The night is scripted. We did not write it, much as we might like to think we are original sinners, oh no –
this sin was scripted out in some seedy story, some pulp novel, noir film, probably some rock and roll tune, too, a long time ago –
the moment motels first sprang up like weeds along the highways, our story was written for us
First, we gotta get drunk at some nowhere divey dive, where the whiskey is bad, syrupy, oily, but at least it's cheap; and
peanut shells crunch under our feet and all the regulars stare at us when we push quarters into the jukebox slots to play Tom
Petty and AC/DC
Or maybe we'll just sit in the back of your car, feet out the open doors, drinking from a flask one of us stuck in our coat pocket, or
a couple forty ouncers of cutrate beer, flat and sweaty and bread-heady
Look up at the sky –
it's a neon moon tonight
And the parking lot will sparkle, dirty and wet, it's always just rained, or is about to, and hey, I'm wet, let's get dirty
You'll go pay for the room, cos they charge less for one person, but the man behind the counter will smirk at you cos he knows –
very few people cum to these kinds of places alone
We'll creep into the room, clandestine is the word of the hour; flip on the bare, buzzing bulb and it will swing a jaundiced yellow
glare across the walls which are stained with – I don't wanna know what. There will be a television with rabbit ears, which only
gets two channels, but we're not here for TV
There will be a radio that only tunes in AM stations, so if we wanted we could listen to fire and brimstone evangelists preaching
against our drink, our lust, or, if we prefer, there's a station playing a pop song about a groovy kind of love, and I'll keep
scanning for a few minutes, suddenly I really need to hear "Under the Boardwalk," or hear truckers calling out over their CBs,
but all I find is the drone of no-channel, so I'll give up and switch it off
There will be a painting above the bed, a pastel landscape done in globbed-on oils, bought at some arts and crafts fair, a
landscape of beach grass and seashells, even if the nearest beach is hundreds of miles away; the painting is all faded, now, but
it's a nod to the days when this establishment claimed respectability
Maybe there will be a Gideon's Bible in a nightstand drawer, maybe there won't, but it don't matter either way –
all motel rooms are pretty damn unholy
We'll sit on top of the crusty bedspread, smoke cigarettes, smoke joints, anything to diffuse the insidious violence of the
mildewed air –
we'll talk, but we won't look at each other –
we'll try to ignore the cockroaches scuttling across the filthy floor
And then it will happen, it will happen, the reason we're here, all our lust and our fear bursting forth from us and we'll add our
own stains to the history of bodily fluids already on the bedspread, the sheets, the mattress –
We'll fuck, in the bed
and again atop the cigarette-burned desk
and again in the scummy shower
and in the bed, again, again
We'll leave the room before the sun has come up, we both have to work in the morning, get back to the day-to-day of our lives
Or we'll sleep for a while, sweaty bodies stuck to each other, so sticky, so hot, it's uncomfortable – you'll get up and switch on the
airconditioner, which clanks and rattles like an old man with emphysema –
we'll sleep for a while, or lay half-awake in the dark, pretending to sleep, listening to the rumble of semis on the class-B highway
outside –
inevitably, one of us will leave while the other is still asleep (or still lying there, pretending to sleep), because this is scripted,
and lest we forget our lines –
leave without saying goodbye
That's why we're here, baby, that's why we're fucking here and not in my car, or at your apartment, or at my house, or in your
tour van, or anywhere else one of us might leave reminders behind for the other to find –
we don't want to get too attached
There is something of a farce to this, too, you see, something false –
we are of course already attached, but when you fuck at a motel it's easier to pretend it's just about the sex, and it won't protect
your heart from breaking but at least you'll have no one but yourself to blame, and you can save face, tell your friends –
There's nothing to it, it's summer, we were drunk, we were stoned, we fucked. That's all
One of us will leave while the other is still asleep, get in a car and drive, squinting, toward the sunrise wound on the horizon –
blasting something sentimental on the tape deck, feeling the bruises blossoming on our thighs and necks –
we'll drive and refuse to look back
What about us?
The problems of two people don't amount to a pile of condom wrappers in this crazy world but –
we'll always have the
Pine Valley
the Grād-A
the Super 8
the King's Inn