The King's Inn, DeLux Hotel, Royal Suites. The hotels on this rugged pocked boulevard all had majestic names, as if to make up for their location in the shittiest part of town, offering a luxury even they knew was a total farce. None of those alluring names explained the slashed curtains, stained floors, hard beds, the romantic experience. Did the god damn lights work? Maybe. Depended if you wanted to upgrade.

That didn't matter. What mattered was VACANCY. When you're desperate for a place to sleep, you'd throw $50 at the Hug-n-Tug Motel. Anything to get out of the rain. Bad planning. We found a room at 4 in the morning following a comprehensive adventure tour that crisscrossed the city. After jamming the key in the lock, the door jerked open into a harsh bland cube. Whatever. Get in. It's just a motel.

I glanced around the room, noting for a frustrated moment the unsteady drip from the faucet. A brownish-green mess of color was growing like a serpent in the nearest corner, and a faint sulfuric odor invaded the space from the bathroom whose door didn't exist. The last 15 hours would culminate here. Whatever. Just a motel. My vision was still not clear. Hazy. I looked at my companion, a slender dark-haired woman whose eyes were somehow still shining brightly, and I shrugged in good humor. Yeah well? the gesture said. She smirked, and I decided right then and there that was a look I wanted to see more often. We were exhausted. This was better than a ditch. We'd checked the ditches.

What was I doing? I'd asked that of myself regularly this weekend. Who was this woman? I didn't know. I barely knew her. I'd traveled across the country to reunite with this confused confusing creature, to pause time and ignore the reality I'd left behind. Now is now was her mantra. That was appealing even if it didn't make sense. Maybe she was a distraction, or maybe not. But she was beautiful, and she saw something in me, whatever it was. Maybe I was the distraction.

Wordless, we crawled into the bed, slipped under the blanket and remained quiet. This cheap room was imbued now with some pregnant quality. Expectation. I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know… the words tumbled through my mind like the controlled chaos of a city intersection. I'd written that in my journal the night before meeting her, those three words over and over. It looked frightening on paper: a madman's entry. I swear I’m not crazy. Abruptly she turned toward me. Her rigid form, one of strength, poise and grace throughout the night, melted. We embraced, clutching one another like a lifeline in a grieving ocean. Her soft face pressed into my chest. She was shaking, quivering with the repressed tragedy of her secret troubles. I held her close, saying nothing and caressing gently her velvet black hair as shuddering sobs wracked her body. I smelled her hair. What did it smell like? I don’t know, it just smelled good. I love how they smell. I cupped her face with a hand, and brought her lips briefly to mine. A gesture of compassion and humanity, maybe mercy. We lay entwined. Sorry I'm so depressed, she'd said earlier in the evening, when the savage might of the drugs was still screaming through us. We're both depressed, I'd replied. It's okay let's just be depressed together. She seemed to like hearing that. Permission to be weak.

I wondered what would happen next. Probably nothing. Whatever. It's just a motel.