On the road, you never know what’s over the next hill. Photo by Kevin S. Giles
By Kevin S. Giles
Only room left in town.
Door won’t latch, casing splintered, footprint on the door.
Ashtray overflowing beneath no smoking sign.
Motel promises local channel. Nothing but gray fuzz.
I go outside. Kitchen chair by the door is the old metal kind with chrome legs and padded seat. Suspiciously resembles furniture at the diner down the road. Had a burger there, two pickles and an onion slice. Ketchup if you ask. Not bad, considering.
Sun going down. Biker picks a fight with big guy driving a dualie. Threats exchanged, not family talk. Biker says big guy dinged his Harley. Biker wearing colors but he’s alone. Biker swings and hits big guy but big guy throws biker against the Harley like he’s bucking a hay bale. Biker and bike fall over in the dirt. Big guy flips off biker and drives off in cloud of diesel. I help biker lift his Harley. He’s going to Sturgis. Tries to bum a cigarette. I don’t smoke.
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He loathes guvmint officials. Hates them all. Goes on and on about nothing. I hear him out until he tires of his anger. Fires up his bike and takes off, full throttle. He’s the mad sort.
Motel has walls like paper. Hear a man and woman going at it, ends mercifully quick. Water running, toilets flushing. Someone arguing on the phone about lost money.
I wedge the battered old diner chair under the doorknob. Hide my wallet. Motel falls into slumber long about midnight, but drunks come after bar closing, yelling like nobody’s sleeping. Another fight in the parking lot. Woman shouting at them to stop.
‘Headline: FIRE!” is the third book in the Red Maguire mystery series, by Kevin S. Giles.
Morning comes. People flee the motel. Blood in a mud puddle. Big guy with dualie has a shiner. Drinking beer on his tailgate. Toss my bag in my ’64 Ford Econoline. Motor between the front seats. Nothing but thin sheet metal between me and the lonesome highway. I’m just a boy, really. Wandering, searching.
Motel fades behind me. Rutted pavement heads east.
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Western Montana native Kevin S. Giles wrote the popular prison nonfiction work Jerry’s Riot, the coming-of-age novel Summer of the Black Chevy, and a biography of Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, One Woman Against War, which is an expanded version of his earlier work, “Flight of the Dove.” His new novel, Headline: FIRE! is the third in the Red Maguire series. Masks, Mayhem and Murder is the second. The first is “Mystery of the Purple Roses.” More information is available at https://kevinsgiles.com.