Big Booty Judy and Vienna Sausages

So, you think you’re staying in a hotel with some class. It’s nice. The rooms are modern and stylish. The service is friendly. You have all the amenities of home, including a fully equipped kitchen. Just like living in a one bedroom flat (as my British pals would say). All with the added bonus of housekeeping. And a pool. And free breakfast. Not to mention a social hour every weekday evening, but you’re too whooped after work to partake. (Heck, you barely have the gumption to write, but the view of the courtyard with the meticulously landscaped area around the pool with flowering shrubs and palms is inspiring, and you place the desk just so you can look out the window and pretend you’re Ian Fleming at Goldeneye in Jamaica. Well, kinda.) It makes you forget that you’re staying in a hotel, away from family and friends, and tames the thoughts that you’ve put out your loved ones again. You almost feel a sense of normal.

Until this …

You wake up and head off to the gut-wrenching job. No time to stop for breakfast. On the stairs as you start down is an open can of Vienna sausages with a note from Big Booty Judy leading some, I guess, deliriously happy suitor to Big Booty’s room. “Almost there, sexy!” the note (didn’t come out in the pic) reads.  Another can of sausages waits on the landing and at the very bottom of the stairs is a condom -- still in the wrapper -- on the floor.

Before you get to the vehicle, the cold reality sets in … Yeah. 

Doughnuts Are The New Cupcake

I think I might’ve mentioned that I’ve been staying at a hotel for a spell. When you stay somewhere long enough, you start to notice patterns. And there is a particularly annoying pattern that I’ve noticed with this particular stay.

Everyone seems to flitter like moths to the window light at my end of the hall to talk on their cell phones. I could kinda understand if any one of them had a room near mine, but none of them do. My room is the last one in the hall, with no room across from me and I know who’s staying in the one next to me.

So, there’s this guy talking on his mobile phone outside my door. LOUD. Discussing what should’ve been a personal matter. I looked to my wife as I grabbed my cell phone and then went the door, pretending to be in the middle of videoing a narrated tour of the hotel.

“This is the hall outside our room.” I panned around and put him in the lens view. “And here is the window. Nice view, as you can see …” and I rambled on a bit more as I milled around the hall like him, talking just as loud. (Btw, the window is not a draw for some breathtaking view … unless you find a parking lot and a strip mall across the street spectacular.)

He looked at me with a suspicious side-eye, as if he couldn’t understand what I was doing. He fidgeted and fumbled in his conversation for a moment, then he walked away, never saying a word to me.

I detected annoyance … I know it couldn’t be my listening in on his conversation, after all he was talking loud enough for me to hear him through a closed door. Couldn’t be that I made an intrusion in his space, since the hallway is public space. Was it aiming my phone camera in his direction? Worse than a gun these days, right? No worries, bro, I don’t have a YouTube account—though many author friends say I should.

But what the hell is the matter with some people? Maybe it doesn’t bother him when someone is outside his door talking about child support at the top of their lungs. But shouldn’t it?

After I went back in the room, my charmer asks, “Everything, ok?”

“Yeah,” I say. I motion to the newspaper she’s holding. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing worthwhile.” She sets the paper on the table. “Just an article that says doughnuts are trendy again.”

“Oh,” I sigh.

4/2/13 9:36 PM

As I lumbered through the lobby, a bunch of barefoot and giggling teenagers (yes, they still do that), flowed passed me, out the door into the hotel courtyard, aimed for the pool. I took the stairs and heard a man one flight up from me, bitching to himself, “F---ing tourists!” I passed him mid-flight. He wore a hotel maintenance shirt and forced a smirk on his hard face. Poor bastard—another man with a soul-sucking job.

A conference was in full swing on the 3^rd floor just down the hall from my room. A Christian conference. Lots of beaming faces greeting each other. Standoffish, I parted the hall like a beaten-down Moses. Just wanted to get to my room.

And there, my beautiful wife and daughter were waiting with big smiles, while the pleasant aroma of a pasta dinner wafted through the room. All with the added bonus that my books had arrived: the final print proof of BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 and Ross Macdonald’s The Ivory Grin and The Blue Hammer. Macdonald’s  Lew Archer is comfort food reading for me. The best detective the genre ever produced waiting to be read.

I started thinking ‘bout the hard-faced maintenance man on the stairs—hope he has something equally rewarding waiting for him. 

Failure To Follow Rules Will Cause Flooding

The thick-necked traveler ahead of me at the Hyatt was just building up to a crescendo when I walked in to register.

“Why do I need to show a credit card? This makes no sense. None at all.”

The young lady at the front desk had that same painted-on, pained expression I used to wear when I had worked in retail during my college days. She was basically telling him without saying it aloud, “Go to hell, you stupid bastard.”

The man asked to speak to a manager, and the lady obliged by stepping into the back room. I’m sure the young lady asked the manager, “Can you please tell this thick-necked, stupid bastard to go to hell.” At least I'd like to imagine that she got to say it that way.

While she was away, the man turned to me for some form of comfort.

“Unbelievable,” he said as he shook his head.

I raised my eyebrows and shifted my gaze away. Didn’t wanna be a part of his suitcase. Luckily I didn’t have to answer … the manager arrived—a striking, 6’ tall redhead with a plunging neckline and take-no-prisoners hardened look. Poor bastard was outgunned.

Young Lady turned to me and asked, “Sir, may I help you?” I presented my info which Thick Neck seemed to be lacking.

After some back and forth with Thick Neck, Sexy Manager said, “Those are our rules, sir.” Thick Neck began with another lame approach, but by then, I was checked-in and heading down the hall to the elevator to get to my room. As I waited for the elevator, I heard his loud stammers and shift in tone. A “can you do me a favor” change of tune. Watership down!

The word “rule” went through my head. I remember a former boss used to say, “If a rule exists, it’s because someone somewhere screwed up.”

While I unpacked my bags for the umpteenth time over the past few weeks, I glanced around the room. An inviting, clean, cozy room. And then the sign underneath the sprinkler system, which jutted from the wall near the ceiling, caught my eye … it read, “Contact with sprinkler will cause flooding.”

I pondered the words of warning for a moment as I walked to the window and looked out. There was Thick Neck in the parking lot, tossing his suitcase—with great force—into the car trunk, and then he slammed it shut.

It’s for the best he didn’t stay. Guys like him, who can’t follow rules, would’ve flooded his room, causing a false alarm in the middle of the night that’d send the rest of us evacuating the building in our underwear. We’ve all been there, right?

I went to the desk in the corner of my room, sat down in the computer chair, and warmed up the laptop to get back to formatting the latest Hawthorne eBook. But before that, a blog post …

The Reading Habits Of A Tired Traveler

I’m pooped. I’ve been in, like, twelve states in two weeks. Published one book during that time and working on publishing three others. Not complaining, just letting you know the reason I haven’t made my usual round of the blogs. We’re trekking again this weekend, and I hope to play catch up when we get to our destination. Many of you know I read several books at the same time. Odd, but that’s me. (And, hey, I still knock on wood religiously and carry a bottle of holy water just in case.)

During my travels—and whenever I can steal some time—these are a few that I’m reading. ALL THE WILD CHILDREN by Josh Stallings. Because I just bought this book, it’d normally be farther down on my TBR list, but the opening chapter hooked me good. An interesting life well-told. HOME INVASION by good friend, Patti Abbott. Do I need to say more? This novel in stories has all the dramatic power you would expect from one of the finest short story writers of our time.

I’ve been on a kick of recent reading letters written by various writers, most recently Charles Bukowski’s SCREAMS FROM THE BALCONY: SELECTED LETTERS 1960-1970 and Hunter S. Thompson’s FEAR AND LOATHING IN AMERICA (GONZO LETTERS).

Rounding out the list is THE KILLER IS DYING by James Sallis. I started reading this one a year back, but circumstances with day job distracted me, and the book ended up in storage. I was rummaging through boxes this week when I rediscovered it, and I’m savoring this fresh, unique novel.

So that and several ARCs—for blurbs I’m working on—is what I’m reading. What’s on your nightstand?

White-Knuckled Drive

We were visiting family when we heard about an incoming snow storm. I believed the weathermen (yeah, beyond stupid) who said the storm wouldn’t hit the area until 7:00 p.m. We left with enough time to spare … or so I thought. We got caught in a helluva blizzard. As we inched down the highway, vehicles that had slid off the road dotted the median and shoulder. One car fishtailed right in front of us when he slowed to avoid hitting a tanker truck in front of him, causing us to nearly careen off the road and into the side rail ourselves. Removing one white-knuckled hand off the steering wheel, I shifted my Jeep into 4-Low and kept creeping along, while Little d got on the phone to book a room in the closest hotel 20 miles away. That turned out to be an hour drive, but we managed to make it without further incident. The whole time, my two-year-old charmer watched Little Einsteins on the Kindle Fire, unaware of the anxiety on her old man’s face.

So that’s how March 18, 2013 is treating me. How’s it going for you?

It's All Good

I talked with my nephew the entire forty miles from the train station to my sister’s home, but I don’t remember a word. Not that the conversation wasn’t interesting but ultimately my mind was preoccupied. And my stomach was twisting in knots. In less than an hour, I’d be facing my mom. Would she remember me when she saw me again after all this time? A rather selfish thought on my part, really. She has other children whose names come and go. But mine has been remembered long past expiration as the dementia takes a sledgehammer to her brain.

I think about the times when I’ve been on the phone with my mom, and we’d be having a nice reminiscence about my dad. Then all kinds of stories and references would start to pop up that just don’t fit. Come to find out, she’d actually been talking about her first husband, not my dad.

It’s like a supple-wristed Pinball Wizard launching that cognitive silver ball through the chute, sending out the ball to bounce off each rubberized pin, picking up a different piece of memory with each “bing-bing” as it travels over the 86-year-old synaptic landscape. Bing-bing! We’re in the 1940s. Bing! Back to the 1990s. Bing! Bounce back to the 60s. From hundreds of miles away, I’d do my best to knock that bastard Wizard out of the way, and I’d step up to punch those flippers, trying to jog a memory … going for a bonus game—for extra time with the mom I used to know.

We got out of the car and strolled to the house, my palms were sweating, The Who playing on the mental soundtrack. Probably should have been the fiery “Ride of the Valkyries” or the sappy “Bridge over Troubled Water.”  But I guess “that deaf, dumb, and blind kid” will do. I fell behind to let my charmers go ahead. I was scared as shit. The door opened, my sister and mom were standing there.

Mom hugged my daughter first, and then my wife. Did she call them by name? Like at the beginning of a play, the room hushed. An oval spotlight panned until it just covered the two of us. 

“Do you remember me, Mom?” 

“Of course I do, David,” she replied, her arms reaching for me. “How could I forget you?”

“Always has a replay,” the singer shouted in my ear. I hugged her tight. My universe felt righted … for now. I know tomorrow everything could—and will—change. But for the moment, it’s all good.

Deliberate Abandon

This past Wednesday, my charmers and I joined the swarm hopping the 449/194 Amtrak train out of Syracuse going to Chicago. There we switched trains and headed to Texas to visit my mom.

Some Amtrak facts: every day, more than 300 trains roar across the country at speeds up to 150 mph, and, with 21,200 miles of track, thousands of passengers can go to 46 states and three Canadian provinces. Train travel is booming again with 30 million riding the rails each year. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

We traveled 1,159 miles and covered eight states. A prime opportunity to see and meet the folks making connections … an eclectic mix of America on the go. College kids. Single moms. Mentally challenged. Elderly. Alcoholics. Photographers. Itchy chain-smokers. Actors. Working class heroes. Little-known pulp writers. But that’s a book or, at the very least, a post for another time.

It’s the American landscape that captured my imagination.

The countryside flickered by in a treasure trove of still-lifes -- countryside once shaped by Norman Rockwell paintings now crumbling into a beauty of deliberate abandon.

I snapped more than 1000 shots in all, creating a pictorial record of our journey that would otherwise never have been remembered. Along the steel rails, five sights/points of interest appeared more in my viewfinder than any other:

Roll it up and smoke it.

The writing is on the wall.

Crumbling down.

Meaner than a junkyard dog.

Final destination.

From New York to Chicago

Here are two pictures of Ava and me on an Amtrak train from New York to Chicago. My second trip on the rails, her first, and we’re having a blast. As a bonus for me, there are all kinds of characters on board. Two novels worth in the waiting. 

Tangible

My gypsy clan and I made a stop at the old family homestead in New York. Our last exit before we board the train to visit my mother. Our merry trio arrived late Monday night and didn’t have a chance to see the surroundings in the dark. When I woke up at 6:10 a.m., the clear at first light sunk in extra hard. My parents’ property is in desperate need of repair. Outside, the driveway needs gravel, fallen trees need to be cut and hauled off. Inside, soft spots in the floor boards need to be reinforced, ceiling needs to be patched, etc. I should be clear … this is not a grand estate from long ago that was meant to stand until the second coming. It’s a 1970 mobile home that sits on a basement my father built in the early 80’s. However, the crumbling abode is on a scenic twenty-two acres of land—land that would have inspired Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Robinson Jeffers to a blissful nirvana. While my dad was in good health, he—a handyman that I am not— was able to repair the place and keep it glowing.

So I was lying in bed staring out the window, my brow furrowed with thoughts spiraling like a gyroscope. After a while, I turned and looked at my charmer. I hadn’t realized she had been watching me, waiting for me to notice her as to not break my train of thought. She’s like that, which is one of the 782,432 reasons I love her. She quietly asked, “What’s wrong.”

“I know it’s silly, but I wanted this place to stand forever. I wanted to always return and see my mom and dad.” I pulled the curtain farther back to view the entire snow swept lawn. “My dad is always here … in the land, the trees and grass, and the creek that passes by. All him.  But mom … she lived for this home, and I can’t keep it up. The center can’t hold. And all that bullshit.”

She wisely let me stride down the ‘woe is me’ lane and listened intently. I waxed, on and on, about how we live in a disposable society and other mental crap, like, even memories don’t last … just look at my mom and the broken down merry-go-round that passes for a brain of hers. Nothing lasts forever.

I paused and contemplated what I just spat out. When I float back from my wounded spot, I found my charmer’s reassuring, green eyes. She said very simply, “Even the pyramids are crumbling, what do you expect?”

“Yeah. Nothing is tangible,” I replied. A few seconds passed, and we spontaneously laughed at the  direction our gravity-filled conversation lead us.

Our daughter woke up and looked at us. I saw my dad’s eyes and mom’s inquisitive nature. The past collided with the present in a whirlpool of emotions, and a thousand clichés could be inserted here, but I’ll spare you because there’s nothing new that you and an incalculable number of human beings from the dawn of time haven’t felt.  

My little girl asked me to read her a morning story, and so I do. I reach for one of her tiny books from the collection we piled on the nightstand. This dilapidated old trailer lasted long enough for me to read Biscuit Visits the Farm to my little coconut in the same room that my mother and father read Curious George to me. And, hell, that’s all I need to double down on life and keep pressing forward.