Reno

Here we go, another turn in my life. Now, I want you to understand that I don’t see it as a change for the better or a change for the worse. To some extent my life ended in my girlfriend’s house 25 years ago. To a different extent it ended in a tree 22 years ago. But either way I considered the important part of my life over already. By quirk of fate, my thrust for survival has made me go on living.

This was just a change in my life. Not for the better. Not for the worse. Just different. I had no aspirations; no goals. The only thing that held me together was a hope that, without me, Suzie would lead a good life. My self-preservation instinct made me not look for that information. If she hadn’t, I’d not have much reason to live.

Not that I had anything against succeeding or making money. I wasn’t a hippie or a mennonite. I’d been wealthy briefly, and I’d been harder up than I was now. I regarded this as no different then a change in the weather. I’ve just been drifting, letting me and my status move with the changes in wind that life had in store for me.

So here I was, essentially broke, sitting in an opulent truck cab with an apparently wealthy and successful truck driver. This was different. I had never tried making a go of life by telling my stories before. Truth be told, I was somewhat ashamed of some of the things I’d done on the road over the years. People I had hurt or worse. People I had lov- I’m getting ahead of myself here.

You know, a lot of the reason we as human beings avoid simply doing what we want is society’s reaction to that action. A vagrant like me has no such controls on them. I have no reputation; I just came into town. Having no reputation, I have no reputation to preserve, to proceed me, nor to follow me.

Even you just know me as Johnny. You don’t know what I look like, but I’ll tell you in a minute. My life style is drifting. I have no attachments, no investments, and nothing to lose. Everything I own is in my backpack, with it sometimes being stored in a local rented locker, and a paid-for-in-cash storage locker in Chicago.

I do something and my welcome is gone, I go to my locker, grab my bag, and go. I’m out of here on the next freight train silly enough to have an open space I can hide in- and that’s pretty much any of them. Or the next truck with hiding space. Usually I try to stay in cities with freight service. Bad things have happened to me when I step away from mass transportation infrastructure.

Sometimes I leave without impetus for doing so. I’ve ridden so many miles on Amtrak and Greyhound, I know many workers by name. Heck, the rail and bus system is the place most familiar with me. I hold a drivers license under the last name O’Connell. No, that’s not my last name, I’m pretty sure. I got it back when it was easy to get a fake ID and I have enough stuff from that time to make this one stick in today’s day and age.

I have no real ID with my name anywhere. I never was fingerprinted; I was not a criminal when I left home, and I lost the copy of my license years ago. Nobody I meet knows my real last name, not even me. When I don’t know my own last name, you’ll have a bull of a time figuring it out yourself.

I have never had an apartment and when I stay in hotels I pay in cash. With no ID or credit history, nobody is going to give me a credit card, and I have no bank account. It’s not like I try to cover my tracks with paranoia, but over the years it’s become second nature. I’ve gone so long with nobody knowing who I actually am it becomes second nature to avoid letting people know. I’m used to the lifestyle that my anonymity provides me; I have become quite protective of it.

That means I can generally do whatever I want. Think about it. You don’t do things you want to do but aren’t supposed to ... because people will find out. People find out that Johnny the bum did something. Do you know how many people are named John? And I’m not around anymore. Where did I go? Who knows, nobody knows enough about me to even hazard a guess. Which is not even possible since I move more or less at random.

Oh, I said I’d tell you what I look like. When I left home so many years ago, I was probably a good-looking bloke. I was tall and somewhat athletic. I had a nice face, or so people told me. I wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt here. I had blonde hair and blue eyes and I looked like your all-American kid.

Now, I’m different. Bums get into fights, and I’ve had my share. My nose is flatter, wider, and clearly broken. One of my ears is a cauliflower. I’ve done a lot of hard labor just to make ends meet. If I were to wear a dress shirt, I’d need a 22” neck. I don’t get the opportunity to shave often, and I developed a liking for having facial hair. It varies in how trimmed it is. It can be a year in between trimmings, to be frank. I’m more likely to be confused with a miner than an attractive figure.

I’m muscular, but not toned. I’m not a body builder, but I do a lot of heavy labor. I gain and lose massive amounts of weight, depending on how much I can afford to eat at a given time. I guess my appearance greatly varies over time. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt the anonymity.

The main constants of my existence are the results of a lot of fighting and hard work. I have huge hands. They look like an average person wearing snow gloves. I’ve spent my life walking, and my feet are size 15 3E. I’d been wearing Red Wing work-boots most of my life because they come in my size, are comfortable, easily repaired, and very well made.

At one point the bracelet on my Dad’s Rolex broke and I replaced it with one of those big NATO issue nylon ones- and there isn’t much strap left once it goes through the first loop. I sure could have pawned that thing many a time, but it was the only thing I owned that belonged to my family. Besides, it’s been a very faithful time keeper over the years. I only had it serviced once, in Chicago, about 12 years ago. It took too long to get it back.

The first thing I told Jake was the short form of how I came to be a wanderer for most years of my life. The long story could fill a tome; Hell with all I’ve written over the years of my life about it, perhaps it does.

I gave a basic story about Suzie, her dad, how I ran away, and my return home. My existence in this life of transient work and wandering, broken friendships and lost relationships, only makes sense when you understand the event that set me on this path. I’m not dumb, I’m not physically disabled, and I don’t have notable issues with sanity. There has to be a reason I refuse to fit into society, and what happened in her home years ago is that reason.

We spent the night in the “Scott Shady Court Motel”. Ok, it was a dive, but Jake said he hadn’t had a shower in a while. I hadn’t either, nor had I had a swim. It had a pool- it was a bit dingy, but it was a pool. So I swam in it. I mean, why not? I’ve slept in dumpsters; a slightly dingy pool was not going to do me any harm.

We ate at a dingy restaurant nearby, the kinda choke-and-puke I would have gotten a job at if Jake hadn’t happened along.

“Ok, Johnny, tell me yer most spectacular story,” Jake prodded as he ate his salad.

Well then...

To tell my most spectacular story would be difficult because there were a lot of things that happened in my life that a reasonable person could deem a spectacle. Still, the story of Reno could stand out. I had never made money that quickly- before or since- and the relationship formed within it has been one of the few to last a very long time. The beginning of my time in Reno wasn’t astonishing ... but things changed quickly enough.

I came in there a little flusher than usual. I had left my last place because of a woman, and I wasn’t entirely penniless. She had told me that she loved me and wanted to marry me. My usual automatic response to that was running. And so I ran, from Kansas City- I’ll get to that story some other time.

Anyway, for once I arrived in a city, this time Reno, in style. I had taken the California Zephyr. To cover my tracks a little I had booked it through all the way to Oakland- that was the terminus in those days. As usual I had no idea where I’d get off, but I picked Reno, Nevada. Picked up my ancient backpack and hightailed it off the train.

I had just turned 21 and I decided it was time to try my hand at gambling. The funny thing is, I have always been a gambler; this lifestyle is a constant chain of gamble after gamble. But usually I only play the odds that make a vague amount of sense. Betting at 37-to-1 was not my normal thing.

But I went to the Atlantis casino and decided to try my luck to the insanity point. And why not? What did it matter to me? It was only money. I had about $15,000 in cash at that point, and I put $10,000 down on the number 21- after all it was my birthday.

I must have had the biggest case of beginner’s luck in history because the wheel came up 21. Now, if you know roulette, you know that pays off 35 to one. So I now had $355,000. That’s a big problem for me. You see, I don’t want to open a bank account. I instead opened an account with the casino. It didn’t startle me much. I knew this wasn’t going to last forever. Nothing ever did. It was just a game of chance, with the stakes being a commodity on which I placed little value.

The commodity I valued most stridently was freedom. The kind of freedom that money tends to restrict. Money attracts attention, it attracts tax people, it attracts greedy hangers on. It requires responsibility, it must be carried if not put in a bank, and what large amounts of it buys you are things ... and my storage capacity was a large backpack. So this was just me playing with fate.

I took $50,000 of the money, the table limit, and put it down on 16 through 21. I figured I’d stop with the first loss, and figured this would be it. But I won, 5:1 payoff; 6:1 odds. I now had $655,000. I put $50k down on even, and lost- 38:18 odds. Go figure, right?

Meanwhile, the kind of lampreys that tend to circle casinos looking for winners that are more than a little imprudent with their money came circling around me. I told them to bugger off, which seemed to take them aback. What the hell do I want with what amounted to glorified hookers? Yeah, I wanted no attachment, but Christ, there is a limit to how much lack of attachment I get, ok?

I was walking around looking for something to do with half a million bucks, and came across a woman who was crying. She looked like she was having a really bad day. Now, I had always tried to be a gentleman. That’s how my parents had raised me to be and that’s how I was. When a woman is sitting there crying, you take out your handkerchief and hand it to her.

“Han’kerchief?” Jake interrupted.

“Yeah?” I said, intrigued by the question.

“Who uses a han’kerchief ennymo’e?” he asked.

“Me. I hate those pathetic pieces of paper that fall apart and get your hands all sticky and crap. YECH.” I told him.

“Yo’re a li’l peculiar,” he told me.

“D’ya think so?” I exclaimed, rolling my eyes.

She thanked me and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. Then she turned to look at me and was taken aback.

You see, someone like me dresses for the concept of being prepared, and also for the idea that buying clothes is an infrequent activity. It is for me. It is rare that I happen to have enough money to justify buying clothes, let alone the want...

Also, keep in mind that my first purchases when I have money reflect that need and the need to live out of a large backpack. Changes of clothes carried in such a set up are a heavy luxury.

So what she was confronted with then was a man who hadn’t showered in two days, wearing an old and threadbare set of OshKosh overalls and a dirty light blue work shirt. At that time I was at one of my heavier stages, so I looked enormous, and my beard hadn’t been trimmed in three months easily. I was sorely in need of a haircut and I wouldn’t qualify as clean.

Overalls are the ultimate functional set of clothing for a man in my circumstances. They are supported by the shoulders, and as such can be comfortably worn many sizes too big simply by adjusting the shoulder straps. They dangle off your body, resulting in a loose fitment to the crotch and ass, while being open at the armpits- thus reducing odor absorption at the areas of the body where it is most common.

One can carry a large array of stuff in the clothing, as weighty cargo in the plentiful pockets does not result in pants sag. Being made almost exclusively as work garments, they tend to be sturdy and durable like jeans used to be. Because they do not cinch at the waist they are comfortable in a wide variety of body positions, and are therefore comfortable for sleeping in.

So to see a man meeting my description acting as what some would call an old-fashioned gentlemen must have been something of a shock. I don’t look like the gentlemanly type.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, slightly taken aback.

“Name’s Jonathan,” I told her, “But my friends would call me Johnny- if I had any friends.”

“Don’t have friends?” she asked.

“I’m a wanderer, as they say,” I told her, “Only been in town a few hours.”

“Why wander?” she asked me.

“Nowhere to stay, - ... Um, what’s your name?”

She smiled, “My name is Jennifer, but you can call me Jenny.”

“Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine?”

She just laughed. It brought a smile to her face and the tears seemed to be gone for now. “Smartass.” I like her style, her attitude, and her smile. I liked that she didn’t act put off by my appearance. Even this early in my travels I had become something of a master of reading people, their motives, and their intentions. This woman seemed free and genuine.

To me she was a spectacular beauty. It wasn’t just her pert frame, her lovely chest, or her fine looking stern. Her preparations were just heavenly to my mind, and she was tall- only half a head shorter than my gargantuan 6’3” frame. She looked athletic and powerful; a doer. She had a cute ski-jump nose, strawberry-blonde hair, and a deep and sparkling set of blue eyes.

And they belonged to her. Laughter permeated them palpably, which complemented the laughter lines around her face; so clearly there even though it was still red from the crying she had just been engaged in. I loved her ability to tune out her sorrow to engage in something else. She had the slightest amount of baby fat still on her face, which also made her seem friendly, and it wasn’t hidden behind makeup.

The way she looked conveyed more than physical beauty. It conveyed a happy, trusting, and kind person. One who liked to laugh, and took the opportunity when presented to her. She looked about my age. Nasty people don’t have the ability to abandon their self pity to laugh heartily at a referential joke of dubious quality.

She was dressed in a way that flattered her very well, but I don’t think she realized it. She was not entirely conscious of her beauty. She wore a pair of weathered jeans that were not tight, but not loose either. They showed shape while leaving something for your imagination to think about. Her shirt, likewise, showed off her torso’s general shape without making it neon-sign obvious what was there. It was there for the man willing to spend time looking.

She wasn’t one of those women ashamed of, or stuck up about, her body. But she was also not one of those women who thought their body was a showpiece, or a meal ticket. She seemed comfortable in her own skin.

All of which, of course, was totally out of line with the crying and upset she was feeling a few moments ago. People like this usually take a bit of effort to upset. I was intrigued by her story; I wanted to know what had done this to her. I wanted to help. Happy people who don’t lord their happiness above other peoples heads deserve to be happy. Also, honestly, she was hot to me.

“You know, I haven’t eaten in ages, and I sure could go for one of the big steaks they have over in one of the restaurants,” I told her.

“Sure, so could I,” she smiled.

“Great, let me just go and get myself a room. I haven’t slept in a bed in ages, it feels like.”

I went over to the front desk and ended up with the biggest penthouse suite the damned place had. What did I care? I had more money than my parents ever had and nothing in particular to spend it on. Why not get the nicest room they had? As I said before, I don’t really have the capacity to maintain that much money at once.

I met her over by the entrance to the Atlantis Seafood Steakhouse, which seemed like a good place to eat. We were seated at a nice table near a window looking out at what was, let’s face it, a pretty ugly city. We silently scanned the rather expensive menu and soon we seemed to settle on our choices. The waiter came over.

“What would you like to drink?”

Jenny spoke first, “I’ll have a Johnny Walker Black Label dry Rob Roy, straight up. Very dry.”

“And you sir?”

“Hmm, I’ll have Glen and soda on the rocks,” I told him.

The waiter left to give our order to the bar, but returned fairly quickly.

“Are you ready to order?” he asked.

“Yep,” we said in unison.

He then proceeded to go over a few specials, but none of them seemed more appealing to us than the items we had initially picked out.

“What will you have, m’am?”

“Well, to start I’ll have the shrimp cocktail, and the Filet A’la Oscar, and a side of the Bleu cheese, Applewood smoked bacon mashed potatoes,” she told him.

“Very good, how would you like that cooked?” the waiter said.

“Very rare,” Jenny insisted, “Cool in the center.”

“A lady who knows her meat,” the waiter smiled, “And you, sir?”

“I’ll have the escargot, the surf and turf, and the same mashed potatoes,” I said with a smile.

“Do you want your steak cooked the same way?” the waiter asked.

“I would like it largely not cooked the same way,” I replied with a chuckle.

“Excellent choices, sir,” the waiter said, also chuckling.

As we went about our meal, which was exceptional, we talked.

“Now that we are sitting down to a nice dinner,” I said, “Would you allow me the temerity to ask what you were upset about, Jenny?”

It was a long story. She got a tad emotional a few times during the telling of it. Basically, she had been married to her high school sweetheart for two years, and she thought it was love. He was a bit of a jerk, but she was willing to put up with it; she had made her bed, and she meant it when she agreed to ‘death do us part’.

That is, until two weeks ago. They had lived in Winnemucca- I guess that is another reason why I recalled this particular story- for a while. Well, two weeks ago her husband had a “business trip”, which was sort of weird because he was barely a manager. But a week later, she received a divorce notice, and a letter explaining that he was going to leave her and marry some woman with more money.

Being as I am with money, this concept didn’t make sense to me. Don’t get me wrong; to somebody who is trying to live a normal life, money is important and useful. But happiness is much more important. A life partner should be, first and foremost, a good person- a compatible person. A loyal person. One who can put up with your faults and foibles. No amount of money can conceal the misery of living with a rotten person, or someone with whom you don’t get along. But I digress.

She had come to Reno because that’s where the letter had been mailed from and had found out that her husband had already left with the bitch. Her divorce was final as of tomorrow. She couldn’t believe her soon to be ex husband had done this to her. I deeply sympathized with her, although I had difficulty condemning the man.

Not that I thought it was an acceptable practice, because I didn’t. I’ve never married, before or since. I have never committed to anyone because of a fear of being tied down to a place. I had run out on people out of fear of that commitment, sometimes without any warning. I loved them, but for me the fear has always been stronger than love. It’s difficult to condemn a practice you do yourself.