Years ago, when my brother was in his tile laying days and working for someone else, he spent one awful night in a cheap motel. He had me in tears...the laughing kind...as he told the story of his misery. I knew I'd have to use it someday in a book. And I did eventually. In the book, I added my guy to a band and a struggle with sobriety, but the night was directly taken from my brother's mirserable night in the motel from hell. This is the fictional scene resulting from a true-life adventure.
At room number four, he
unlocked the door and wrinkled his nose at the smell of mildew and stale
cigarette smoke.
What do I expect
for $44.95?
His boot sole caught on
the carpet, bunched and torn at the doorjamb, and sent him on a stutter-step to
keep his balance. “Damn.” The genuine fake leather upper had pulled away from
the sole on his left boot.
He felt around on the
wall and flipped on the overhead light. The bulb flickered for a moment, long
enough to see the bedside table lamp, and went dark. He threw his bag on the mattress, switched on the lamp, and
plopped down on the lumpy, squeaky bed. His stomach growled. After turning on
the wall heater, he settled down to eat his fast food burger.
The TV sat lopsided on
the scarred bureau. When a glance around the room didn’t give up a remote, he stretched
forward without rising
from the foot of the bed, and punched the on button. Static greeted
him on the three local channels available. Maybe he should change rooms.
“Bugger that.”
It probably wouldn’t
matter anyway. He’d read. What he needed was a good night’s sleep. A full
stomach and a shower should help secure one. He vowed not to look at the
bedding too closely when he pulled back the cover.
In a half-hour, naked,
he slipped into bed, opened his book, and closed his mind to money woes as he
began his ten-minute meditation. Relaxed, he focused on the book.
Sometime later, he
jerked awake and knocked the book from his chest. He was freezing. Pulling the
sheet and blanket over his head didn’t stop the chill that reached all the way
to his toes. Silence. No click, click, bonk noise of the heater. He slid one arm
out, brought his cell under the covers, and pushed a button. Four twelve a.m.
Reluctantly, he switched
on the lamp, shivered out of bed, and padded three feet to the heater. He
leaned over and shut it off, then turned it on. Punched low, high, and fan-only
buttons over and over, then pounded on the plastic top.
“Son of a…”
Switching off and on
once more got no results. His toes were iced by the outside air flowing under
the door. He grabbed his jeans off
the chair and stuffed them along the bottom of the door then climbed back under
the covers.
The thin blanket and
sheet were no match for the drop in temperature. After fifteen minutes of
trying to think warm, he had an idea. Out of bed, he jogged to the bathroom and
turned the shower to hot, full blast. Immediately, the air around him warmed.
The chill on his skin subsided before he headed back to bed and yanked off the
sheet, blanket, and pillow. He slipped on his shirt and underwear and carried
the bedding back to the bathroom. The floor looked kind of nasty, but the
sheet, doubled over next to the shower, covered the old linoleum. Wrapping the
blanket around him, he settled on top, bumped his knees on the wall, and
hunched his shoulders to fit. Good thing he wasn’t a particularly big man. His
legs were long on his five-foot ten frame and difficult to fold small enough,
like a stork squeezing into a wren’s nest. Hopefully, the running, hot water
would keep him warm enough to get a few more hours of sleep.
“Ass wipe.” The curse,
directed at his shyster boss, muffled into his pillow.
Another curse at
himself for all the wrong decisions
he’d made that landed him in this position didn’t fully form on his lips.
Instead, he recited Step Ten. Continue the personal inventory. What the hell…this might be a crummy
hotel, and he was cold and tired, but he felt
every shivering, crappy moment of it. Not that a shot of Chopin Vodka to
warm him didn’t cross his mind. He would’ve had several and a few snorts this
time last year. And wouldn’t have felt the cold…or the hard floor…or much of
anything else.
Thoughts of a few
nights in crummy hotels when his band, Flash Theory, struggled to make a name
for themselves played in his head. That brought him wondering about Ian, the English drummer who shared his
arrest date.
“Bugger you, Ian.” The
profanity he’d adopted from the Englishman rolled over his tongue with a smile.
He hadn’t contacted his favorite band mate and best friend since sobriety. They
weren’t a good influence on each other. Maybe one of these days…
About an hour and a
half later, Jake woke, cold again and his legs cramping. He pulled his knees to
his chest and rolled toward the bathroom door, glancing at the ceiling.
“What the…”
Strips of paint hung
like confetti from a New Year’s Eve party. Had the ceiling looked like that
last night? He scrambled to his feet, tangled in the blanket, and tripped on
the sheet bunching on the floor. Catching
himself on the back of the toilet, his hip hit
the bar on the shower door. “Ow!”
After shutting off the
now cold shower water, he extricated his legs from the bedding and surveyed the
ceiling again.
“Ah, man.”
Surely he hadn’t caused
that. The place was a dump. Yeah, probably already peeling long before he
turned on the shower.
The time had
come to flee the motel from hell.
After throwing the
blanket and sheet on the bed, he brushed his teeth, and smoothed his beard with
a comb. He ran a brush through his hair as he squinted into the cloudy mirror
above the sink. Dark curls fell onto his forehead in spite of his effort. He stuffed
his toiletries in the duffle, then loped to the door and retrieved his jeans from the floor. His frozen jeans. Damp air combined with below freezing
wind from under the door had
rendered his pants stiff.
He slumped back on the
bed and laughed. “You know, Winters, if you weren’t so pitiful, you’d be amusing.”
You can find this story in full in either The Power of Love and Murder (A Wild Horse Peaks Book)https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPVTDH7B
or in Wild Horse Peaks: The Complete Series.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DD4Z1V6P
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