You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The La Quinta Inn in Tuscaloosa.
“Make a right in 100 yards,” my GPS hollers.
My girlfriend is nervous. I see her looking around, trying to relock doors that are all ready locked.
“Is this the hotel?” she says trying to be brave.
I want to say no. But I’m afraid it is.
This doesn’t feel right, I think as I pull past a Chinese restaurant in a crack alley.
Tuscaloosa is not pretty. It’s a strip mall in a sweat stain wrapped in a disease filled burrito.
But surely the La Quinta Inn is nicer than a heroin den in a strip mall by a dumpster?
“I hope not,” I say driving around the two-story motel.
Guests are leaning on the upstairs bannister smoking cigarettes and staring at us as we drive toward the lobby.
It reminds me of a crime scene I visited recently where everyone in room 206 died of a heroin overdose.
I pull up to the lobby.
Two shirtless white men are standing outside smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
Are they guests? Are they employees? Are they robbers, taking a smoke break?
It’s hard to know.
I stare at them and they nod. It feels like I’ve seen them before in a police line up
I walk into the lobby.
It is the opposite of opulent.
It is a square room with a counter and a fern in the corner.
If it was grungy, that might be an improvement.
The décor is forgettable, yet dirty.
The lobby says run away, cancel your reservation, don’t go for your wallet without first looking around.
We sheepishly move to the front desk, and stand behind a woman conducting business.
The woman behind the desk is telling her that every room is booked. The guest seems good-natured and understanding. The conversation is friendly, but the imagery seems wrong.
There is a black man leaning on the counter. I don’t know if he is asleep or drunk. He has no shirt on. His pants are sagging down below his ass revealing a fine pair of brown boxer shorts.
If this was anywhere else, this man would not be here. If this was the Marriott or the Hilton, security would be assisting this man out the door.
But this is a drug deal waiting to go down and this man is next in line.
His friend, a black woman, perhaps a teenager, is standing beside him.
“I like your pants,” she says to my girlfriend.
The girl is attractive, yet dirty. She is southern and seems like a street nymph.
I don’t pay much attention to her, keeping my eye on the man at the counter who is agitated and asking for a room.
The young girl again says she likes my girlfriend’s pants.
It’s so odd. The sentence by itself is awkward like serving fried catfish at a royal christening.
“Thanks,” my girlfriend replies, trying to be polite.
“I’m shy,” the girl quickly counters. “I don’t think I could wear that. It’s so pretty.”
Shy?
I immediately think we’re being conned.
This couple is off.
Something is very wrong about the girl and the man with the saggy pants.
“do you have any rooms,” the saggy pant man asks.
“We’re sold out for graduation,” the clerk says blankly.
He is disgusted and walks out. The young girl smiles, walking behind.
What was that? I think to myself as I walk to the counter.
“can I help you?” the manager on duty says.
“I have a reservation for Friday and Saturday,” I say.
“We only have smoking rooms,” she says with a sweet syrupy smile.
I’m growing angrier by the second.
“you can check the room to see if you like it,” she insists.
See if I like it? I’m not going to like it, I think to myself. It’s the University of Alabama graduation in 12 hours. The whole city is sold out.
What am I going to do?
I am not going to get a room at this late hour in a cat box known as Tuscaloosa.
“I’ll take the room tonight, but I need to cancel for Saturday,” I say.
“We can’t do that sir. You booked through a third-party and it’s a two night minimum.”
WTF?
More crazies fill the lobby.
I am growing angry, but keep my cool.
I decide I’ll fight this battle later.
We carry our bags up the stairs and down the filthy cat walk.
We walk to room 230.
I push the plastic room key with the picture of Little Caesars pizza on the plastic into the slot.
The door unlocks.
I push open the door. The overwhelming stench of as 12 step meeting slaps me in the face.
It’s a combination of smoke and perspiration and angst.
The room is dark and dingy. I pull the drapes revealing a sweat stain.
It smells like an ash tray.
The rumble of I-20 can be felt 50 yards away.
I hear a big rig truck down shift, its engine whining in a cocophanous thundering rumble.
Oh my God that’s close, I think to myself.
My girlfriend gets emotional.
“What’s wrong?” I say knowing what’s wrong.
“Nothing really,” she says, wiping her eye. “It’s just not what I was expecting.”
Nobody would expect this except the Tuscaloosa Police Department.
“I know. It sucks. I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like this in the brochure.”
I would never have booked this room had I known this.
I look around the room. It is two double beds with a night stand between them. The clock radio on the night stand is from 1974.
The carpet is brown and still shows stains.
The wall is spackled in places. What were they trying to conceal I wonder. An outburst of some sort. Perhaps bullets were fired? Perhaps a human threw another human at the wall in a fit of rage?
I look in the bathroom. The tub is so close to the toilet, I wonder if there is enough room to actually sit.
I hear people yelling in the parking lot over the roar of a semi truck honking its horn.
Are they angry? Is this just the clientele that comes here?
OMG this sucks
I turn on the TV.
The hotel doesn’t have HD but it does offer ambiance channels.
They have a babbling brook, a fire-place log complete with crackle and rain hitting a soft meadow.
I turn the TV loud and close the door trying to shut out the sweat stain that is this moment.
The crackling log on the TV helps ease the discomfort.
I light a scented candle and try and mask the cigarette smell.
I turn off the glaring light over the desk that illuminates a DNA spatter that should only be visible with a violet light.
“It’ll be Ok,” I say.
Let’s go to the campus and grab a drink and forget this place for a while.
“yeah,” she says with a renewed optimism.
And with that, we dismiss the dumpster fire we will call our room for the next 8 hours.
I put on the yule log and suddenly the crime scene is a crackling lodge in the mountains.
The blood spatter DNA is replaced with the frolicking orange flicker of a log burning in my vacation home in Lake Tahoe.
I no longer hear the semi trucks or the questions about pants.
Suddenly the world is what I want it to be in that moment.
Mind over matter.
Life is what you decide it will be.
Life’s Crazy™