Hope's Motel

Chapter One - The James Gang

Hope's Motel, Chapter One by Danyele Read (copyright 2015)

Originally published on Wattpad August 1, 2015

It was just when I decided to like myself the way I am that Uncle Morty--that's short for Mordecai, he was Jewish, like me on my father's side--left me the motel. He was uncouth, foul-mouthed, and critical but somehow he lived to be 93. Nobody knew he owned a motel. Turns out, he'd closed it in 1985 when his wife, my aunt Olivia, died. She was a real sweet lady, and tough as asphalt, but he still managed to grind her down. Yet he loved her, because when she died, he lost his will to live and became a recluse for thirty years. Which is why we never knew much about him, or about the motel which sits about a mile off the highway just outside Dallas on the way to Oklahoma City. The strange thing is, it was named after me. My name is Hope, and the sign on it says, "Hope's Motel". Go figure.

I guess he thought I could resurrect it. God bless the old coot.

He left something to all of us, his three sons, who are also my cousins, and me, the only child of his only brother. To my cousin Arty he left his 1965 Mustang, and to Angus, his stamp collection and his trailer, while Anchor got his Smith and Wesson rifle.

The boys helped me fix it up, all twenty rooms, ten in the front and ten in the back, and a three-room apartment adjacent to the office. Every other room was an efficiency suite with a cooktop, a sink and a mini-frig. I had already given notice at the factory where I worked. I gave my landlady my two-weeks notice once it was close to finished, took up residence at the motel, intending to get the landscaping into shape. I had my first customer almost before the paint on the walls was dry.

I heard the buzzer in the office from my bedroom. I was taking a nap, after working outside all morning until the sun became too hot. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, it rang, a long, insistent ring. I peeked cautiously out the door of my apartment to see who it was. Probably a salesman, I thought, thinking I'd get rid of him fast.

He was a wiry man, the kind who is a lot stronger than he looks, with a Bruce Willis buzz cut. Even with his hair shorn off, his head looked too big for his body.

"You accept pets?" he asked when he saw me at the door.

"We do," I answered.

"I have two dogs. They're Catahoulas."

"Long as you keep 'em on a leash and clean up after 'em, it's fine."

"How much?"

"Forty-nine dollars a night," I said. "Fifty-nine for the efficiency."

He seemed to be thinking, but his eyes never left my face. "Got a weekly rate?"

"Yep," I said, considering what my price would be. "Two hundred fifty a week for the room, two eighty for the efficiency. One hundred for the pets, one-time, twenty-five extra per night for any other adults."

"You got two queen size beds?"

"All the rooms do."

"I'll take an efficiency, two adults, that's for me and my wife, plus the dogs."

"License, please." He handed it to me, and I made a scan of it, then looked out the window where his truck was parked.

"Got any more vehicles, Mr. James?"

"Just the truck."

Earl Walter James paid in cash. I couldn't help but notice, as he counted out the money, there were numerous scars on his hands, and what looked like a gunshot wound on his collar bone. I printed him out a receipt.

The laundry was adjacent to the office, on the other side, across from my apartment. The next morning a woman came in requesting quarters. I knew it was his wife, because I saw her walking the dogs a little earlier. The dogs were good, they weren't pulling. They sniffed at the scraggly palm trees and ground cover I hadn't had time to water. She walked behind them, real slow.

Later, while I was out pulling groundcover to make a straight line along the parking lot, I saw her dragging a load into the office. I followed her in, not having installed any locks on the door to my apartment, yet. I pretended to be busy while she got the laundry going. Instead of going back to her room, she sat inside the office and waited.

I'm not nosy, and I didn't want her to think I was prying, so I let her be. About five minutes into it, she started talking.

"We just left our place in Houston. My husband, Earl, he lost his job. I'm so glad to be out of that dump."

I looked up, trying to remain professional, as befits the owner of an establishment, whatever that might mean, but I was interested.

"We had six dogs, the two with us plus four dobies. Left 'em with the neighbors, the ones we liked. Most of 'em we didn't. I had to call the police on people trying to break in so many times, I kept the pistol safety off. That's bad, I know." She looked down. "Earl's lookin' for work in Dallas. Should be able to find something. He welds." She looked back up at me, hopefully, as if I might know whether he would find something.

"Welding is a good trade," I said, non-commitally.

"I was 14 when we met. He was a senior and I was just getting into 9th grade. We were married when I got pregnant, at 16. He's been a good man, always stayed true to me. We raised two kids. Then I got MS. Had to quit my job. I have to rest a lot. Which is why we wound up in that awful neighborhood. But Earl thinks we can do better around here."

I didn't say anything, but I was glad the beds were on the soft side. It would make it easier for her. She got up and shuffled to the door.

"Pray for us, ok?"

"I will do that," I said.

"Thank you." She looked as if I had just given them a fifty percent discount.

A few hours later, I heard the gravel crunch as Earl pulled into the lot. She was sitting on a chair at the door of the room, soaking up the afternoon sun. Earl got out and I watched as he spoke to her. Next thing I knew, they were hugging and he was yelling something, not sure what it was, but he sounded happy. I knew he must've gotten a job.

I'm not perfect, not by a long, long shot. My ex- once said I'd wind up dead in an alley one day. That was after he beat me. But I'm still here, and I got away from him, so I guess I still have some living to do. I have had three offers of marriage in the years since our divorce, no one I was really interested in. The real reason. though, was that I didn't want to risk bringing a man into a house with a young girl. My girl, Cammy, that's short for Camilla. She's in college, now.

No one guesses my age, though I see it, the saggy jaw when I look down, the skin around my thighs aint as tight as it used to be, either. But I believe in Jesus, and in the glory to come, and since the Bible says we go from glory to glory, I guess I'm in some kind of glory stage right now, so I might as well enjoy it.

A week later, the Jameses packed up their things and their dogs and left at dawn, well before the noon deadline. I like to think that maybe they were moving into their new place, that he needed to drop her and their belongings off before he went to work. I never spoke to either of them again. But I did pray for them. Still do from time to time.