In the Sprawling Decline of the Stretch Motel
Photo by Missy Kim
This week, I thought I’d share an excerpt from one of my short stories, “The Stretch Motel.” It was longlisted for the John Steinbeck Award for Fiction and was published in Issue 153 of Reed Magazine. It’s included in my short story collection, Tales From the Liminal, coming this fall from Deuxmers Publishing.
A wad of chewing tobacco bulges behind Francine’s bottom lip as she presses a Gideon into my palm and says, “You know, Jimmy, you’re gonna die someday.”
I look down at the little green book, vinyl-bound with fake gold letters. We put ’em in every nightstand, along with a dogeared coupon for Angelino’s Pizza and a color postcard for the Klassy Gents Klub. The Stretch Motel is all about options.
“And that someday might be soon,” she adds, spitting into the dandelions that sprawl out of the cracks in the curb.
“Francine,” I reply with a raised eyebrow, “you’re not thinking of having a hand in that, are ya?”
She grins, flecks of tobacco clinging to her yellow teeth. Brown juice oozes up to the top of her bottom lip, and I wonder why she’s bringing up death so goddam early in the morning. She unlocks the next room.
Cleaning motel rooms isn’t hard, per se. You rip off the sheets and put on a new set. Swipe down the toilet and the sink—no need to bleach anything, just make it look good. Stash the bathroom with clean towels, fresh soap, and those little shampoo and conditioner bottles everybody takes home and leaves sit in the medicine cabinets for six years ’til they finally throw ’em out, unused. Vacuum if necessary. Dust with a generic orange-scented wax product. Wipe the windows with a generic lemon-scented glass cleaner. Make sure the coupon, the card, and the Gideon are neatly arranged in the drawer, bottoms together, tops fanned out. Rotate the one that’s on top if you’re unsure, like me, which you prefer.
We’re just about to step into Room 176, when we hear tires squeal into the parking lot. We hurry down to the end of the 170s and lean out around the corner, bracing ourselves against the wind gusting off the semis that whiz down the interstate. It’s so damn bright we can’t make out the vehicle, so we shield our eyes in synchronicity, like recruits saluting the flag. A boxy, brown Buick LeSabre with out-of-state plates pulls up to one of the cheapest rooms nearest the highway. A room so damn loud you can’t help but picture the poor insomniac bastards flipping through the channels late at night, the fake pine paneling closing in around ’em, as they reach for the nightstand drawer.
Order pizza.
Call a girl.
Get saved.
No one’s really sure which way to go, so you try a little of each, and then, as Francine has reminded me for some goddam reason today, you die.
Tales From the Liminal is available for order from all your favorite bookstores
and now available as an audiobook on all your favorite platforms!
