I'd jokingly said that the last hotel had lacked the Kerouac quality that I was after. It was also a bit pricey for my boss' liking. So I'd booked into somewhere cheaper the last time. I'd arrived on a Tuesday.
The area could have given it away, although I hadn't liked to look of the place. It was easy enough to find from the road. A new building, though the awnings on all the windows had made it far from what I was expecting. Feeling dubious, I'd parked the van up around the back. I'd had to go through the front entrance to get in. A spiral staircase led up from ground level. On the way up to the bar their were framed montages of photographs hung on the wall. All of drunken people. I'm sure that Kerouac was probably in there somewhere.
The bar went silent. It seemed to be full of sportswear clad locals with very short hair. I could see the untidy cluttered look of a bar that had been in use all day, because I'd known those kinds of places. Except they'd never had children in.
Everyone seemed to be looking at me, but I didn't feel inclined to check.
I nervously made my way over to the bar in an attempt to check in. The woman behind the bar was old, and looked gaunt and worn. The kind of look you might get from smoking a billion cigarettes. She'd grinned profusely when I enquired about the room booking. When she replied, her soft tones had an unnatural eagerness to them. The kind of eagerness I was in no hurry to place. Her name was Mary, and she was going to cook me breakfast. She'd take me to see the owner.
Through a door by the bar, it was clear that the stairwell was in the early stages of decoration. Although the first floor had been quite plush, in some vaguely university esque way. There were huge pictures of poppies on the magnolia walls.
The door said Room 4. This was very clear because a young lad was busily sticking the lettering in place. Les was having problems with the internet. He told me about this at great length while he tried to fix the flickering light in my room. I'd been halfway to checking in for a good half an hour. Stood there in a rather awkward way, while he talked of how he hadn't got round to fixing the light. His hairy pot belly hung over his jeans as he stood on the chair, straining upwards to fit the new tube. It was reasonably disgusting amidst the curiously new look of the room. It had used to be offices upstairs...
Later, once calm had set in. I discovered that toilet paper had been another thing Les had forgotten about.
