Volume Two • Ebook

From Two Palms Motel (written with Jason Thompson):

Down some stretch of busted-up asphalt, your ragtop flies.

The sun has tumbled off the edge of the earth, throwing molten slag into the clouds. Night might be coming, but that hellish wind needling your skin and eyes for the last few hours will never quit.

At best, your Spanish is rusty but the norteño station, riding shotgun since Vegas, has you tapping along. Everything is a whirl of nonsense, so why not the music, too?

Shaking your head, hoping the road comes into focus, doesn't help. 

The weeklong bender and those dead brain cells are the only take-home in that doggie bag brain of yours. Luckily, you escaped with something more tangible.

Through the fog you remember that Navy swinger everyone called Battleship. He says the place where the sea meets the sky is called the offing. You see that now as the road and sky merge into a tunnel of nothingness. 

There it is, you have found the offing.

So, with an ashtray full of butts and yours melted to the vinyl seat, you pull off, welcomed by the skeletal husks of long-dead palm trees and a dirt parking lot. 

A trio of motorcycles sit idling, their Milwaukee aspirations ready for a quick departure, in front of a dozen rooms facing the highway. To everyone, this place is a pit stop somewhere between Hell and Oblivion.

To call it kitschy would be a lie–it's a shithole.

No matter, your internal gauge is on E. Any remaining miles will have to wait.

A night watchman doesn’t look you in the eye as you push a couple of twenties at him. You’re thankful he’s glued to the titty magazine for two reasons: you’d have to smell his breath directly instead of ricocheted off the countertop, and he might recognize you—from another life, on page thirty-two.

The metal number on the door says nine, but when the lock breaks free, a nail holding it disintegrates. Sliding in a sad downward arc, the number spins: now it’s room six. 

It strikes you as funny that in an instant, things can receive a new identity. Entropy is magnificent, innit? You blink, banking that thought for another day–maybe in a new life.

Before you enter, you know this place is a murder scene with the bodies only recently carted away. A lone bulb sends a search beam ahead of you, a warning beacon, telling the cockroaches to arm themselves—tonight might just be a fight!

Travelers have shuffled the shag carpet thin, and the sun has leached the color to something best described as distressed carrot–the least favorite Sherwin Williams color. You remind yourself to keep your boots on as glass crunches under your feet.

Two twin beds wrapped in a fitted sheet occupy the center. Judging by the giant Rorschach blotch, there’s a very real chance this bedding was never new.

Stains on the walls are deviant, deep, and honest. They’re from years of unbathed souls seeking shelter. 

Like you, these walls have history, too—not the kind written in pastel-colored textbooks, but rather carved with knives into the doorjamb, the plaster, the headboard, like:

The invitation: Souls for sale, inquire within

The rebuke: Fuck MJP!

The advertisement: Sandy gives good head

Dropping your bag, you stretch, letting your spine unroll — you’ve spent too many hours crouched, looking in the rearview, watching each vibrating speck on the horizon. 

You’re too hungry to eat. It's A strong drink-or-bust kind of night. 

The bottle tips back easily. Too easily. 

Here’s to the offing you think, as the liquid in the bottle swishes its medicinal march toward your veins.

In the quiet heat, you remember how you greased the bookie setting the trap. 

How you found the cop who would play nice for a sloppy favor. But mostly you remember him—his mouth agape like some prehistoric fish dragged from the deep. He’d been rooked, and you were the architect. 

Good riddance. 

The fucker deserved nothing and got it.

You remember laughing, throwing the bag in the car, twisting the key, and peeling away. The zipper broke when you hit the curb and a thousand Franklins stared dead-eye at you from the floorboards.

Now, here in the twisted nowhere of this place, nobody ever asks for a fresh pot of coffee or when the workout room opens. The lives of people who stop here are secret; their troubles are their own.

That’s how it’s meant to be, isn’t it?

Welcome to The Two Palms Motel, where there’s always a vacancy.

* * *

Music to read by:

Agua Turbia - Guadalupe Plata

Santo Enterrio - Guadalupe Plata