Peter Grist - Flashback

The tattered brown vinyl swivel chair protested loudly as the mechanic’s mass landed onto the seat. It creaked once more as Buster slowly turned to face the wall behind the door. He leaned forward placing his elbows on his knees and put his hands together and rested his chin on his fingertips, as if in prayer. In the corner stood an old-fashioned girls bike, it’s shiny, cherry red paint glistened in the dust filtered light, the word Schwinn painted in white, looked as fresh as the day it was made, as did the rest of the bicycle and the tassels that hung down from the handlebar grips.

He could hear her laughing and screaming on that special birthday morning, see her running down the hall, so fast she nearly tripped, desperate to get to the front room, to see what her folks had brought for her. It was so big they couldn’t wrap it. It wasn’t new of course, but he had lovingly repainted it, made it look good as new, and then tied a huge pink bow around it. She screamed with delight when she saw it and begged to go out on it right away, but not before giving huge hugs and kisses to her mommy and daddy.

Buster sighed deeply, “Oh Gracie!”

Ed was heading out to the other side of town when he spotted the motel. The car bumped into the parking lot of the Mountain View Motel, the trapezoidal neon sign out front flashed that there were still vacancies, and looking around the almost empty parking spaces, this came as no surprise to Ed. The single-story chalets were grouped in an L shape with the reception situated at the shorter left end, so Ed drove to that side and pulled up under the welcome shade of the portico by the entrance, but just the short walk from the car to the reception had Ed sweating in the heat of the relentless sun. He entered the foyer, glad to feel a rush of cool air from the air-conditioning over the door. The reception had three mismatched armchairs surrounding a glass-topped coffee table, an empty rack that once held brochures on local points of interest, a side stand that held a coffee maker and the reception desk itself. The cream vinyl cushioning on the front of the desk had seen its fair share of people coming and going. Tears in the fabric spewed tufts of sponge and missing buttons from the pattern corroborated the air of neglect. An old portable television sat on top of the marble effect Formica surface, its aerial, made from a coat hanger looked like a question mark. As Ed neared the desk he saw a small button, with ‘Ring me’ written beside it. Wondering if this was the only motel in town, he pushed the button and heard an electric buzz coming from somewhere behind the wood panelling beyond the desk. He released his finger but the buzz continued and when he looked closer, Ed saw that the button had stayed down. In his imagination, the buzz was getting louder as he fumbled to unstick the alarm, trying to prize the button out with his finger nails.

“Hey, don’t worry about that”. A fleshy fist thumped down next to the button and it popped out, silencing the noise and startling Ed. “Always getting stuck, damn thing, it’s on the top of my list of jobs to do, names Ryan, Sam Ryan, welcome to Mountain View. Ed Saunders, am I right? You phoned yesterday saying you’d be arriving this afternoon. Don’t get many visitors through here nowadays. Hey, listen to me rattling on, how long will you be staying for Mr Saunders?

Quickly recovering from the shock of the man appearing from nowhere and his machine-gun-like speech, Ed could see that the receptionist had come through a door at the other end of the panelling, that when shut, was almost impossible to see. Being as diplomatic as possible, Ed would still have had to describe Sam as obese, short and with no dress sense what so ever. The bright yellow Hawaiian shirt, complete with multi-coloured canaries was louder and more incessant than his voice. His dark green eyes were enlarged by the lenses in his circular wire-rimmed spectacles. The ruddy, veined, rotund face looked as if it had seen at least fifty summers, but the beaming smile seemed very genuine.

“Oh, well it’s Tuesday today so I guess I should be done by Thursday. Yes, I think just two nights should do it, but I’ll let you know”.

“Okay, great! You want a single or double? Extra space for just a couple of bucks more.”

“No, a single will be just fine, thank you.”

“Awesome! Well, I’ll put you in room 14, just across the way. Quietest room, you know, sometimes we get kids have a party in one of the rooms, but I always give them a room this side so I can keep an eye on them. Hell, I don’t mind ‘em coming here, they gotta go somewhere right? But you won’t hear a thing I promise you”. With a speed that defied his looks, Sam whipped out a large registration book from under the desk. “If I could just ask you to fill in the relevant details please, and oh, I’ll have to swipe a credit card from you, although nothing will be charged against it until you settle your bill, you understand?”

“Yes, of course, no problem”. Ed picked out his company credit card and handed it over before going back to filling in his registration details. Once complete, Ed looked up and as if by magic, a room key appeared in Mr Ryan’s hand, which he promptly dropped into Ed’s.

“If you need anything, press ‘0’ on the phone, I’m always here, and for an outside line press ‘9’ for the dialling tone. Anything else I can help you with right now?”

“No, I don’t think so, thank you”.

“Alright then”. Sam looked at Ed expectantly, obviously waiting for him to leave.

“Right, thanks”. Ed turned and walked towards the door but after just a couple of steps he stopped and turned back to the receptionist, “Oh, yes, have you got any ice?” But Ed was talking to an empty room; the gap in the panelling had disappeared along with the stout but fleet-footed Mr Ryan.

Ed moved his car out from under the shade of the portico to the other side of the parking lot passing what looked to be a recent installation, a tall soft-drinks vending machine and a large ice machine next to it, answering his question from a minute before, then stopped nose in, directly outside room 14. Just grabbing his luggage from the trunk of the car and walking the ten steps to the room again caused the salesman to burst into another bout of perspiration. A blanket of trapped heat escaped from the room as Ed turned the key in the lock and nudged the door open with his holdall. Ed carried most of his clothes in an old air force aviator’s canvas suitcase that dated from World War 2. It had a main zipper that ran around three of the four sides of the case, starting and ending near the leather handle. When unzipped it unfolded to double its size. On each outer side was another smaller zipped compartment. Over the years he had learnt to travel light, except for his laptop that was about all the luggage he carried on his trips. The short walk from the car had caused more sweat to pour down his forehead and as he entered the stuffy confines, another wave of perspiration erupted, making his creased tan chinos and blue cotton shirt stick to his bulky frame. With the garish cheap orange curtains pulled closed, the room was in semi-darkness. Slinging his bag and laptop onto the faded bedcover, he turned and flicked the light switch. The bare low-watt bulb made a brave attempt to illuminate the few pieces of miss-matched and battered furniture clustered into the small room. The bedcover matched the awful curtains.

“Nice!” he thought to himself with irony, “but I’ve seen worse.” His eyes quickly scanned the room, taking in the small dresser with the polished steel mirror, a white Formica wardrobe, a table with two chairs over in one corner and a bedside table that held an alarm clock, telephone and many cigarette burns. At the rear of the room he saw another door which he assumed lead to the bathroom. As with most motels, there was no back door. He found what he had been searching for. Just above the bedside table, he read the small handwritten piece of paper that had been taped to the wall, ‘Air-Conditioning’. He stepped forward and flicked the switch below the notice, praying to the god of ice popsicles that it would work. A rattle from the main unit above the front window told him it was still alive, but was it in good health he wondered? He made the three steps it took to get below the air vents and waited. The rattle turned into a rasping hum as the unit’s motor sped up, Ed thought it sounded like a swarm of crickets but he was glad to feel the first blast of cold air hit his upturned face.