RUNAWAY

Close to falling asleep over his chipped tumbler full of Grey Goose and lemonade, Marcus was almost ready to make his berth for the night in the tawdry booth that looked like it had never once been cleaned. The smell of stale piss, cum and booze was the only thing that was keeping his head from resting fully on the stapled down, fake wood vinyl covered table in front of him. That, and the persistent sound of the single piano note being played like a slow dripping tap at the back of the run down hotel bar which to him felt like his conscience reminding him to get back to some semblance of home.

He'd been running away for so long he couldn't even remember what it was like to stay in a place beyond a month or two. Being perpetually restless meant not getting too attached to people and things anymore and Marcus had kept on the move ever since Nia, the love of his life, left him for his best friend which is why he'd now become a runaway.

Taking another sip of his vodka cocktail, Marcus remembered watching some movie at his grandparents' house when he was young about a stowaway but couldn't remember the name of it. Whatever it was, that's how he felt now. Just like that dirty faced kid with raggedy clothes who relied on the kindness of strangers to get by.

Marcus also relied on the kindness of strangers but mostly in the beds of the many women he'd taken brief refuge with on the road, leaving each one of them without a word, just like his cheater father before him. He could blame it all on learnt behaviour from his dad but he knew he'd made his own bed to lie in, although he didn't tend to lie in his own bed much so that metaphor seemed whack to him as he crunched the ice cubes in his mouth.

"Hey yo, is the stereo skipping or something?" he shouted across the room to alert anyone who could hear him about that damn repetitive piano he couldn't get out of his head.

Yes, he could admit he had a problem, but as long as he didn't look behind in his rear view too much he would tend to only see the next town sign up ahead and could start afresh, just like that dude in Groundhog Day. How many lives had Marcus lived lately? Too many, probably. If he stopped and thought about it too much, he'd feel the weight of these daily reincarnations and it would scare him. He was racking up a hell of a score on the karma pinball. At some point, he might have to pay the tab for all these broken hearts.

He signalled to the waitress who'd been eyeing him up from across the bar to refresh his drink one more time.

"You clocking off soon?"

"As soon as you're done."

Marcus smiled. It was just too easy for him being this effortlessly sleazy.

"I'll have one more for the road then I was gonna crash in the car."

The waitress looked confused at his poor choice of words.

"You're gonna crash the car?"

"No, I'm gonna crash in the car. Don't worry about it."

"I'll get your drink!"

Watching her walk away, he couldn't help but imagine her naked. The longer he'd moved away from all romantic notions of being in love, the more he had just come to just look at women sexually. It wasn't great, but he wasn't pretending he wasn't damaged.

"She must have really hurt you bad," the waitress said, re-appearing quicker than he expected as she placed Marcus's drink on a soggy looking coaster.

"Who?"

"Whoever broke your heart."

"How you so sure anyone broke my heart?"

The waitress stared directly at Marcus making sure to have fully got his attention.

"The eyes, Chico, they never lie."

Marcus, feeling uncomfortable under her unbroken gaze, felt he needed to deflect from her astute observation.

"You're a Scarface fan, huh?"

The waitress nodded, as she slid a pen behind her ear.

"So, am I right?"

"No. I never let a woman get close enough to break my heart."

"Not even your mom?"

Left with no choice, but to lie, Marcus replied - "no. definitely not my mom."

Stumbling drunkenly back to his car, Marcus couldn't help but think about the waitress and how she had so easily sensed his pain. He figured she must see a lot of broken souls on a regular basis and got some sort of sixth sense for it. She was the exception, not the rule. Mostly, he had concealed his demons with a shrug and a smile and no-one even suspected.

In this way he was like a criminal he supposed, hoping not to get caught and the passionate crimes he committed were self inflicted wounds mostly.

"Don't crash the car!"

The waitress shouted across the car park at him and he wondered if he should beckon her over to him. He imagined she would be the kind of woman that would have the cosiest of beds to sleep in and the warmest of bodies to lay next to. The temptation was so great and yet he felt she already knew him better than he felt comfortable with.  

He said nothing and wound the passenger car seat back as he lay in the darkness of his car and watched her drive off, her red tail lights disappearing into the blackness.

Suddenly, the loneliness of his predicament hit him like a baseball bat to the heart and he howled like a wounded animal in his steel cuboid cage.