He pulled up to the motel, the drizzle zigzagging down his windshield, a reminder that he had run out of tears. Room number seven. Lucky seven. It occurred to him that superstition was folly. That the old legends and reasons for things like a lucky seven were just bullshit. And he sat listening to the spring rain hitting the roof of his Olds, wishing he'd never been born.

After work he'd sat for hours in the bars, one after the other, searching for a reason to live. Searching for a smile. A face that would save him. There had been none. No one. Just the rude guffaws of drunks who had homes to go to. Wives. Lovers, lives. The pole dancers had made love to the metal rods, some sexy and alluring, others just ugly and lewd. They pretended to be beautiful and took money for having fake breasts, fake smiles. He'd left, unable to bear the pain of it all. The utter loneliness. The spiraling hopelessness.

He didn't lock the dinosaur he called a car. Instead he left the key in the ignition. Someone would come along who would take it; use it until the gas ran out and leave it sitting along the highway, abandoned. Like him. Used up and left to rot. He stood in the rain and wished it could cleanse his soul. But he had no soul to cleanse. He was simply a shell of a human being, no longer really here ... or there.

The metal number seven was crooked, he noticed. It leaned to the left and reminded the man of an oil rig about to hit the mother lode. Or maybe a back-hoe, ready to rape the earth so some fool could build another house that would never be sold. Or would be sold, only to go empty again, and add to the woes of America. Add to the crumbling of the Empire. He almost laughed.

He felt the cold rain run down his neck, but was uncaring to the chill and unlocked the aqua green door with a worn and faded card. They didn't even have keys anymore. Soon, there'd be no money. No old noisy cars. Everything would be sterile. Controlled, tidy and clean. There would be no need for the rain either. They would be able to control that too. Like they had his life, wiping it out like an eraser clearing a blackboard in a grade school classroom.

He took out his wallet and stared at his wife's face. Not pretty anymore, she stared back, the blame shooting daggers at his heart. Stabbing his soul and killing it dead. He sucked on the Jim Beam bottle long and hard. It warmed and soothed. And gave him a sense of peace. A sense of knowing what to do. He picked up the phone that sat like a tan toad next to a brilliantly white Bible, but like his life, it would not work and he took it as a sign. A sign that it was time to let it go. And never look back.

Lillian hadn't said one word, she hadn't screamed. Or shed one tear. Just flung things and locked the door. He'd been lucky to have his car keys and wallet on him. There was that stupid word again. Lucky. Lucky bullshit. He coughed up blood and lay back on the sagging bed. And let the booze blanket him from the cold.


The spring storm grumbled through the town, the rain pattering behind the thunder like a child. And just below Rose Haven, the sign read, "Vacancy", but the .98 was the only car waiting for the crack of dawn. And another brand new day.