The Space Age (2)

[GT Jones]

A shaft of light from nowhere, and his eyes couldn’t adjust, blinded by chrome and white. He shadowed the glare with his hand. A building pounded out of fifties chrome, brighter than neon in ten o’clock sun.
BEAUTIFULLY
DECORATED

COFFEE SHOP
SALAD BAR
WECOME SEARCHERS FOR EXTRA TERRESTRAL
LIFE FORUM! ENJOY YOUR STAY!


NON SMOKING
ROOMS AVAILABL E
CABLE TV HBO
POOL SPA

A concrete post held a red, white, and blue flying saucer twenty feet in the air. “The Space Age Motel.”

He entered the small lobby, built in an octagon shape and decorated to resemble a spaceship, with porthole skylights and metallic trim. From the sides spilled the slack cables of phones and electric and television as if keeping the building tethered to the ground.
A Mexicana girl appeared from the office door in a blue apron, white ruffles, mouth in mid-lyric singing with the radio in the back. Chubby, balanced by pushing her breasts above the rim of her tank top. The tight skin across her cheeks sparkled with glitter. Lips lined a dark shade of brown that matched her drawn eyebrows. She hesitated seeing Henry at the counter.
“May I help you?”
“I’d like a room.”
“How many nights?”
“A week to start.” He set two $100.00 bills on the counter, already prepared. Wisps of hair fell down around her face when she looked at the bills. She pushed back behind her ears with her fingers. Stolen.
“I can give you until Thursday, but we need the rooms after that.” The hotel had a policy about renting to transients.
“Fine.”
“The only other hotel in town, the Palms, is a quarter mile south.”
“What’s up with the Stout Hotel?”
They aren’t open. Closed for repairs.”
“Any idea when they’ll finish? Like Thursday?”
“Not likely. They never been open, not in my life.”

“You’re alone, right? No pets or anytheeng?” She spoke like a ringing bell. “Fill this out.” A column of O rings and glass beads rattled when she reached for a pen.
“We also need a credit card. Like in case of damage?”
Henry nodded.
“I wrote the number on there. On the registration.”
“Right. No. We need the card.”

Henry took a step back from the counter and unfastened his belt buckle. The girl also stepped back from her side of the counter, chin even lower into her neck. Her hands pushed out against the air, “Ohmygawd! What are you doing?” Her mouth froze open, tongue pressed firmly against the back of her throat to drag out the last word three times longer than was natural. He turned away, facing the door. She walked over to the phone.

He felt around the rim of his jeans, pushing with his thumb, and pulling slack from his waist with his other hand. Inside the seam he’d sewn pockets, places where he’d hidden money, credit cards, a SIM chip. He was clumsy retrieving it.
He held a MasterCard in the air, and smiled. “No, see, look.” She set the phone back in the cradle. She noticed his teeth. White, straight. Stolen.