"What are you supposed to be -- a rodeo clown?"
"Oh, Daddy."
"I don't know what you think we're running here."
"A motel?"
"I was supposed to talk to you, today."
"Yeah? About what?"
"I don't know. Your mother said we needed to."
"Well, I'm fine, everything's fine."
"I hope you understand, you're not getting married, you're not eloping, you're not piercing your nose, you're not even skipping off to Denver again until I say so, okay?"
"Oh, Daddy."
"Unfortunately, for the both of us, my legal responsibilities regarding you -- and I can't believe I'm talking like this -- have one more year outstanding before our mutual debt is discharged, and so, until your next birthday, you will do exactly as I please since I do not intend to abdicate my duties."
"Your throne, you mean."
"I trust that you heard and that you comprehended. I have nothing further to say on this issue. Now watch the store while I get some dinner. And don't put on that MTV crap, the guests don't like it."
And as Emory headed on back to the kitchen, he could actually feel the globe turning under his feet, the whetted prow of the future advancing through the fog, the same damn days coming at him round and round, over and over, mondaytuesdaywednesdaythursdayfridaysaturday justlikethat, a week begun and gone in a single revolution of the sun. Friends agreed, the feeling was extant, we needed more days in the calendar, extra portions stuffed into the middle of the week, more cheese in the sandwich, new days with different names, force a week to fulfill a week's worth of labor, while he, the sly thief, o'er these prison walls would leap upon the yellow wings of a screenplay with "heat."
Her mind a roiling inferno, Aeryl stalked the borders of the room, reviewing the well-tested chinks in the mortar, deciding where to sink the probe. She lingered longest at the tank by the window where Herbie lazed, all scales and silence and ancient intimation. Herbie would tell her what to do. She raised the blinds. Beyond the cracked asphalt of the parking lot down the grassy slope at right angles to Route 9 stretched six straightaway lanes of unrebuffed speed as familiar as the back of her hand and equally hypnotic, the fundamental lure of moving objects (even at this distance the drone of their transit penetrating the glass, a sound she had to attend to hear, the timeless wash of her life), the ever-present, ever-thrilling possibility of accident, a splatter of color upon the surrounding monotone, a spray of primal drugs into bodily systems dulled by dullness. She studied her nails for a moment in the honest window light, a tattered lackluster array; she should change her diet, she should eat more Jell-O. She stepped to the television and changed the channel. Herbie had spoken. Skinny guys in tight leather were hopping up and down, shaking their hair, their guitars, their buns, the stage wreathed in thunderheads of smoke pierced by multicolored spots, dragon flames roaring from mortar tubes behind the mad naked drummer. She jacked up the volume, settled back in her father's chair, held simultaneously by the battle of the demonic bands and the soulless shuttling of traffic at her window, fidgety eyes jumping from one screen to the other, waiting for somebody cute to show up via either medium. No contest. Forty-five minutes of desk clerk duty had offered her the wrinkled potatoheads of enough fat truck drivers and balding husbands to cover a week's grossout, dodging the spew of their breaths, the very road exhaust pouring from their mouths with their stupid words. The bloated ugliness of the land, candy-coated corn. To pass the time, to turn the time into a turn of entertainment, she amused herself by playing with the men, jerking them around, in the most innocent way, of course, her office shifts comparable to research periods in the lab, where she experimented with the relatively recent discovery of the erotic self, specifically the wind force of the female body (her own) upon the vulnerable exposures of the male mind. With one guy she'd undo a button or two on her blouse, lean farther in his direction than was absolutely necessary; with another she'd mimic his accent, match his life story (his fantasy) detail for detail with a fictional tale of her own. She was accommodating, she was sweet, she got inside those befuddled heads and rearranged the furniture. By the time the door closed on their backs, she'd forgotten their fronts. After a dozen or so she remembered maybe one, nice smile, nice hands, reminded her of a famous actor she sometimes liked, paid in cash, bought a piece of butterscotch fudge, and stood there at the counter chewing on it until he was done. He made her laugh. But so what?
When Father finally returned, she was a machine, appropriate responses to his cues, crisply polite, the professional daughter who knew how to take an order. She saluted, she was dismissed.
Strolling out along the south walkway, peering into windows as she passed -- the sport of the motel life and a useful education for the young -- she paused abruptly before the partially closed curtain of room 10 to observe a naked man standing before the full-length door mirror, aiming a pistol at himself. As she waited for the shot, she realized this loon was, in fact, the nice fudge man. He tossed the gun onto the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. What a world. This place was one big freak show.
The rain began sometime after dusk. Headlights bored through the storm. The neon sign smoked and hissed. At the desk, Mr. Graveyard Shift, Warren Burch, the only non-family member employed in the office on a regular basis. He had been hired because as a second-year graduate student in film studies at the University of Denver he was presumed to share similar enthusiasms with the boss, a presumption the whole family had cause to regret, his arguments with Emory over the aesthetic merits of a particular film or even, on occasion, a particular forty-five seconds, having often escalated into legendary shouting matches capable of clearing out not only the office but a few paying rooms as well. Warren spent the lonely hours of his watch poring over exhaustive frame-by-frame analyses of such seminal works as
2,000 Maniacs
and
Cannibal Holocaust
while also tending the strays, the late arrivals, the early risers, the darkness beyond his lamp held at bay by the magic of academic charms: "diegetic space," "deployed gazes," "polysemic violations," "discursive mechanisms," "inscribed bodies."
Outside, night was collapsing rather theatrically into day, big storm scene blowing still at the window, lashings of rain, windy monologues, lightning's annunciatory crack -- all FX, no plot. Nature was knocking, but she couldn't get in.
Pocketing his change, a man exited the motel office, head bowed for the splashing sprint to the car, so he didn't notice them huddled there under the open stairway like a pair of drenched orphans until the girl called out. They needed a ride, their truck had broken down. The girl he recognized, the boy had big earrings and a turquoise bandanna tied around his head, a nuclear gypsy from the future.
The man brought the car around. The couple climbed eagerly into the ruptured backseat of an antediluvian Ford Galaxie.
"There's an army blanket you can use," said the man, who watched them in the mirror unfurl the faded green material into a makeshift tent they shivered quietly beneath, heads cowled in official U.S. wool, bodies emitting the frank odor of wet dog.
The girl caught the watching eyes. They were so pale, almost white, like those of a beautiful snow leopard she had admired once in a zoo. "I know you," she said. "You're the funny fudge man." She whispered something to her boyfriend, who then brayed through yellow teeth. "This is Laszlo," she said.
The man nodded. "Tom Hanna."
"I'm Aeryl. A-e-r-y-l. You never heard of it, my father made it up. Laszlo says probably he wanted a boy. You know, Errol."
"It's a fairy's name," said Laszlo. "Like fucking Tinkerbell. Fucking Keeblerelf."
"Aeryl is sterile, they used to sing. After fourth grade I quit crying over it."
"Her father is an asshole, major league." Laszlo shifted around to get a better view of the driver. He wondered if he was queer.
"We're running away," she announced. "To Las Vegas. To get married. We're eloping."
"We're doing it our way," declared Laszlo.
"You're hitchhiking to your wedding?" asked the driver. He hadn't turned around once to look at them.
"Our truck burned out. The wires got wet, right, Lasz?"
"It's fucked." He had produced a pair of round granny glasses with yellow lenses he meticulously unfolded and perched on the end of his nose, instantly liberating himself from the dull grayness of a morning now bursting with secret suns. He scrutinized the driver from behind his mystic spectacles. It's a lemon world.
"You don't know us," said Aeryl, "but you will by next Halloween. I'm a famous actress, Laszlo's a double-platinum rock star. We'll be in L.A. then, we have plans."
The driver carefully cleared his throat before replying. "Don't mean to piss on your parade, guys, but got any idea how many wannabes wash up every day on the Strip out there?"
"Tough shit," answered Aeryl. "How many of them are witches?"
Laszlo interrupted the intense air-guitar solo he was entertaining himself with to add, "How many sacrificed a cat to Astaroth before they left home."
"You dickhead!" cried Aeryl, shoving herself against her boyfriend's unpadded body. "You ever met this dude, what if he's a cop or something?"
"He ain't no cop -- are you?"
"Do I look like one?"
"You look like a peanut salesman."
"Pay no attention," Aeryl advised. "He's been up all night, he's wasted."
"I am Azagthoth, the Sumerian god of chaos. The band's name is Necronomicon. The songs will freeze your blood."
"See, we have plans," explained Aeryl. "We're on a psychic journey. We've married ourselves already in a proper Chemical Wedding, but now we need to unite with the power of the state. And Las Vegas is a holy place, don't you think? Neon and sand and roulette and media divinities. It's all so sexy."
"I want to see Emory's face when he finds the cat. We nailed it to the Coke machine."
"It had only one eye," said Aeryl. "A very powerful curse."
"I hope his heart explodes through his fucking chest. I hope the pool bursts into flames. I hope the walls tumble into the sea."
"Who cares?" said Aeryl. "No matter what happens, Motel Hell is finished." They had each taken a turn with the knife, then walked the dripping carcass through the corridors so that now the Yellowbird sat within a circle of consecrated blood.
"I'm writing a song about it," Laszlo announced. " 'Fulminating Flesh Vapors of Decay.' I feel a monster anointing coming on,"
"I feel clammy," Aeryl complained.
"Hey, good buddy," said Laszlo to the driver, handing over the seat a small weathered vertebra he had fished with difficulty from his pocket. "A gift. For the ride. It ain't safe to go around without a bone in your pants."
Aeryl leaned back, unbuttoned her fly, and proceeded to peel off her damp jeans. "Relief at last."
"Great idea," said Laszlo, joining her in bottomless nudity under the blanket from which their grinning heads protruded in comic sculptural display.
"Another of your pagan rituals?" the driver asked.
"No," replied Laszlo, "this is," and he cupped his hand around the back of Aeryl's head and drew her roughly into an extended kiss, Aeryl moaning a bit more helplessly than necessary, the driver's tense eyes like separate creatures trapped in the cage of the mirror, multiple hands under the wool roving instinctively southward, home to the nest. Then slowly this great struggling thing beneath the blanket slid pseudopodlike out of view, its exertions changing posture and flavor, an undressed limb flung boldly over the seat to jiggle away mere inches from the driver's distracted attention, soft thigh sporting an unusual number of brown and yellow bruises, poison kisses from a devil's lips, and suddenly the charged air bloomed for all, the driver's nape hairs erect as soldiers, neck and cheeks richly mantled, a brief consonance of feeling well below the level of logic. The interior of the car reeked of unwashed bodies and humid sex scents.
Aeryl's blown-out head rose up first in sweaty amiability. "That was vicious," she declared.
"Kerrrang!" cried Laszlo, loosely rocking on an imaginary spring his long silly skull. He sat back, watching himself deflate, the little man sinking sadly back into the box. He reached over, rubbed his hands in between Aeryl's wet legs, smeared the cologne he found there over his own stubbled cheeks, then, for her amusement, pretended to wipe his fingers in the driver's curly hair.
"Show him your tits."
"Hey, I don't even know this guy."
"Show 'em, he wants to see."
Aeryl considered for a moment, then edged forward on the seat, a clutch of black T-shirt in her fist she yanked quickly up and down.
"I'm not sure he saw. Do it again."
"It's a one-act show."
"That's okay," said the driver. "I've seen bare breasts before."
"You haven't seen hers. She's beautiful. She ought to be appreciated. What's the matter with you?" Their eyes met in the intimacy of mirror space, Laszlo's angry blues glittering with the message direct and unmistakable: I, a man younger, stronger, braver than you, have this minute, under your quivering old nose hairs, fucked a woman younger, sexier, more desirable than any you can ever hope to win, ergo, you must acknowledge the superiority of my force, the potency of my prick, so said stone eyes from a clearing in the wood.
"Quit it," said Aeryl. "You two guys want to screw, you can let me out here."
"I don't believe I like his face," said Laszlo.
"Here come the cops," announced the driver, as a flashing patrol car screamed up past them and away.
"Fucking's not against the law," said Aeryl, offended.
"Not yet," replied Laszlo, lingering almost lovingly in the reflecting glass, a final look fashioned as a promise, that's right, buddy, I ain't finished with you yet, not by half, before confidently settling back into the split webbing of the seat, where he pretended to sleep, listening in private darkness to the oceanic voice of wind and wheels that pronounced the abiding stupidity of civilization and its contents, and presently -- such were his skills of impersonation -- slipped, with no discernible transition, into the actuality, and he slept.