travelogue

it is 4:47 am.

i get back to my hotel room.

i sneak in as quietly as possible.  cigarette smoke practically billowing off of me, the smell, the unsteady steps, even the faint glow of the cell phone should on their own all have been enough to disturb  my restless  nephew and my sister from the ersatz sleep into which they've lightly settled.

i feel like a cartoon mouse, tiptoeing across the room so as not to rouse the waking ire of a slumberous cartoon cat.

i shed my topcoat, shove its reeking mass into the cleft between bed and wall, and collide into my bed, as noiseless as a creaky hotel mattress will allow.

i have just come from a 24 hour franchise diner across the parking lot, and the taste of a texas toast breakfast sandwich lingers, and will linger, in my mouth until morning.  sausage from god-knows-where-or-what-animal.  molten plastic american cheese.  it is cheap, greasy, its eggs slightly overcooked.  disgusting.  i relish it.  i want the taste of mayonnaise in it, but it doesn't occur to me to ask.

i sit at the counter and i drink regular coffee with it, because being this sauced, it won't matter either way.

the waitress is five nothing, rail thin.  her hat and her uniform make her look like an awkward scarecrow's daughter.  her accent places her as being from somewhere in Hickville, on the banks of the Hick River,  in Hickansas.  i make suitably awkward conversation with her.  i note that she is working a crappy shift.  i try to signal that i too, am in this industry.  i am not sure she catches on, but most likely she simply does not care.  she is not at all my type, but i find myself trying to find some way to flirt with her, if i can.  it occurs to me that she is probably banging the cook, so i lay off.  she reminds me of someone from home, a little bit.

i drink my coffee.

she gives me my check, and it is under $5.
on the back, a line next to "you have been served by:" bears her cursive scrawl: "Spud."  i think: maybe i am too drunk, and i'm reading this wrong.  perhaps i am too drunk, but i am not mistaken.

i wonder what her real name is, and how she got tagged with such a potato-y nickname.

i find it adorable, but say nothing and just keep pouring coffee into my mouth.

i only have $10, and i leave it all.
i mean, her name is Spud.
that's worth at least a $5 tip.

i leave.
i cross the parking lot.
i sneak into my hotel room.  the electric lock is not quiet.

it is 4:47 am.

i want nothing more than to write about my shitty breakfast sandwich, as if it were unique and momentous, and about my weirdly cute hick waitress.

but i don't.

i crash into bed, and i don't write for days.