Child of God by Lolita Files

Author:Lolita Files
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

PART IX

1967–1968

TRANSITIONS

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse.

—WASHINGTON IRVING

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was rainy and cold the night Walter checked into the Cherokee Motel on the outskirts of Lansing, Michigan.

“How far away is Michigan State?” he asked the plump white woman behind the counter.

She wore a tattered poncho stained with coffee and mustard. Her face was pocked and her hair greasy. The remains of a sandwich sat on the counter. An unthreatened cockroach feasted upon its outer edges.

“No more’n ten miles up the road,” she said. “You stayin’ just for the night?”

She assumed he was one of the hundreds of parents who came at the end of each semester to watch their children graduate or pick them up for the holiday vacation.

“What’s your weekly rate?”

The woman was surprised. No one ever stayed for more than a few nights. She wasn’t even sure the hotel had a weekly rate. She picked up the sandwich and took a large bite.

“Billy,” she yelled, her mouth full. The cockroach sat on the counter, waiting for his turn at the sandwich.

From the back, Billy appeared. Despite the cold, he wore a torn tie-dyed T-shirt and slack jeans, his gut bulging above the waistline.

“What, Esther?” he said, annoyed.

“What’s our weekly rate?” she asked.

Billy eyed Walter. He looked safe enough, Billy thought. But he wondered why this older black man wanted to stay in a transient motel for a week. Without a woman.

“I don’t know, Esther. Hell, thirty dollars oughta be enough.”

He scratched his backside and went back to where he had appeared from.

“Thirty dollars,” Esther repeated.

Walter peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills and a ten.

Esther’s eyes bulged.

“That oughta get me ’bout seven weeks, right?” Walter asked.

He held the bills toward her. Esther set the sandwich back on the counter and snatched the money from his hand.

“Sure oughta,” she said, not caring why the man needed a motel room for seven weeks. “You’re in room 16.”

A few inches away, the cockroach resumed his meal.

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