somewhere. By the time she’s forty, she’ll be running UPS instead of just driving one of their trucks. Nolan used to think it was sexy, the brown uniform, the clipboard, the friendly little wave Margaret always gave him, pulling away in her truck. Only a fool would be turned on by how happy a woman looked to be rolling out of the driveway.
It was Margaret’s apartment in Saugerties, so the breakup took care of the home part. Then it turned out that Vincent had less money saved up than he’d thought. He had some unemployment coming, so he stayed around Kingston. He found a weekly rental at the Streamside Motel. No one could blame him for heading straight to the beer and TV and pills. Right around the corner from the motel was one of those Doc-in-the-Boxes, walk-in medical clinics where the personnel were remarkably understanding about his work-related, intractable back pain.
Eventually, he stopped paying the motel owner, Mr. Derjani. The guy never fixed the hot water heater. In Nolan’s mind they were even. But the word on Nolan must have gone out over the Paki-landlord grapevine. Every time Nolan walked through a door, the No Vacancy light flickered on.
Finally, he’d gone to his mom’s, as if he’d forgotten that his mom was now—had been, for a decade or so—married to Warren the Warthog. As if it had slipped his mind that Warren was newly retired from the electric-fan factory and had too much time on his hands. The happy couple live in a trailer near Beacon, which Warren had gotten years ago in his divorce settlement. Warren made Nolan feel at home by asking him several times daily how long he planned on staying.
After Warren passed out snoring, Nolan’s mom droned her Buddhist chant. She asked him to chant with her. There was so much he could chant for. True love. A real vocation. Finding his path, at last. He was sorry, but he couldn’t. It kills him that his mom has spent so long looking for things—a decent man, a home of her own. Peace. Love. God. Whatever. He doesn’t hold it against her. He hopes she finds it before she dies.
Nolan split after two days. He hasn’t been back since. He’d known better than to show up there with his shaved head and tattoos. His mom would think it was her fault for moving around so much when he was a kid. The other potential problem is that since the last time he saw his mother, Nolan has found out certain things about his father—about his father’s death—that she never told him. He guesses he would probably have to bring that up, sooner or later.
After he left his mother’s, he got hired for the night shift at the doughnut shop, and then after he was fired from that, at the Quik-Mart on Broadway in Middletown. The manager told him about a room he could sleep in at an old folks’ home if he slipped the janitor a ten.
That’s what Nolan had sunk to: working nights at a convenience store and sleeping during the day at a cockroach-infested Mafia-scam
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