book excerpt thread

OP here, cont.: "“It’s an ode to a lost, but never-forgotten summer, this is to let
out the air of the pink sky, the breeze of the summer wind and the
love we all shared at that time. The zeitgeist of 1994. Our house is
one of the dead-ends of Stoughton, Wisconsin. I am sure you by now
have seen this in zillions of movies, maybe you have passed one of
the similar homes and shacks in my adjacency. My room is messy as
always and I have a skateboard, a deck of Illuminati card game by
Steve Jackson and a giant Jurassic Park poster, with Blink, Alice in
Chains and Soundgarden records. In my room there was always mess,
which is not surprising as I was a pre-adolescent boy, who loved
cycling in town and hated school. One day, on this August day, we
had guests coming over to a BBQ. They were Dad’s colleagues and
friends, the usual set-up. And some brought along their kids my age.
In the yard there would be two inflatable baby pools so that the
youngest could beat the heat in the suburban summer. So, we were
having this garden party and I got to kiss this cute girl, Emily at
the back of our house, where the sky meets the cornfield, an
infinite cornfield. Emily was the daughter of my Dad’s associate. We
were also about the same age and they had been invited in the light
of future, prosperous business. As we were living upstate, corn was
everything. Near the house we had a barn, painted red where I used
to go to smoke cigarettes. Looking back this was a stupid idea as I
could’ve easily burned down half of the state. It was summertime,
and the sky seemed as if some unicorn shat orange and pink paintings
on it, something breathtaking. I remember it so clearly, because I
was so damn proud to be able to show this wonder of Nature to a
girl. Before we could escape from the mandatory family BBQing, we
were told to gather for a photo. The photo was eventually made by
the BBQ and retrospectively we looked as nicely as a bowl of fresh
and smiling strawberries. The BBQ party was organized right by the
cornfields so it wouldn’t take a lot of work to escape with Emily.
After I collected all my bravery, I told her I knew a place, my
hiding place, so we escaped from the garden party our parents
organized and as we were advancing into the infiniteness that the
corn provided and I now recall how Coupland said his 15-year old
body was getting cuts form the corn - we did as well. But finally,
we arrived and started making out. Like, we were 9 year olds. And it
felt fantastic, unearthly - and Emily enjoyed the moment as well,
shit, we were so young. Unlawfully young. Even the thought of it
should be punished. And I told her that in that summer I’d been
waking up here at dawns. She looked perplexed at first but later she
moved on and started asking how this was possible. I said I did not
know, but almost every morning I woke up there, some serious Donnie
Darko shit. ”

From what I know, Jesus had to take pills for his somnambulant
‘condition’, as the doctors had diagnosed him with some delusional
disorder, whatever that meant. The reason for that was that Jesus
was said to have stated aliens had been visiting him. Maybe the
lackluster environment kindled his imagination, maybe he was indeed
visited. Nobody would know as after taking those pills Jesus’
reality would not be coherent even on a daily level. You gotta give
it to him that he did manage to come off the stuff, leaving only two
years destroyed of his life.
“And not that I’d known anything about Donnie Darko then,” - he went
on: - ”I was nine, you know. And it wasn’t 2001. Emily and I were
making out again, which was fantastic, but then, suddenly I had this
strong...urge to believe that....that someone or something is
watching us, in my hiding place in the cornfield. I guess I started
shaking and fainted, heard Emily scream then, the next thing I
remembered was I was lying in a hospital bed. With all the worrying
around me, they said I was exhausted. But from what? It was summer,
and I’d never been this weak guy. I was like Cartman: fatty and
racist.” - he smirked and went on - “The doctors and everybody said
I’d been unconscious for 20 minutes maximum, but I swear it felt
more. And it still does. Then, on those sleepless nights I recalled
that moment, and there was something that kept me bothering me then
- my mind playing tricks on me, it was the sound of a door slam -
fuckin’ ridiculous, huh?”
I remember I could not say anything to that, no matter how much I
might have wanted to. That night of Jesus recalling this childhood
memory still feels real, especially in the light of our trip, and
now I am still sitting by the oceanside alone. Because it makes
sense now. I am not saying that Jesus’ behavior to that girl at
Starbucks was justifiable in any sense, but he was just unable to
control his emotions sometimes. And that was such a moment.
As Wikipedia states,around the 1910s, campers who did not have
enough money to stay in hotels while on the road, they slept in
their pitched tents alongside state roads.

These were originally
called ‘auto camps’, because usually travelers would park their cars
and motors there as well. From these dwellings, later on, the
institution of motels came into being. The word ‘motel’ actually was
conceived, when a certain individual, Arthur Heineman in 1925
abbreviated ‘motor hotel’ to ‘motel’ as the original phrase would
not fit on his rooftop. During the Great Depression, those who were
still traveling, were pressurized to use the services of such motels
instead of hotels, where tips were expected by porters or bell-
captains. The expansion of the highway system, and the City
Directory of San Diego helped motels become more and more popular
and while during the Depression era, one could pay for a cabin less
than a buck, the price got higher as certain facilities and extras
were offered to people. As for their general layout, motels have
either ‘I’,‘L’, or ‘U’ shapes, and for my personal favorites were
the post-war ones with their colorful neon signs and the space-era
themed interior and ‘atomic age iconography’. Such was the motel we
stayed for the upcoming night. We left the Christopher Columbus
Highway and parked our car, and felt the aggressive heat that made
me want to sit back in our car with AC. The motel was a two-storey
motel with a huge sign that they still have vacant rooms. In its
modest parking lot I could hardly see four or five cars. Thought it
was the peak season.
The receptionist gave us two opposite rooms with all the basic
necessities. As you stepped inside, on your left there was a small
bathroom with a toilet and a shower cabin, and a mirror. The room
consisted of a double-bed a TV, a nightstand with the compulsory
Bible and a built-in wardrobe. The curtains were light brown, at
least that was what the rays of the Sun painted them. I dropped my
bag onto the bed and lay down in the bed. The sweat was coming down
on my forehead and I started wondering what I was gonna do after we
arrived in Palo Alto. We’d probably meet Old Joel, then get the
money and I don’t know. I mean it is Jesus’ money, I have no
business in taking it from him.
Later, we met up to eat at the motel’s restaurant. Also, since we
had plenty of time, we agreed on taking the day off and had a normal
lunch here. The whole restaurant was designed with this
‘lumberjack / living-in-the-woods’ style, hunk wood logs and all and
it bothered me a bit how uncomfortable I was feeling, not
necessarily because of this design, but some weird feeling
overshadowed my whole day since we arrived. The whole place was as
if the 1950s would sit down next to the 1980s and they were talking
about who is more powerful.

“So, how are you feeling?”
“Shit. I’d never done cocaine before.” - said Jesus and I could see
how dry his mouth was.
“I was quite surprised to see you do cocaine.”
“I was quite surprised to do it myself.” - answered Jesus mocking
me. - “Geez, is nobody working here?”
True. The whole place was empty, the neons were buzzing, though it
was a sunny day outside. Nighttime was when this restaurant turned
into a bar for the hotel guests - but, where are the staff? On the
wall there were photos of the motel in winter and I can imagine how
dead and deserted this whole atmosphere feels in winter. Both of us
were sweating because of the heat and at that moment it would have
seemed impossible to be served if we hadn’t heard a noise as someone
was entering the bar. It was a short bartender in his 30s and as we
noticed each other’s presence, he nodded as to sign he was going to
come to our table.
“Good afternoon, guys.” - I looked at my watch, it was barely noon.
“Good afternoon.” - we said separately, causing a confusing cloud of
words. - “Yeah, we’d like lunch.”
“Comin’ right back.”
After the bartender got us the menus, I voted for some pulled pork
with a refreshing Long Island Iced Tea, Jesus went for a Bourbon
Street Chicken with a beer. We weren’t planning to drive anymore and
this decision created a palpable atmosphere of ease. We ate in
silence. For some reason none of us had anything to say at that
moment.

We paid and went back to our rooms. My room emanated the scents and
smells of some other times, and you know, there is the mixture of
mystery and disgust as who could have stayed here, slept in your bed
or what they could have been running away from. Ours was a motel in
the middle of nowhere: the classic motel that you could have seen in
movies and in real life as well. Maybe, you already spent a night
here. Maybe you were here. Before me. I went up to the windows and
pulled the curtains away so that I could see the horizon and I was
stunned by the enormous gray clouds that were gathering before the
storm. All was silent and peaceful, as if Time was taking a nap.
Going back to my bed, I opened the drawer of my nightstand. It was
empty. I bowed down just to make sure it was empty, when a taped
something that looked like a notebook got in my view. I slid my hand
to release from its tape prison and found that it is , in fact, a
little notebook. It was bluish and must have been there for quite
some time. My discovery got me excited, so I sat down on the bed and
opened the diary. On the back of its front cover somebody wrote:
“Don’t bother, they’re here.” This statement sounded obviously
ominous, so I started reading:
“It’s Sunday afternoon, July 25, 1982. I am smoking at the parking
lot of Desert Isle Motel - it was built in 1940s - and Reagan is
president. The summer rain had just stopped and I can smell the
divine aftertaste Nature had kissed me with. You could smell the
particular smell that I find close to narcotic. Did you know that it
had a name? It’s called petrichor and there is the compound, geosmin
- that is responsible for that scent. Actually, it is also
responsible for that smell from the soil after it’s been disturbed.
I’ve always been fascinated by words, how they are tirelessly trying
to verbalize and thus, capture our moments of existence. For some
reasons I remembered ‘sonder’: a world that means the realization
that other people that we daily pass by has the same complex life as
we do, they feel, they suffer and they feel love as well. Anyways, I
have to concentrate now.
It is around 1645 and I can see the plastic pink elephant they have
here how it still guards the perimeters. I like transient places. If
you are on the road a lot, and I mean a lot, you develop a certain
feeling to places you get to know for only too brief. This feeling
gets me every time.

I just watch the police cordon tape being played with by the
haphazardly strengthening wind and those yellow stripes with blue
letters on them, well, they seem to be cutting that part of reality,
ushering your eyes to a different one, which I can not see right
now. As I am trying to zoom in on what might be behind the tape, I
realized my options are limited. The door - opened wide - only lets
me see the darkness, with God only knows what is inside. A police
man came out. They had previously questioned everyone - including me
- but nobody knows nothing. Within the darkness there lies a corpse
and if I am not mistaken the killer is long gone. I did not kill
that person. So, I think I’ll go and have another Long Island Iced
Tea, because that was hell of a day. However, the killer, I know.
But they won’t arrest this guy. Never. ”

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She was standing in the door frame, her thigh-high socks had a glossy sheen under the summer sun, her chiffon dress wafting as she poked her toes out to feel the breeze; the roses and lilies printed on her dress danced. I was sat on the staircase behind her, admiring her healthy thighs that showed between her dress and socks. Though she was my older sister, I still wanted to protect her, so when my friends had made comments about her body I told them to stop and moved the conversation along. But sat on the staircase, seeing her curves outlined by the sun, my penis had become hard and engorged.

:)