Generic hotel room in a generic town just off the generic interstate...3rd floor, high enough to see the cars, buses, trucks, all going down the long gray trail with curves that men dream about and women dream about having...every person has a different reason for being out there--vacations, the drudgery of work, going to funerals, hockey games, delivering the goods...some people just driving around because they got nothin’ else to do or maybe they missed the exit to work or home and just kept goin’...they went out for a ride and they never went back as the song says...room pretty much the same as all the others you or I have ever been in...bed, desk for writing postcards or the next literary epic, tv, cash bar on a tray, little safe, a few hangers, leaky toilet...chain the door, turn the deadbolt...pull off the comforter and inspect the sheets and pillows...no cigarette burns, no blood stains, no stains of a dubious kind anywhere...flip on the television, any luck I’ll find a movie to watch, but I’m not lucky yet...after a ten hour drive, a lot of it spent bumper to bumper in Northern Virginia by DC...now I’m driving across the street to some grab it and gag fast food place where stomach pumps aren’t included...back to the room, chain the door, turn the deadbolt...lay on the bed and eat...it’s quiet...occasionally, a noisy truck going by to Nashville, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee...I don’t feel like doing any writing, War and Peace part II will have to wait...TV back on, a Jurassic Park movie playing--Dr. Grant I presume...another one coming on afterwards, a Jurassic marathon...I get through the first one, but not even the fear of being eaten by Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Pterodactyls keeps me awake...or maybe they were the house band...I don’t remember...I can’t keep my eyes open and I start to drift off during the second one...I turn off the TV...then I can’t sleep...funny how that happens...so I turn the TV back on and watch ten minutes of commercials and then start falling asleep again...this time I leave the television on...ZZZZ...I wake up and it’s like 4 in the morning...there’s some kind of info-mercial playing and even when I’m asleep, I don’t want that on...turn off the TV and then back to sleep...air conditioner cranked moaning and groaning and huffin’ and puffin’ but better than hearing random slams of a door somewhere...check out time is 11 and I’m in no hurry but I set the alarm for 7 so I can get downstairs and get the best choice of donuts...ZZZZ...alarm goes off and I stumble down to get my ‘free’ breakfast...the donuts...chocolate, plain, strawberry something’s that look like they were leftover from yesterday’s breakfast and maybe the day before that...I got up for that?...breakfasts never did much for me...I find a decent bagel to go with my sour orange juice and overstrong Starbucks wannabe coffee and then I sit down and think that I’m not thinking about anything at all...just staring outside at the trees blowin’ in the wind...then the businessmen and businesswomen come in with their suits and briefcases and sit down and open their briefcases to look over some supposedly important papers...before that next sales meeting...munch, munch, munch...they check their phones every ten seconds...they rush off to make the big kill and get the big game and be the big hero...for the day anyway, and I just sit and chill...up to the room-- throw a couple of things in the backpack and I’m on my way.
