Handing me a key I managed to draw the lucky room number six. Perhaps lady luck was starting to actually improve. Or she was simply throwing me a tiny crumb. The number six for holds a very special and lucky place in my heart. We'll get to that a bit later. I then placed the 40 dollars and some change for the evening’s rent on the counter.
Opening the door to the room was perhaps the final adventure in a series of events gone south that day. Even the Gideons stayed away from this shit hole. No cracked black leatherette bound signature bible here. No sir. Funny how the lack of a bible cemented a bit of reality. Something I like to call “no good could come from this room” feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The initial survey of the room proved to be dismal to say the least. Wooden paneling covered walls, a fist sized hole punched in the bathroom door, and a once golden shag carpet complete with random undisclosed grapefruit sized stains. Those stains. So pungent was the thick odor that for the second time that night I almost hurled that half digested ham sandwich. The next step was to vent in some fresh air. Next up was the ice run. Rather simple task. Too bad the most simple of tasks can often turn out to be a multi car pile up on the freeway of life.
Laying in the bottom on the ice bucket was the largest hairiest cockroach I had ever laid eyes on. He seemed to hiss at me as I poked him with a half chewed plastic drinking straw. This was no ordinary cockroach. Could be he made his way East on the Santa Fe Railway. Maybe from somewhere down in central Texas. This is about the time those pesky voices in the back of the head told me to cut bait. Not often I ignore those voices. Especially when they make sense. Had the hour been earlier or another motel in sight I would obeyed the voices. At this point the 40 dollars and spare change seemed rather irrelevant.
Simple rule of nature.
Where one angry Texas sized cockroach lives.........there are bound to be an entire pack of angry cockroaches.
Heading back to the office I expressed my obvious concern to Jim Bob.
“There's a cockroach in my ice bucket.”
“Uh huh......you say there's a cockroach in your ice bucket eh?”
“Yeah...he ain't no ordinary cockroach either.”
“Oh.....how so?”
“Well.......I might be a bit tired......but I swear.......he looked up at me....”
“He looked up at you.....?”
“Yeah....he looked up at me.”
“Then what'd he do?”
“Well....he looked up at me....and he.....”
“He.....”
So intent was this conversation that again we were darn near nose to nose. I was getting a whiff of that chew. Jim Bob continued to wipe the nasty ass tobacco dripping from his lower lip onto his flannel covered sleeve.
“What say there mister......what did that cockroach do?”
“Well....he........sorta hissed.”
“Ya say he......”hissed” at cha?”
“Yeah......he sorta “hissed” at me.”
With a gleam in his eye.......the solution was swift and relentless.
A six pound ball peen hammer and five gallons of bug killer in a rusted out gas can.
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