A longing gaze from a sad night train

Thursday March 17, 2005

The Hotel Congress

Walking into the Hotel Congress at 3 a.m.
Pris stoned and sleepy at my side with
Amtrak's Train #1 rumbling and hissing just
A stone's throw away across the street,
I recall the many nights I've sat on that very train
It forever running late, and gazed out the window longingly
At the bright neon sign beckoning me to detrain on a whim,
Escape the cramped late night confines of my train seat,
And get a room for the night where Dillinger once slept.
Hotel Congress, read the lipstick red letters hovering high
In the dark night sky over Tucson downtown.

Walking in the door with the confidence of a man who knows
He has a room key & a bed, I told Pris of all the times
I'd dreamt of staying here, the door swinging wide before us
"And here I am at last, and with you no less!"

Pris. Not her real name, of course, but a Blade Runner reference.
Pris the pleasure model. Pretty Pris, but not one to piss off
If you saw what she did to Harrison Ford with those crushing thighs
Her mad flash of mortal fear, her final defense of Replicant life.
My Pris, an exotic dancer, shakes her ass for five bucks a song
At a strip joint across town I have watched her with pride.
Replicant Pris with black spray-on eye make-up & wedding veil.
Now Pris the Klonipin-stoned, for a night anyway, to calm her nerves
She with that familiar swagger of someone mixing booze and pills
My swagger. My slur. I know it all too well.

We pass Al Perry at the desk, who hands us our room key on its
Ass-paddle-sized bronze anchor, a regal touch I'm unaccustomed to
That or The Congress saying "Don't you dare leave with our key!"
On the wide staircase to our floor, I set the thing to work
Paddling somnolent Pris' ass up one slow step at a time.

At Room #208, I turn the key and we enter and Pris heads straight
For the shower to wash off the stink of a hundred men's cologne.
I sit by the window, lulled by the gentle hiss of the shower
I watch the water stream down my lover's back and close my eyes.
Opening them, I read my words of last night.

Schlitz just the kiss of hops and
An orange sherbet candle lit
Old black rotary phone for that quick call to Mr. Wizard
To escape the Matrix which, though unreal, is tonight a slice of Heaven
In the words of the bald traitor who sold out his friends to the machines
"If I had to choose between this and the Matrix, I'd choose the Matrix."

My feet propped on the old metal bed
Five-blade fan spinning languid overhead
I'm at home in The Congress
At home with her living and her dead.

The historic Hotel Congress, Tucson, Arizona.
Windy March Ides of a tempestuous night knock at old windows
While John Dillinger hides out in some room down the hall
Or maybe in the Tap Room bar, that far corner faux-leather booth
His back to the wall, forever now, his history splattered there
In a parade of articles framed.

Blood stains on the antique flower-patterned coverlet
The maids aren't gonna like that, though I'm sure they've seen worse.
I do my best with ice cubes and a towel.
It's good blood after all, not Dillinger's.
It's the blood of procreation thwarted yet again
Another baby bullet dodged but not by me
Not for me, anyway, these days as forty ambles up, but for him.
Her.
It?

God help the poor kid who waltzes out of my gene pool
And into this savage world,
This fang-bitten Roman Empire in deja vu decline
With naught but my sad DNA to carry her into battle.
Think Sylvia Plath in a flack jacket, an Uzi at her side.
How long would she last in the desert of deception, occupation?
Just another land of lies forty years hence.

The phone rings and it's pretty Pattie at the front desk informing me that
"Some mystery girl awaits you here in the lobby."
Without shoes, I vacate Room 208 and pad barefoot in oversized jeans
Down regal old stairs to Colleena, old friend of Tucson, art & the road.

Colleena wants to write a book.
She'll call it "Year of the Cock" in honor of her best year in sex,
Drawing from her journals and celebrating the long line of men who
Helped end an accursed hiatus the year before.
Why not? Fresh from yoga, she is radiant, always has been.
Goddess with ill-fitted ears, she signs for me "Good to see you,"
Her lithe hands fluttering doves drawing lines in the sky
Near-tangible lines between her eyes and mine
Like Donnie Darko's wormhole messengers, they hover there in space.

And I turn our talk to Pris.
Pris at this moment far across town shaking her ass and
Her pretty little titties and all to feed her son (ironic)
Pay the mortgage, the gas bill, the water, the garbage.
Maybe raise the roof, grout the bathroom floor, install the tub inside at last.
Pris in her belle Betty Page best, the scent of rosemary in her jet black hair.
Where will this lead, this dance erotic?
Reticent to raise a child of my own, am I any better equipped to raise hers?

Now Pris alights from the bathroom steam-cleaned and smiling.
She climbs into bed and I strip down and join her, embrace her.
I flick off the light and whisper "Thank you" to no one in particular.

- RSM