The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [41]
He woke up in cold, wet sheets, gasping, then smoked a half a pack of 555s, afraid to go back to sleep.
An ancient Antonov to Phnom Penh, seats broken, seat belt useless at his side, the cabin filled with steam a few minutes after take-off — the other passengers actually laughing when the stewardesses handed out the in-flight meal, a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a roll in a cardboard box — wings yawing dangerously as the plane touched down. Overnight in Bangkok in a gigantic airport hotel, a twenty-minute walk to his room from the lobby, a Filipino trio singing "Rock the Boat" in the lounge, Tiger beer in the mini bar. Transfer at Narita. A packed flight - tourist class — to LAX, taxi to a Japanese-owned hotel in West Hollywood.
The cocktail lounge was filled with well-dressed people talking on cell phones in amber-colored light. The women were well made-up, hair done, heels, the men in jackets with recently polished shoes. They sat in plush, upholstered chairs and overstuffed couches, drinking novelty drinks off tiny little tables. British techno-soundtrack music issued from hidden speakers. A waiter offered Bobby a complimentary spring roll from a tray. He'd never felt so detached from his own country. It smelled of nothing here, only air-conditioning, the figures around him in the lounge moving dreamlike through space like characters in a film. A woman at the next grouping of chairs looked at Bobby then whispered something to her date — he turned around for a second, glanced at Bobby, then snapped his head away as if frightened. Bobby sat there like a stone obelisk, his ice melting in his drink, horrified. There was something indecent in all this affluence. He'd just come from a place where everything smelled, where children tugged your sleeve and begged for your leftovers, where amputees slithered legless across the street and the police felt free to open fire at any time. He felt like he was on another planet, the languid movements of the young, graceful crowd somehow a cruel and terrible affront to the way he knew the world to really be. Bobby thought, "I could kill anyone in this room and never feel a moment's guilt."
He was coming apart here. He had to get out.
He rented a Ford Focus through the desk, set out for Arizona in the morning.
He'd never seen America but he saw it now. Out the window, one strip mall led to another, then desert, then more strip mall, filling stations, fast-food joints, car dealerships, desert again. The kids were fatter than in Asia; baggy pants, caps on backwards, fierce acne, sullen looks as they watched him pump self-serve gas, grab a bite. He was old, he realized, nothing to say to anyone anymore — if he'd ever had anything to say - America suddenly a vast ocean of blond hair, crenulated thighs, fanny packs and Big Gulps. He aimed the car at the horizon and drove, a six-pack of Budweiser in a Styrofoam cooler on the seat next to him, a gas station map his only guide. He bought new clothes at a mall in Tucson — khaki pants, a denim shirt, aviator glasses, a pair of shoes which the clerk assured him would "last a lifetime" — changed at a Motel 6 after a swim in a pool that stank of chlorine. He arrived in the small development community at dusk: cookie-cutter houses, ranch-style with little signs announcing family names over identical mailboxes, driveways filled with SUVs, muscle cars, children's toys. Just outside of town was a mega-mall with food