| After leaving the theater Joe drove for two hours, his stomach sour from popcorn and whiskey. He considered getting a motel for the night – the boss wouldn’t complain, given the sales he’d made, and it beat driving all night feeling your stomach lurch every time you hit a pothole. He found a place an hour after dusk, a seven-unit Mom and Pop motel called The Wayfarer. According to the sign its main attribute appeared to be telephones in every room, and ice. The parking lot was empty. Good. A nice quiet night without someone in the next room snoring holes in the wall, or a couple doing some free-lance mattress testing. Joe pulled up to the office and went inside, blowing on his hands. The manager was sitting in the lobby looking at a small TV tuned to a variety show; he looked up at Joe just as the audience erupted in laughter, and his head swiveled back to the tube by instinct. But he’d missed it. He stared at the TV for a few more seconds, as if expecting Milton Berle would repeat the joke for his benefit, but the moment had passed. “Howdy,” he said, getting up. “It’s three dollars.” He winced and limped over to the desk. Joe gave the man his license and a five; the manager copied the information in the ledger, spun the book around for Joe to sign, look at the name and up at Joe; satisfied that they fit together in some mysterious way known only to desk clerks, he turned and contemplated the row of keys hanging behind the desk. Seven keys. Joe got number one. “Ice’s down at the end,” the manager said. “Need more towels in the morning, pick up the phone. I’m open until ten then I close up, but I live in the back so you can call if you gotta.” Room one. That meant he was right next to the manager’s sleeping area. Somehow it felt a little too . . . intimate. You weren’t supposed to know the people in the next room. You could overhear them, catch their shape as they walked past the window, hear them whistle or gargle or grunt one out, but if you never saw their face they were abstract, somehow. Now he would see this guy’s face as he brushed his teeth, wondering if the man was listening to him spit. And why did he get room one? Because the guy didn’t want to limp all the way down to two to change the sheets, probably. “You have something further down?” Joe asked. The manager gave him a look, almost as if Joe had said he had some women in the trunk he wanted to saw into pieces, and needed some privacy. “Sure,” he said. “Three fine?” “Three’s fine. Say, you got a grocery store around here?” “Yep.” The manager lifted his hand in the time-honored method of a man about to bestow directions. “You go up to the county road, head due east, that’s a right, go past a farm house, that’ll be the Hanson place. Keep going, there’ll be church on your south, that’s a right, but you pass that, and then you’ll come to a sign that says “Maustown,” and you take that road on your left. One mile. But she closes by nine, so I’d move along if I were you.” Joe put his bags in the room (mothballs, Lysol) and drove into town. Not hard, really; it all came down to right, church, left. In ten minutes he was on the main street of Maustown. Welcome to Ratville, he thought. One blinking red light hung over a intersection, swaying in the wind. The store was called BENSON GROCERY, the sign flanked by two round red Coke emblems. A sign in the window had the word “OPEN” over a picture of a cardinal. The door squeaked shut behind him. Joe nodded to the lady at the till, a suspicious lump with reddish hair and blue glasses hanging on the tip of her nose. She watched him go down the aisle. “Help you?” she said. “No, just looking for a bite to eat,” he said. “Staying over at the Wayfarer, got a little hungry.” A lie, really. His stomach was still unhappy, but he knew he’d better fill it with something. He took a bottle of Bromo-Seltzer, some Kraft cheese from the cooler, a pint of milk, and a Chicken Dinner candy bar. He put them on the counter, which had a big CARDINAL CRACKERS blotter – same bird as the sign on the door. He looked around, and noted other promotional items from the Cardinal Cracker people – a thermometer, an enamel sign over the back door. By God, a rug by the counter. A neon sign that said CARDINAL CRACKERS was hung behind the counter, but only the CRA lit up. It flickered. Joe thought that crackers might be good tonight. Nice with cheese and milk. Just the ticket. “You have any crackers?” he asked. “Aisle two, in the back,” she said. “Any recommendations?” “Well, the man who brings the Cardinals can’t give us enough crap to put on the walls, so they must be pretty bad. We got Nabiscos if you want them.” Joe bought the Cardinals. He asked for a pack of smokes, extracted two books of matches from the box. Checked the design: of course. And nicely done. "Take the box," she said, crimping the top of his bag. "God knows we got more." When he returned to the Wayfarer there were two more cars in the parking lot; Joe saw a group of people in the office, and he could hear their laughter as he passed to his room. The gang, out on a lark. He put the chain on the door, undressed and took a hot shower. In the middle of the shower he heard doors slam and toilets flush, and his shower went cold. As he got out and towled himself dry, he listened to the din on both sides of the room. The manager had put the party into two and four. Surrounded! Around ten he went out to his car to get some paperwork. As he slammed the car door a man came out of two, holding an ice bucket. Joe looked him square in the eye. Not a peep from room two all night. There was a woman laughing in four, but it was a pleasant sound. Joe slept hard and dreamed well. |
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