Suckers Read Free Page B

sleep,” and Dan felt the same. What was going to do it—knowing where everyone was? The sun coming up? Getting drunk enough to pass out?
    Ray cracked a mini of vodka. His phone rang. “Greg,” he said as he lifted it to his ear. “Yeah?”
    Dan studied the pattern of the hotel carpet while Ray talked to their sound tech.
    “Nah, we’re shook up, and Dan’s got a bruise on his cheek that’ll make him look tough on stage, but we’re fine.” He fumbled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Yeah, do me a favor—if Jamie’s still around, grab him by the collar and drag him along.” He listened for a minute, drawing smoke into his lungs, streaming it back out his nostrils. A half-smile—no humor, but a smile nonetheless—came onto his face. “Yeah, if you could do that, that’d be awesome. Thanks, man.” He tossed the phone on his own bed.
    “What’s he gonna do?”
    “Collar Jamie and drag him in the cab with the rest of them.”
    “Nice.” At least their sound engineer was big enough to get it done. He could stick Jamie and Ray under each arm and run them up a field like footballs.
    “Better him than me,” Ray said. “That’s not a job I’d want.” The smile had turned wry. Dan dropped back on the bed.
    Ray unloaded his pockets—phone, wallet, lighter. He headed for the bed, the limp back—exaggerated now—his cigarette clamped between his teeth.
    They’d had the tour all planned and budgeted out so that everyone got their own room when they had a hotel night. But legs got added, opportunities came up that they couldn’t afford but couldn’t resist—Kuala Lumpur, for instance—and at some point they always wound up cutting corners to make it work. It was that or get off the road. As exhausting as touring was, staying in one place was harder.
    “I’m gonna take a leak,” Dan said, “then give sleep a try at least.”
    A few minutes later he came back out, pulling his shirt over his head. Ray sat with his back against the headboard, his ankles crossed on top of the bedspread, an ashtray in his lap. He had the remote in his hand again. “Why is there never anything fucking on this time of night?”
    Dan worked his boots off. He was exhausted all over again, his limbs heavy. He managed to get out of his shirt and jeans and crawl under the covers.
    Ray turned off the lamp, still clicking through the channels. Smoke filled the air. It felt almost comfortable. Familiar. Dan rubbed the back of his neck, then let his hand rest on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and hoped sleep didn’t hold off for too long.
    The roll-spark of a lighter, the sibilance of burning paper. A stifled cough, a clearing of the throat. The seals around the minibar’s door gave. A second later, a plastic cap skittered across the dresser top.
    Ray dropped a boot on the floor, then the other. His phone trilled. He put it to his ear with a mumbled, “Yeah,” as he headed toward the bathroom.
    Dan listened to him say, “Awesome. Good to hear,” as the door shut, then it was just murmurs.
    He listened harder, but couldn’t make anything out. After a while, the toilet flushed, the door opened, the lighter did another rasp-spark. The TV clicked through channels. Dan’s thoughts stopped making sense, bleeding into each other, images rising before slipping into dark waters. He realized he was drifting off. He blinked in the bluish darkness. The TV was on, but he couldn’t make out what was playing.
    The springs in the next bed complained softly as Ray shifted.
    Dan turned over and buried his head under the blanket.
    When he woke a few hours later, in the flickering glow of the muted TV, in a room smelling of stale cigarettes, Ray was asleep on his back, on top of the covers.
    Dan knocked over an empty beer bottle on his way to the bathroom. On his way back, he made out another beer on the nightstand with what looked like a tiny bottle of vodka toppled against it. Ray’s cigarette pack lay on the floor, crumpled.