Rathole In Omaha (Short Story)

Website design By BotEap.com((The Omaha Gambit) (November 1967))

Website design By BotEap.com“Come on,” said Jerry Hino, it was morning and we needed to get an apartment, there was a light layer of snow on the ground, it was November 1967 and this was my second big trip. The anxiety and dilemma of the night driving through Milwaukee had passed, we had driven from Minnesota, to Milwaukee, to Madison, Wisconsin, and here we were in Omaha, Nebraska. In Milwaukee we almost got shot. Anyway, we had left it from Milwaukee to Omaha.

Website design By BotEap.comI was a bit disappointed in the city; It didn’t look like much, I saw Dodge Street right away, and we scrambled up and down it looking for an apartment. Jerry was running away from his girlfriend Nancy, and I was on my own adventure, second to be exact.

Website design By BotEap.comI looked around at the clustered cluster of rough buildings, duplexes, and corner grocery stores, dotted around what I called Upper Dodge Street, and on a branch here and there (Dodge is the main branch of the tree).

Website design By BotEap.comOn my adventure in Seattle, I ended up with Jeff’s wife coming over, and here again I have a friend who had left a lovesick woman, on adventures, and hoped she wouldn’t appear on the scene, and until now. well. Anyway, we found an apartment mousetrap just off Dodge Street, and the duplex was right next to each other, so our neighbors were closer than white on rice. I didn’t really have a plan ‘B’ here if things didn’t work out, I was just hoping they would between Jerry and me, and apparently they did. He, like me, liked our way of drinking, and maybe he was a little overweight, he was about my height, he was five feet tall, he talked and weighed two hundred and forty pounds, he was joking, he was very fat.

Website design By BotEap.comThe duplex was gray, and I guess it was built in the 80’s, and it was like I said, 1967, that is, 1880. We paid two weeks rent, that was all we could afford at the moment, it cost us $ 65 dollars, And that was a highway robbery if you ask me, I mean it was a crude, lean lodge. Surely it wasn’t unknown to me at the time, during those years anyway.

Website design By BotEap.comJerry seemed to speak for both of us, and since he was the oldest, I was not offended, he often listened carefully during those drinking days, we had our stories to tell, we told them and laughed half the night. We must have gotten drunk every night we were in Omaha. And in the middle I looked for work, Jerry no, he slept all day, while I watched; I think that was one of the reasons he and Nancy got into a fight; I could be wrong. Anyway, I went to the Omaha State Employment Office and they asked me where I came from and why I was there trying to take jobs from the good people of Omaha, who needed a job worse than me. that, “I did not answer that I was treading on forbidden ground”, he did not like my comments and told me to go back where I came from and to stop taking jobs from other good people. I know what I wanted to say, but I just shook my head and left the vulture with his cornfields.

Website design By BotEap.comI found a job across the bridge in Iowa, I felt like good people there, working for Howard Johnson, as a dishwasher. It paid well, and the work wasn’t difficult, and I got a big discount on food, and they usually gave me an extra portion, and I took it to Jerry, I think they thought it would be my afternoon. Dinner at night, but for me dinner was beer, not food.

Website design By BotEap.comWell, a few weeks went by, and Jerry sent his mother a letter, telling her how he was, not knowing why he did it at first, I mean, I never did, I didn’t feel the need to, we had only been through a few weeks, not months or years. Anyway our address was on it, this now took the secret away from us as to where we were and of course Nancy got hold of the address, unsurprisingly. Now it was inevitable, one day he would show up on our doorstep, but of course I didn’t know all this at the time. But it wasn’t long, and yes, she was there one night when I got back from work, and again I was puzzled, but not as surprised as when Jeff’s wife showed up out of nowhere wanting to go with us. to Seattle. I thought at the time: what happens to these guys? Don’t they have any stemma that stay away from their little women, who are on the run, who they can’t live with, or who they can deal with? I also had old girlfriends and I was glad to get away from them, and the further the better, and the longer the better. In fact, I never went back to one that I left, nor to anyone who left me, why, once the link is broken, it breaks, as my mother used to say: get off the bus and look for another one.

Website design By BotEap.comMaybe I was his shadow for the next two weeks; I think we spent a month to six weeks at that Rathole. I went alone, I visited the museum, which had many Indian artifacts, and we all got drunk at night, as always.

Website design By BotEap.comBut to make this story more interesting and build the plot a little bit, though not much, because it’s actually the end of the story, we just went back to Minnesota, I lived with them for six weeks, they asked me to leave later. That, since they had kids, and I was sleeping on the couch, and you know, that goes out of style. Anyway, I remember the Jewish store, down the block in our Omaha neighborhood. I spent some time down there, talking to the old red-haired Jew. Gold teeth, not in bad shape for fifty, had pretty pretty curves, and I, of course, mature at nineteen. His house was also a Rathole, but I suppose it suited the neighborhood well. The store had high ceilings, exposed wooden beams, and the place was damp, messy, and everything looked old, rusty tin items. Perhaps she was a drug dealer and this was her facade, but she couldn’t have imagined it at the time. I liked it, and it allowed me to come and go and not buy anything and hang around.

Website design By BotEap.com05-17-2008