the campus inn

The Campus Inn

The wallpaper, a black and gold metallic pattern in my room at the Campus Inn did not absorb the generations of tobacco smoke, bug spray or malfeasance. The bad vibes hung in the air like a frozen fog.
The window shades turned yellow around the edges in self defense. There were cigarette burns on the night stand and on the rugs. A sound track…sho nuff…. the girding rumble of the all night Campus Rd buses, back fires from sputtering untuned muscle cars and calls from the whores, their customers, the cops and the crazy people.
You wouldn't kill yourself in the room. You wouldn't have the energy.
The TV buzzed on some of the channels and flickered on the rest. The only channel that came in any good was an independent station from San Jose. They played a lot of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Which was ok. Most times, drunk, stoned, depressed or asleep, I enjoyed feline/rodent combat.
Bare mattress. Stolen blue plastic milk crates for shelves. A record player I bought at a flea market. A poster of Billie Holiday taped to the wall.
My imaginary "beat generation" pad. I missed out on that scene. By about 25 years. By the time I moved from the Midwest to Berkeley, the Beats had passed into the realm of mythology. I'd read most of Kerouac. And I dreamed about a mad, mad community of artists and writers, blowing weed, sleeping down in cool rail cars, chasing and scuffling the white negro blues in smoky choruses.
Etc.
The reality was somewhat less romantic. I rented by the week. They weren't any phones in the room. They were yanked out after it was discovered that one of the city's largest drug rings had been operating on the third floor.
There was a sandwich shop across the street. When I needed to, I used their phone. I needed to.
The shop was a store front with a big window looking out just off the corner. A few formica tables. A counter with three stools. I hadn't showered, shaved, or brushed my teeth so I fit right in.
If Linda, the waitress noticed anything foul about me, you couldn't see it in her face. Indifference and pancake makeup was her window to the world. I hadn't found my window. Seemed to be more of a door person.
Linda sounded like she was from Alabama or Texas. I'm not one of those guys who can hear two words and tell you where a person is from. What difference does it make? If you get to know someone eventually the conversation will come around to 'where ya from', 'what you been doin', So what was the big fucking hurry in picking up an accent? About half of what passes for cleverness is just people who are too busy to listen to anybody else. And the other half who really clever and have nothing do with me.
Anyway, Linda didn't feel much like talking. I ordered a pepper and egg sandwich and a coffee, heavy sugar; heavy cream.
A radio played on the counter. Top forty. Playing a Stevie Wonder crossover. I dug it. I nearly smiled.
There was only one girl working the street. Maybe it was too early or too late or the other girls were taken or the cops had just made a sweep. The sun was out but not enthusiastic about it. There was a small canyon created by the 6 story Campus Inn, the Dodge, an SRO, and a white stone office building that was either being renovated or condemned.
Eleanor Rigby played next.
'All the lonely the people'
Sentimental middle class Brit bullshit. How can you look at a bunch of people and know anything about them? You need to follow them around for a week. See their pads. Meet their folks.

The pay phone was behind the counter, through the swinging doors. Up against a wall, the phone was squeezed between cases of soda, a box of paper towels, cans of tomato sauce and a broken TV set. I fished in my pocket for some change. I dialed my father's office. He was usually in on Sunday mornings writing up orders and avoiding my mother.
"Hello, Krinksy Associates," It was my brother, Phil.
"What are you doin' there Phil?"
"Danny is that you? How ya doin'?"
"Yeah, it's me. Listen what happened. You get disbarred finally or what."
"Yeah, No, I’m helping out. But you’re not into the whole corporate thing.'
"Well Phil, I feel about the business like I feel about you. I need to talk to dad."
"So do I, I'm trying to get him out of this fuckin' office and out to the golf course."
"Gee, I'm really sorry I'm missing it. Nothing like crunching some brown grass and chasing a lousy ball. C'mon get him on the line."
“Dad...the young radical is on the line.” It sounded like Phil pulled the receiver away from his mouth but was still yelling into it.
I waited.
"Hello Daniel.”
"Hi dad, what's happening?”
"Everything. Listen where are you? You sound like you're in a tunnel."
"Well, just about."
"You calling me at work? You want to take on a few lines? I got some good territory in Nebraska. No accounts but lots of territory."
"Yeah, well dad. Listen how's mom and everyone?"
"Mom, she's fine. She just has that redness in her eyes from crying herself to sleep over her baby. Other than that she's fine."
"Mom had a baby and you didn't tell me."
Dad sounded good. It had been nearly a year since his heart attack. Phil’s wife, Helene came into the business, leaving her floundering career as a voice coach. She managed the accounts and managed to keep the place in operation.
My brother asked me to move home and work at the company. There was no shame in being a rack jobber, selling kitchen gadgets to small grocery and drug stores.
No shame. Not much grandeur but certainly no shame. I’d planned to keep painting and get back into art school. Phil didn’t believe me. He turned out to be right, the asshole. I didn't go back to school. I avoided commitment like it was a bad tattoo.
So, every few months, I’d have to put in the Call. I didn’t really mind asking for money. Or even feel that guilty about it. After all, I was an artist who just happened be lying fallow. Or just lying.
I kept a running tally, although my father didn't. The plan:kick back what I owed to the family, out of whatever I inherited.
"So, dad, listen. I'm really going through some changes."
"How much are these changes?"
"Big changes. New place to live, school. looking for work. A good couple of hundred changes."
"You know I don't think I'm helping you like this."
"Of course you are. You just don't know it."
I don't know if he was convinced. I don't know if I was convinced. He told me to call my mother and to come home for a visit. And that he loved me. And he’d wire the money.
The pepper and egg sandwich tasted good going down and better than it would the rest of the day. I worked on the coffee and snoozed through the paper. Things were staying pretty much the same. No rain was expected. There was something going on in Cambodia that I didn't want to know about. Some of the county Sherriff Slim Jim Meever’s, pals wanted him to be governor. The mood on campus was quiet. Radicalism it seems had flushed through the system like diarrhea, leaving behind an odor and a sore rear end.
Suddenly feeling flush, I gave Linda a big tip and a Clumsy wink as I left. She kept her head down, staring at the ash tray and her cigarette.
The air was nearly brittle as I crossed the street. And the lobby looked worse than before I'd left. As if it were in a continual state of decline and I'd managed to see some of the sands flow through the glass.
A TV fluxxed its images to the desk clerk who had his hand on his bony chin. A junkie nodded off on the couch. His eyes open. His mind gone. Under a rain coat, he had on a greasy sweater and shiny black pants with cuffs. A couple of Mexicans read the paper. They wore straw cowboy hats and pointy black shoes. On their way back home? Or just getting into town?
Standing near the stairs were two men wearing suits and ties and uncomfortable shoes. Before I could back away they approached and introduced themselves.
“Mr Krinsky, we’re with the FBI.”
“And your parents must be very proud.”
“They are,” said the taller of the two. “But we really want to talk to you.”

-Cheetah Liberty
http://613aday.blogspot.com/