"Intriguing," the Writer said and almost laughed.
"Now get outa my store, and if ya got a sliver'a brain, get outa town."
The Writer fled the Qwik-Mart as if fleeing killers.
That was something... and I've only been in town a few minutes. On the street, he lit a cigarette and stood for a minute in a studied daze. What a rush—profound yet... indefinable. He figured that first kick of nicotine-drenched smoke had to be as good as the opium Thomas de Quincey smoked when he wrote "Sighs from the Depths." Next, he walked down the vacant road, to the Gilman House Motel.
««—»»
The Writer rented his $10-per-night room—Room Six, the imperfect number, according to the Bible and the Koran—from a stout, fiftyish woman with a face uncomfortably similar to Henry Kissinger's. "Oh, you must be the writer!" she enthused the instant he came through the seedy doorway. This continued to perplex him. The shoemaker with diabetes told people I was here? Impossible. He didn't talk to anyone...
Much to the woman's delight, he paid a month in advance. "Oh my word! I'll give you the best room in the house! We've never had a bestselling author stay with us before."
The Writer smiled modestly. He didn't quite have it in him to point out that of all his dozens of published books, he'd never even come close to hitting a bestseller list, but of course, he wouldn't have wanted to. He despised all that was commercial, like Faulkner. The art of writing could never be about money. It had to be about the struggle for true art.
"Is that one'a them newfangled computers I keep hearin' about?" she asked of his second carry bag. He had associates who had solicited this new, corruptive technology, with things called RAM and kilobytes and five-inch floppies. My God! What would Samuel Coleridge think? "You can make revisions on the screen!" one peer, a frivolous high-fantasy writer, had celebrated. "No more Liquid Paper!" The Writer had calmly informed him that he'd own one of these infernal contraptions over his dead body. "The day I allow technology to come between my Muse and the sheet of paper is the day I hang myself at the foot of T.S. Eliot's grave. Indeed, the New Age of Creativity is becoming... pun intended... a Wasteland... " Liquid Paper and white-out tape were as crucial to the writer as oil paints were to Peter Paul Rubens. If there were no metal type bars striking a piece of paper rolled over a rubber platen, then it wasn't art one created, but something sorely less. Bells needed to ring! and keys needed to snap! The carriage needed to zip! back and forth as the writer's Muse fired from his mind to his fingertips and poured like blood onto the page. Without any of that?
Folly, the Writer knew. A lie...
"No, it's a typewriter," he told her. The woman's name, not surprisingly, was Mrs. Gilman, and it was the "Mrs." part that sent a bolt up the Writer's spine. He knew it wasn't compassionate but he couldn't help it. Some man actually married her—that face, Henry Kissinger. "I keep it well-lubricated so it doesn't make a lot of noise. I hope no one's disturbed."
"By some noise?" The woman huffed a laugh like Aunt Bee on Andy Griffith. "You could probably tell this ain't exactly a flourishin' town, sir. I mostly rent by the hour, if ya know what I mean. A gal's gotta make a livin' just like anyone, hmm?"
The Writer wasn't disheartened. It was just more reality to nourish his Muse. Prostitution was certainly an integral facet of the human condition, and he thought at once of the monumental play by Sartre. My book needs to be REAL... "I understand completely, Mrs. Gilman."
Her voice lowered. "And if ya choose to indulge... ya might wanna wrap it, as they say."
"Oh, I won't be indulging, Mrs. Gilman. As an artist, my perceptions need to be keen. Angst from abstinence is converted to creative enlightenment."
What Mrs. Gilman dubbed The Best Room in the House was easily the worst room the Writer had ever checked into. Cockroach corpses lay scattered like broken brazil nut shells, and when he peeked under the bed, his vision was greeted by a petrified rat belly-up, little legs stiff in the air. The small, iron-railed bed had a great dip in the center, as if previously owned by someone who weighed half a ton. Peeling wallpaper was patterned by smoke-stained tulips and, in places, dirty handprints. Every handprint tells a story, he considered. A genuine Philco radio sat on an exhaust-blue dresser, though the Writer doubted he'd be opening any of the dresser's drawers. There was also a fan festooned by strings of dust, a metal waste can with, of all things, G.I. Joes on it, and a put-it-together-yourself writing desk and chair that had stickers on them reading DART DRUG. More dust-strings rounded the room's corners.
Not exactly a "Clean, Well-Lighted Room," eh? he ribbed himself and had to bite his lip not to laugh.
Get it?
A peek in the bathroom showed a rusted, claw-foot tub, a cracked mirror (was that blood in the cracks?) and—wouldn't he know it?—used condoms floating in the toilet. Mrs. Gilman was fluffing the pillows on his bed when he came back in, and that's when he noticed some irregularities on the wallpaper. Someone had drawn a bull's eye over the waste can. A yard back was what appeared to be a crayon mark on the floor. Closer inspection showed him lines of some dried starchy substance in or near the bull's eye.
My God, the Writer thought. Target practice...
"It ain't a fancy room, sir," the husky woman said, "but it's got... "
The Writer pointed a finger and smiled. "Character. It'll do fine, Mrs. Gilman."
"And if there's anythin' you need, you just come see me."
"Thank you. You're very hospitable."
From a pouch on her frumpy dress, she withdrew a plastic bag of something. "Try some. They're delicious!"
The Writer paled. It was a bag of dried apricots. "No. Thank you."
"Hope you enjoy your stay!" She beamed. "My goodness! We gots a real live writer stayin' with us!"
"Goodnight, Mrs. Gilman."
She left but stuck her head back in. She pointed to the clap-trap writing desk. "Oh, and you kin put'cher typewriter right there," but of course she pronounced typewriter as "tap-ratter." "You got a wonderful view!"
"I'll do that, Mrs. Gilman."
Finally she left. Wonderful view? He looked out the window and winced. It was a junkyard that extended back to a scrawny woodline. Old car hulks lay on their sides, and between two, a mangy dog was defecating. He kept convincing himself that the environment was a creative necessity. Henrik Ibsen would've LOVED this room. He could've written a sequel to "The Wild Duck" here... So if it was good enough for Ibsen, it was good enough for the Writer.
But the "view" would have to go. He pulled down the stained shade, then immediately saw some graffiti. IF THE SUN REFUSED TO SHINE, I WOULD STILL BE LOVING YOU— LED ZEPPLIN, some redneck had scrawled. The Writer winced again. He whipped out his Sharpie and wrote HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE—J.P. SARTRE.