The Hotel at the Border of Reality By John Evans Title Page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hotel at the Border of Reality

By John Evans

Chapter 1: The Hotel

 

 

Chapter 1

The Hotel

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mojave desert is a mystical place with a long history that dated back to before the Europeans showed. It was a place where great men went to have great spiritual journeys fueled by drugs and narcissism. This barren wasteland of sand and rock was where Jim Morrison dropped acid and declared himself the Lizard King on his way to Hollywood. Hunter S Thompson drove his catty through it on his trip to Las Vegas blasted out of his gourd on a cocktail of ether and cocaine. So would it be considered pretentious or tradition that I found myself trekking that same blistering highway? Not on a journey towards success, but fleeing from failure. I couldn't put enough distance between my review mirror and LA. I was smoking a little grass to keep me between the lines. Purely medicinal, I assure you. It soothed the aching of my wounded pride. 

 They say pride is a bone that keeps your head up when your stomach is empty. But what it really is, is the bait that keeps you in a cage of denial. There is only so long you can delude yourself before reality comes knocking. Reality hadn't come knocking for me, it had instead rudely kicked in my door and put its boot on my neck quite literally. I had made the mistake of trying to be a nice guy to someone I didn't know, forgetting that all people are pieces of shit, and nearly got beat to death for my troubles. I had been kind enough to let this girl crash at my place if that's what you want to call the run-down hole-in-the-wall apartment I had been squatting in. This girl had turned out to be a hooker on the run from her pimp. I had no sooner gotten home from a disappointing night at work, what a joke, than some big goon had kicked in my front door and proceeded to try to stomp my guts out. And I do mean that in the literal sense. Bruises covered my chest and stomach, left by his heavy work boots. 

 I had been driving for several hours and the evening had begun to set in. The hot desert air had given way to pleasant gentle breezes. The wind felt good in my hair as my car continued east as I ran. Yeah, I was running away, but away from what, exactly? Failure? But a failed what? 

 A failed band. So what, in the last six years, I had played bass with over a dozen failed bands. Failed friendships? What friendships. Everyone was either a phony or a user. They pretended to be your friends so long as you had something they wanted. Failed relationships? Hardly, a string of one-night stands with groupies and crack addict hookers didn't count as relationships. Not the kind of girls you write home to mom about, much less take home to meet.

 So what was I running from? Failing myself, or was I just running from the shame of living in denial for so long? I had moved out here to make it big, play bass in a band that would go somewhere and be somebody. Like they used to do back in the day when bands formed in garages, then wrote their own songs, which they played, mostly stoned out of their minds. The music industry doesn't work like that anymore. Now it's all about marketing and making overproduced crap. It takes, on average fourteen people to write a junky pop song that tops the charts for maybe a few months, just to sell a few million records. Even the so-called artists are created to appeal to a mass audience. And all with studios and producers’ hands in everyone's pockets. Everything was just so artificial and fake. It was no wonder that ol' Kurt skull fucked himself with a shotgun. The music had no soul anymore. 

 I hummed the chorus of American Pie as I made an airfoil out of my hand, letting it drift on the wind current. A passing car could have taken it off and the wrist and I wouldn't have noticed. I was pretty baked and mellow at that point. There were no cops around and I was still in control of my driving, so there was no real danger. It wasn't just cops. I hadn't seen a soul in the better part of an hour. Which was just as well as I liked the solitude.

 The desert was beautiful at sundown. The blazing orange in contrast to the dark purple was absolute magic, enough to bring tears to your eyes. It was the kind of sky artists found inspiration in. Had I been a better musician, I would have attempted to turn it into a ballad. I was, unfortunately, no such thing. I was barely a serviceable bass player. Serviceable, what a joke. It's a fucking polite way of saying you are useless, but they don't have any other chance. I don't even try to pretend anymore that most of the gigs I did get were not due to my talent. They only picked me over better players solely due to them being too stoned or drunk to play. But no one cares about the guy on bass. You keep pace with the drum and maybe sing a little backup. But for the most part, your job is just to stand there and not fuck it up. So long as you do that, you can shove your guitar up your ass and no one notices. Bass players are the invisible man of the musical world unless you have some sort of hook or godlike talent. Slash, I am not. My beat-up old fender got pawned for just enough to fill up my tank with gas. I would have sold my beat-up old car for a bus ticket if I had had some idea of where the hell I was going. I had just jumped in my car and booked it. Lit out for the territories, as they used to say. I didn't know where I was going, but I would know when I got there, I guess.

 The desert was calming, and peaceful. A wonderland of sand and sky. No wonder why the Native Americans had sought spiritual awakening in such a place. I played with the idea more than once of pulling the car over to the edge of the highway and just wandering off into it. Go commune with the Lizard King. If I was lucky, someone might even find my dead body someday. Probably not, though.

 I had left L.A. late, and that was on the back end of not sleeping the night before. There had been a rather sketchy gig that someone supposedly set up and a lot of unorganized back and forth. This had resulted in standing around all night with my thumb up my ass instead of playing. No gig meant no money, and no money meant...problems. Problems that I finally decided I didn't need, so I swallowed my pride and skipped town. Getting tuned up helped with the decision-making process. Now that it was getting late, I was getting tired and Mary Jane is not exactly a stimulant. My head was getting heavy and I could barely keep my eyes open. I woke up a bit when I nearly ran off the road and decided that it was time to think about pulling over and getting some shut-eye. That is when I saw it. A light in the distance. There isn't much out in there in the middle of nowhere. But what is out there is fascinating. Old roadside attractions and oddities from past decades. Little refugees of forgotten eras, from back, when people had more money and higher hopes, I guess. Optimistic small business owners who had sought to get rich off vacation road trips. Each was more gimmicky than the last. 

 I pulled off the highway heading in that direction, thinking that at the worst it was probably a service station where I could get some gas and a soda to wake me up or, at the very least, sleep in the parking lot. As I headed down the exit ramp, a snatch of that old Robert Frost poem came to mind, the one that goes: But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and it brought a mischievous smile to my lips. Feeling that since all I had done was nothing but break promises, some sleep was well-deserved, and so what if it wasn't? The miles would keep. They weren't going anywhere, and every possibility was open to me. I could go to New York and try my hand again as a failed musician, or head down to Miami and soak up some sun while tending a bar until I got bored with shagging rich housewives. Fuck it, I could set down in god damn Kansas with Dorothy and Auntie Em and plant corn if I wanted to. 

 Those were decisions I could make tomorrow, or the next day, or never. All I wanted at the moment was to sleep and to forget. One would help the other, and if it didn't, there was a bottle of whiskey or maybe it was bourbon. I couldn't remember. That would take care of the problem. No argument from me. That plan had all the finesse of removing a speck from a wedding cake with a shovel, but it would get the job done.

 If my luck was in, it would be a gas station that sold liquor. That would be the most serendipitous thing to happen in the past week. If I were in a more pessimistic mood, I would say in my entire life, but there was something about the long peaceful drive that had mellowed me out, though to be honest, it had more to do with the weed than the solitude and nature sights. After everything, I could use a few days to unwind and decompress, and there is no better way to do that than on a road trip. Just good music, Americana, and the open road. Wherever I ended up would be the next chapter of my life, whatever it may be. Right now, all I wanted to do was to forget and empty my mind. Miles to go before I sleep, indeed. I started to nod off as I let my mind wander and the sand bordering the road pulled at the wheels, causing me to snap awake and jerk the wheel manhandling the vehicle back onto the road. 

 The gods of irony would be quite pleased with themselves if I wound up in a ditch just shy of a mile from my pit stop. Once I was off the road, there would be no getting it out again. It would require a tow truck to get my old beater back on the road. Being that I

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.01.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-2601-2

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