We waited in the car until Tim and Conner came out with the keys to our hotel room. We unloaded our travel bags from my car and unlocked the door to our room. As the lights came on, we could hear the millions of roaches and probably dozens of rodents scurry from the openness of the room to their respected hiding places.
Upon first glance of the room, I knew we were doomed. This was it. This was the end of our journey. We had found our resting place. This was exactly the side of the road motel featured in every horror movie about wayward travelers and blood thirsty axe-men. The room smelled of fear and anxiety, the nervous sweat of a lying convict, a trembling paranoid. The room stank of feet, armpits, bleach and ash, not just cigarette, but the noxious fumes of burnt plastic.
The motel had apparently opened in 1968. The pictures of Elvis Presley, soaring bald eagles and grizzly bears were all sun damaged and fading in their frames. The forest green and mellow-yellow shag carpeting was flat and matted down to the surface, worn in specific areas of the runway, between the bed and the bathroom, to the concrete beneath it; the padding long dissolved beneath the wayward boot-heel of the transient.
The beds were both sunken in and beaten to the spring. Two people would definitely have trouble sharing these beds.
I opted right away for the sleeping bag, taking my chances with the blood thirsty rats and the skin hungry roaches than face the disease and bedbug of the mattresses. The lamp shades had a decade worth of dust on them and made the room even dimmer, never mind the fading force of the fifteen watt bulbs therein. The faux wood paneling was chipping and scarred, full of holes, as if used for a knife throwing contest. The television was so old it had beveled glass, and a thick knob that only had thirteen numbers on it. It did not work.
I unrolled my sleeping bag beneath the table and the two chairs in the room, making a kind of fort; hoping that when the madman came in, in the middle of the night and blasted the occupants away with his sawed-off shotgun that he would somehow mistake my form for some kind of chrysalis; cocooning peacefully in the mildew and must of the room; not human at all, just some giant winged insect about to take flight and cause some sort of chaos in my own right. I figured if he thought I was some sort of future Godzilla-battling Mothra then he would leave me alone, as he had come to only slaughter humans.
The bathroom was moist with bacteria. I was sure that all forms of microbiological entities were growing in the mildew and fungus of the green stained shower, toilet bowl and sink. There was a soaking wet towel on the floor as if a lonely trucker had come here to shower, masturbate and sleep for a few more hours until he had to hit the road, and roar on across the country, high on speed, and pushing to meet his payload. I looked underneath the sink for a fresh towel. There were two. One was stained with blood, deep red and light brown, the other stank of human feces. I chose the blood soaked one, took a hot thirty second shower and went to my bag.
“Hey Mikey!” I heard Tim yell.
“What’s that?”
“We’re sharing towels.”
I walked over to the bathroom where Tim had so quickly taken over after my quick and dexterous first place finish to the shower. I took off the towel I was wearing and handed it to him. I turned and paraded my svelte form and low hanging balls to the rest of the room. Johnny and Claudette hooted and hollered. Conner pretended not to notice.
I put on fresh underwear, which I realized I hadn’t done in a week, and curled up in my bag for sleep and dream and possible gun blast.
Claudette sketched while the boys took their turns showering and drying off; Johnny and Conner cursing Tim and I for taking the only non-stinky towel. Claudette had her own it seemed.
“Hell! Ours is covered in blood!” I heard Tim say.
“So; at least it doesn’t stink!” Conner yelled.
Finally the lights were out and I listened while Claudette and Conner snuggled and made out, enjoying the taco shaped bed, and Johnny and Tim fidgeted in theirs. Finally Johnny came over to where I was, carrying with him a comforter that smelled like squished maggots. He rolled the comforter up at one end until it was a pillow and he lay down close to me beneath my table fort.
The dreams were flickering their tongues of flames about my icy consciousness, attempting to merge with my reality when the noises came. BAM! BAM! BOOM!
Screaming issued from the bottom of some female form in the distance. Thunder clapped the lightning strike. More banging of mysterious sounds. Was the murderous madman I had envisioned, sent from Hell to drag me back to my spawned doom?
“Is that a gun?” Johnny asked.
“Hey Mikey should we go investigate?” Tim was up and at ‘em.
Claudette turned on the lights.
“Fuck it man let’s just try to get some sleep.” Conner suggested.
Tim differed; “I want to know what the fuck it is. If it is gunfire, then we should call the police.” He probably thought he could unarm the assailant and become a hero in Nowhere Saskatchewan, accepting the key to the hick city and having his choice of every eighteen year old girl in town.
My common sense spoke up; “If those noises are gunshots, then we would certainly be defying our safety by opening the door.” I wanted to sleep and dream, not have this conversation, not be aware of whatever horror was happening on the other side of that door.
Tim had already jumped out of bed and dressed. I got out of my bag begrudgingly, because one has to have their brother’s back, and because I would never hear the end of it from him if I didn’t. ‘I could’ve died out there’, he most certainly would have said.
“Let’s just open the door a little bit” he said. Tim then got onto his stomach and raised himself only tall enough to manipulate the door lock and knob.
The doorknob slowly turned. The door slowly opened to the inside. Nothing. We could see nothing. Tim stood up a bit, keeping the door only cracked a touch, a hair, a smidgen, only enough for us to peek. He continued to rise; now standing beside me, in front of me, wanting to be the Shaolin master to catch the bullet between his teeth; wanting to be the man of steel and have all weapons be useless against his impenetrable costume.
Finally, after a few peeks and quiet guesses, Tim, Johnny and I were outside looking around the premises for any danger that we might be able to thwart with our magnificent abilities.
Nothing. We could see or hear nothing.
Finally: BAM!
Johnny and I each made a quick leap back in the direction of our safe hotel room. Tim didn’t move, didn’t flinch. That meant Johnny and I had to stand our ground. We both knew it; knew it like every teenage man knows it when he must choose to die with his brother than flee the scene and leave him unattended, unprotected, not gotten, not backed up. Testosterone driven boys have no other recourse: It’s kill or be killed.
BAM! BOOM!
We all three stood our grounds and wondered where the sound was coming from. Suddenly we heard the scream again though this time it sounded a lot more festive than fearful. Then the car: The old 1975 Firebird came rolling around the corner with two women in tube tops pouring from the roof window and screaming in the rain. The car was driven by a young imbecile and was backfiring in the night.
It was pouring rain and the car was being flooded. They were on tremendous amounts of some type of lethal drug I assumed and felt satisfied that it was not some maniac drill sergeant recently AWOL and in search of free birds, traveling kids and drug users to slaughter with horrible weapon.
All of our dreams of local news stardom were shot down. We were actually disappointed. We wanted to save the day, swoop upon the perilous horror like Mighty Mouse and save the damsel in distress, untie her from the railroad tracks, seconds before the locomotive flattens her, therefore embracing her undying love. “Sorry ma’am, there are many towns, many damsels in distress. We must be off to another town to fight for the good of mankind.” And then we would vanish.
Inside Conner and Claudette were asleep in each other’s arms, unconcerned by the commotion going on outside or the Robin Hood / Peter Pan never-ever-land activities of the boys in flight to save the day. Tim was amped. He wanted to take a dip and talk with me outside. I smoked a cigarette and listened. He was my brother. I would’ve done anything he asked. That’s what trust earns you. I knew, and know, that he would never ask me to do anything that wasn’t worth doing, even if it cost my life.
The sunrise was beautiful and the drive out of town couldn’t come quick enough. The heat came on us in an instant. The sun hurdled itself across the sky in search of wax wings to melt, flower petals to open, water to evaporate, skin to burn.
Again, I thought the end was nigh. I was certain that an out of control big rig would split us in half; unable to see our slow progress in the storm of insects we were being attacked by. The windshield wipers only made it worse, the bug guts and blood streaked across the glass in yellow, brown and red smears. I slowed to twenty miles an hour and just plodded along, hopping not to get hit, hopping not to hit anything. I had no idea of Tim’s truck’s speed, perhaps they had better windshield cleaner than I and were making terrific time, perhaps it was worse and I was sure to rear-end them at any moment.
The mosquitoes began coming in through the vent. There were ten or twenty of the little fuckers inside. Johnny and Claude armed themselves with rolled up newspaper sections and went to town attacking the bloodsucking little vermin. SPLAT! SWAT! SMASH! THANK! PAM! BOOF! They were the frontline in my defense as I drove and dreaded Yellow Fever, Malaria or any form of toxic viral matter transferred from some sick fuck to me.
Sting! Bite! MMM! I could feel the nanovampires getting at me, sticking there hypodermic snouts through my tissue and sucking my plasma into their bellies. I could feel myself feeding the little monsters; the welts swelling on my youthful skin as I smacked and batted my legs and arms and neck while driving.
And just like that (A snap of fingers) they dissipated. As fast as they were there they were gone. Tim was up ahead a ways, but thanks to the flat landscape I could tell that he was not far.
I sped ahead and squirted the last of my windshield wiper cleaning fluid on to the glass and created a toxic yellow smear to barely see through. I dared to open my window and wiped a line of insect guts with the meat from the pinky side of my left hand.
We pulled off at the next gas station and washed our vehicles, hoping not to see another mosquito for the rest of our lives. We all pissed, got coffee and tobacco and hit the road again immediately. No time for lollygagging we had a crane and a truck to meet. The rest of the drive was flat and uneventful. I put on Paranoid by Black Sabbath and we prepared for the next city, the next carnival, new faces, old faces, a routine, an unfamiliar surrounding, the whole journey congealing into a common motion. Commotion is better than boredom.
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