The Motel At The End Of The World.

April 2008.



Over the years, you've found your dreams increasingly populated by strip malls and stranded, boarded up gas stations surrounded by, well, nothing.

You find yourself wondering whether your dreams are infiltrating reality or the other way around whilst wandering down a tree-lined street on the outskirts of town. Suddenly the forest yields to another, completely unexpected, sprawl of liquor-stores and outlet shops. On the corner is a cozy little bar-and grill about as big as your living room. Thirty minutes later you resolve that you'll have to stop by there again, as they make a pretty impressive Philly cheese-steak.

But no experience was as surreal as the evening, during a road trip for a previous job, when you rubbed your bleary eyes and found yourself staying the night at a motel that, based on a quick look in every possible direction, was miles away from anywhere.

Lucky for you, you've always kept a spare bottle of whiskey in your briefcase in case this ever happened.

The floor-unit air conditioner hums and the television jabbers as you stare out the window at a flat, barren horizon. You throw back some whiskey and fight the urge to write a letter to every person you've ever done wrong in your life. You want to use the phone, but you know the phone bill will be deducted from your check, so you refrain.

Eventually you stumble downstairs to the little adjacent steakhouse that shares the same roof as the motel. The menu is a bit out of your price range, but you resolve to treat yourself to the most expensive thing on there.

Because, for all you know, it's the end of the world.

Storming Castle Tarantino.

November 2006.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT...", Chad says.

"Nobody REALLY knows Quentin Tarantino bought that castle. That's just the rumor going around..."

"But you gotta admit," I retort -

"STORMING CASTLE TARANTINO does make a cool sounding story title."

"I definitely concur", says Chad.



"Good God October sucked." I think to myself, suddenly stranded at Jackalope.

Between funerals,
disappointing anniversaries,
hitchhiking to and from work...
it's been pretty rough.

And fuck, dude, whatever I imagined I was going to do with myself Halloween night - it sure didn't include a long-ago ex of mine going through some sort of bullshit Fourth Step Emotional Inventory for my "benefit"...

"I'm SO sorry I stole money from you,
and cheated,
and turned tricks,
and did all those drugs,
and
and
and..."

God bless Jim Beam on nights like this. I was definitely having less fun than I had last year.

Wait, was that an indulgent thing to say?
I can't even tell anymore.

Seems like everyone I know is having a meltdown.

And really,
when you wake up alone,
crying,
three days in a row,
what's left to do but commit a half dozen federal crimes in one night?

"So what's this fixation with emotional support you got these days?", says Jon, FINALLY returning from whatever had distracted him before.

"If there's one thing I learned from escaping the psych ward and hopping a cross-country bus with nothing but the clothes on my back---"

A pregnant pause.

"It's that we really don't NEED other people."

I, drinking away my hangover, suddenly find myself unable to give a cohesive rebuttal.

And speaking of emotional support,
Linda shows up,
and I suddenly worry about parts of a recent drunken phone call
during which I don't remember what I said,
except that I was crying while saying it.

I suggest 3 shots of Jim Beam.

"I'm carrying $10,000 worth of camera equipment with me" she says...

"and?", I say.

"and I guess I'm having a shot of Jim Beam." is her reply.

"...and then we're gonna break into Castle Tarantino," I suggest.

"Wait, where'd you come up with that?" asked Linda.

By the way, if anyone asks,
we were at Trophy's the whole night,
after we left Jackalope...
and this is a work of speculative fiction.

...

"So you guys going to the castle?" asks this young bearded gentleman, as we attempt as casually as possible to jump the fence.

"Well THAT was the opposite of smooth...", Linda laments.

"Nah, I don't care", says beard, "just be careful; the cops have been there every night this week."

The view from the roof of Castle Tarantino would have been worth getting arrested over. I can't possibly explain the feeling of looking over a gorgeous view of downtown Austin, so close and so large that I couldn't wrap my arms around it, in a castle covered entirely with graffiti, drinking cheap-ass beer with two of my best friends (one of which I spent the last two weeks sure I'd never see again)...

Ahem-

I mean, that's what I'd say if we were actually there.

"What a great night," says Linda, on the back patio of Trophy's, sniffing the base of my shirt she's grasping with both hands.

"We smell like booze and arson."

"That's the perfect way to smell,
the perfect way to start a new month."

Wait, what the fuck just happened?