Park Inn by Bobbi Inskeep

114. I present my plastic card into the slot and wait until the light turns green, inviting me in. Park Inn Motel; maroon carpet, cotton white bedding, and the smell of musky wallpaper fills the air. I drag myself in smelling of beer and cigarettes. I don’t smoke or drink. I throw my purse full of my useless life belongings onto the unmade bed where I slept the night before next to a man who has forgotten our love. I run my fingers through my soft, tangled mess of hair and to a man who has forgotten our love. I run my fingers through my soft, tangled mess of hair and stare into my reflection in the mirror. Ruined make-up, running eyeliner, and bags under my eyes. It’s six a.m. in disgust of myself, I look away and rub my sore shoulders and thank god that the night is over.

I drag my feet across what feels like oil, which soaked into what was once beautiful, soft maroon carpet. I recall lying on that oily carpet the night before when the world had turned against me, and all the lights went out.

Switching on the lamp near the bed, I made my first phone call home since I had moved to LA, in hopes to find a better life. I needed to hear my mom’s voice; needed to apologize for thinking LA would give me a better life. But I got no answer, no rescue, no one to help me from falling; and so there I lay. I remember thinking how the night before; my crying face was carelessly lying against maroon carpet, invested from people leaving behind remnants. Then I also remember thinking about how sorry he would have been to find me with slit wrists, lying on maroon carpet, next to cotton white bedding, at the Park Inn Motel. I had never really thought of suicide before, but I needed him to have a reaction of me, I wanted to make me him feel again. Feel something. Anything.

My child-like moans of pain swirled the room like a tornado. My chest heaved in and out rapidly, my eyes cried and squinted my nose was runny, and my fingers caressed the squishy carpet, grasping for just one second where my pain could melt into the ocean of the oily carpet and be swept away on the next big wave My body quarreled and twisted with every ache and every stab, my legs wrapped around one another and I could feel the prickliness of them from not shaving for a day. I wanted my air to run out so my chest could stop heaving and my heart could stop beating; just so I wouldn’t be able to feel his anger, his hatred, and his laughter beating me down.

I force my ripped blue jeans to the floor, and peel off my forest green tank top, revealing my naked skin to slightly colder air muscling its way out of cracked vents. I shiver as goose bumps crawl up my spine, making my way to the bathroom. Tripping over empty pizza boxes, take-out trays and his dirty laundry, I close my eyes and envision that I am not trapped here in this motel.

I turn the faucet to hot, letting the steam fog up the mirror in the bathroom. Standing under the water; my eyes squeeze shut, cleansing myself after another night working the bar, and getting manhandled by belligerent drunks. I sit down in the bottom of the tub, rolling my soggy fingertips over my warm skin, playing with the water droplets. I scrub away the night, trying to get the smell of smoke from my hair and alcohol on my skin.

I sit there and fall out of time, making it seem like hours before I blink and try to gather myself. When my weary body picked itself up—like rising from a grave—my swollen, red eyes could see the happy morning sun peaking its nose in through 1970’s style sky-blue curtains. I think of how the rest of the world is just waking up for work, and how their homes are filled with the smell of warm coffee and eggs for breakfast. I think of wives kissing their husbands goodbye before work, and getting the kids ready for school. That was supposed to be me.

I reach for an overgrown t-shirt that belong to my lover. Pulling it carefully over my head, I look up and start to whimper like a dog that is asking to go pee. I run my fingers over the t-shirt design, tracing it as if it were going to bring me closer to the man who wore it last. And when it doesn’t, I collapse onto cotton white bedding that crinkles when I move and force my eyes to close.

Engulfed in the ocean of white cotton, I smush my teary face into semi-soft white pillows, and tears began to overflow from my eyes, leaking out warm liquid down my face and neck. With the darkness behind my eyelids, my mind begins to replay through everything, like an old movie reel, starting from the moment I agreed to run away with the man who promised me the world.

His green eyes sparkled with the dancing sunlight. Sitting in the passenger seat on the way to L.A., I ran my fingers through his hair, and we sang the songs as they played at random on the radio. I propped one foot on the dashboard, the other carelessly hung outside to feel the warm summer wind. “I love you baby,” I said. He smiled, showing the world his beautiful pearly whites, and then replied “I love you too.”

That seemed much longer than two years ago. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering when we we’re that happy. And as I sift through it all, I can’t grasp that one thing that made him stop loving me, that one thing that drove new love to a torn down L.A. motel that was directly in front of the freeway.

We were good for one another in the beginning. He was romantic. I was young. He’d plan picnics at the state park on the beach, and we’d sit there until the sun went down and hold one another. Every Christmas he’d buy me a stuffed teddy bear with a necklace on it, and hide a present in the tree. We’d take long walks at night, and every time we’d see the different kind of animal, like a crane, or swan, or a beaver. It felt good to see the world with him, even small bits and pieces seemed perfect enough for us. We’d lie around for hours holding one another, talking, and being close to each other. That used to be enough.

L.A. was going to be our start. A chance to separate from the chaos at home, and be independent. We got married at 2 a.m. by Elvis. That was two years ago. Now, when we do communicate, it’s usually through glances or insults. He’s grown unhappy with me; I feel the same way about myself. I thought seeing L.A. together would be good for us. I thought we’d be building a life. Instead I feel like I was only running from my problems, and instead they followed me here.

I think of him. How much my mom still thinks of him, especially on his birthday. Her father, my grandfather. He died after my mom had her first baby. He didn’t even get to hold her before he died, because he was in the hospital sick with liver failure from alcohol poisoning. My mom had five kids, me being the second from the youngest. All of us grew up knowing alcohol was the devil because it took away our grandfather. I always caught my mom crying when my oldest brother would come home smelling of liquor, as she had to tuck away her three beautiful grandbabies, because their father was too busy getting drunk. I ‘d overhear lectures to him; mom telling the story of how she was only eighteen when she lost her father, and how she doesn’t want the same fate for her grandbabies. She pleaded with him to stop, he didn’t.

Now the demon has found me here, found my happiness, and destroyed it. It caught me off guard. I took a job because we needed money. It was a bartending job. I knew I wouldn’t give in that easily. I shared the view of the demon with my lover, he was against it too. However, he gave in. Me being a bartender allowed free drinks for him and eventually free drinks led to alcoholism. I sounded like my mom all those nights, when I pleaded with him to give it up; he didn’t.

And somewhere amongst the battle with him and drinking, seeing my brother in him, and the fight for survival in LA took our happiness and buried it in a deep hole. We lived in a nice apartment, a nice enough apartment. When he went into work a few times drunk, he was fired. He didn’t look for work after that. I think he gave up on himself. He turned to drinking. He slowly stopped caring about romance. I wasn’t as young, I blamed it on that. He didn’t stare anymore, that next Christmas I didn’t get a teddy bear with a necklace, or a hidden present in the tree. We didn’t even have a tree actually. I ignored all of that, said that he was just going through something. He just needed time.

Eventually he stopped doing everything. No more long walks, no more compliments. He wouldn’t even remember holidays, anniversaries, birthdays. Nothing was important to him. Nothing but drinking.

I clench my fists together and punch my pillow, and scream silently in anger. It isn’t fair. I want to be anywhere, anywhere besides trapped within these musky yellow walls, with maroon carpet and cotton white bedding that crinkles when I move. But I also want him to walk in and find me lying on maroon carpet that I had re-painted red, just so he’d feel sorry for trampling over me like a herd of wild boar.

I gave him everything of me. My purity, my trust, all of my heart, and I loved him deeper than I loved anything. He tore that all down. Made me feel like starting over isn’t even an option. Who’d want me now? A washed up loser living in a motel, with no love to spare, no trust to give.

Just as the thought of killing myself leaves my deranged, battered mind, the glow of my cell phone catches my eye. I peak my left eye open enough to read who was calling; it is the man whose shirt was pressed against my soft, pale skin. Withing a second, I heard a thud. I creep my way out of bed to unlock the door and like a baby bunny out of its hole; I hurry back under the crinkly cotton white blanket. Screaming sirens and screeching metal from semi’s passing over on the freeway grow louder then softer as the door to our ‘home’ quickly opens then closes.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Staggering, and rather loud, he tumbles in after an even longer night out with his buddies. Instant smell of beer lurks in the room like the smoke from a cigar. A few un-humorous remarks are made, probably gallivanting about something that was said earlier on in the night. Then the left side of the bed sinks down as the weight of my lover collapses on the white cotton bedding. In a drunken state of mind he says, “you’re worthless,” and then rolls over with his back to me. Using what strength was left in my aching body, my aching heart;, I reach over and trace his spine with the tip of my finger. Like it was a reflex, his strong, drunken arm flies behind him and smacks away my loving gesture of forgiveness, of reason.

My chest gives in; my eyes melt into yet another state of what felt like a never-ending rainstorm. I lay here for a while with my eyes squeezed shut, and I pray to God, to have mercy, and to help me find forgiveness and reason within myself. But as the words “you’re worthless” seep into the cracks and crevasses and burn into my skull, I pray to god telling him that I don’t buy the fact that he’s there anymore and since then, I honestly felt emptier than I normally do. Unpleasant sounds arose from my lover’s side of the bed as he snores off the booze, and I lay here thinking about my grandfather that I would have met if alcohol hadn’t met him first. Then I picture my beautiful nieces; my three, wonderful beautiful nieces, and I couldn’t help but wonder if their father could rise above his own addiction, and ensure he would be there to witness their lives.

Then I think of me, my life. Would I let my life turn out this way? Let the demon tell me that I am worthless. I don’t believe that love would, it is the demon and it is killing me in a different way that took my grandfather from my mother. Death is not the only it can kill. It takes happiness, love, trust, and it tears it down, strips it raw. It knows just what to do to make hope seem non-existent, it knows just what to do to kill your heart. And not everyone is strong to resist its charm.

I roll over, making the cotton blanket crinkle loudly, and stare into the multi-colored alarm clock that now read 7:46 a.m. With one last sigh of resentment and confusion, I close my eyes and fall asleep on a bed made of cotton snow, with carpet’s made of maroon sweat, and wallpaper decorated with yellow sunshine and the smell of an old man’s aftershave – all trapped within four walls at the Park Inn Motel.