Chapter 1
Mrs. Bains was a sweet, old lady who ran a motel.
Actually, she wasn't really sweet enough, little enough or old enough to qualify as a sweet, little old lady, but that was the first impression you would get upon meeting her. She might remind you of your mother, and there was no denying that she was a motherly type. But after you got to know her better, she would probably start reminding you of your father.
Mrs. Bains gave the impression of being smaller than she was because of the startling grace of her movements. It seemed impossible that a lady of Mrs. Bains' size could be so graceful, so people tended to think of her as small.
That was illusion number one.
Illusion number two was the impression that she was sweet and old. She was sweet, but not in any expected way. We'll come to that in a minute. Suffice to say that Mrs. Bains looked sweet. She also looked old, which she really wasn't. In these days of vitamins and geriatric formulas, fifty-six is not old, especially in a woman.
But she looked old. This was partially because of her fat, and partially because of her eyes.
Her eyes were as old as time, and seemed curiously out of place in the face of a sweet, little old lady.
And that brings us to illusion number three, which falls as a natural consequence of the first two. If you decided that Mrs. Bains was sweet, and little, and old, you would probably also decide that she was, like all sweet, little old ladies, completely disinterested in love.
You would feel certain that beneath that plump, smiling exterior there was not the slightest thought of using a bed for anything except sleeping; that under the floral patterns of her old-lady dress there beat the heart of a woman who had not thought of such things for at least twenty years. You would figure Mrs. Bains for a sweet, little old lady who had dried up long ago.
So you would probably never guess that Mrs. Bains loved love better than anything in the world.
That was the reason she ran a motel.
The motel is the twentieth century's great gift to the game of love, ranking with the grape-stained divans of ancient Rome and the perfumed bawdy-houses of merry old England. In a rather blue-nosed century, the motel serves the timeless need of man and woman to let off steam. There would be no need for such an institution if people were not so self-conscious about love. But that is the way things are, and the motel has been capitalizing on it for many years.
A motel differs from a hotel in several subtle ways. For one thing, motels are designed for transients only. People can live in hotels as if they were apartments, and many do. But nobody ever lives in a motel. In this restless age of fast cars and super highways, the motel has only two functions: it is a resting place for legitimately tired people, and it is a bedroom for people who want to make love.
No one cares who you are, or where you're bound. No one expects you to stay for more than a night or two. You pay your money and you take your choice, and you use the room for anything that pleases you. It is a great arrangement and millions of people take advantage of it every year.
Of course, there are motels and there are motels, like everything else. Some motor courts are little more than flea-bag hotel rooms contained in sloppy individual cabins. Some are futuristic communities, with swimming pools, shopping arcades, and convenient churches. Like all extremes, it is best to avoid these.
In between the dumps and palaces lie the great chain of just average motels; quiet cozy little places with hot water, but no shower; fans, but no air-conditioners; radios, but no television; beds, but no armchairs. These are the best of all, not just for impatient lovers, but for anyone. These are the places where you will be left alone and it is almost worth the price of a night to discover what it's like to be left alone for a change.
These are the true heart of the motel phenomenon-America's roadside bedrooms. Some motel owners try to pretend that they are not aware what their establishments are used for (there are hypocrites, after all, in every profession).
Some know and don't give a damn.
Some like the idea.
Mrs. Bains was one of the latter.
It always warmed her heart to watch two young people in a fast new car drive up the gravel path to her door; to watch the intense, congested look in their eyes as they helped each other from the car with lingering grips and touches; to see the drunken way they walked toward the motel office, their arms around each other, their eyes on the ground, their minds consumed by a single thought.
She also liked to watch their faces as they requested a room, for just one night, signing an unfamiliar name to the register with a studied flourish. She liked the poorly concealed embarrassment in their eyes, the graceless haste of their movements.
But most of all, when the preliminaries had been disposed of, she loved the way they went off to their little love nest, arm in arm, brushing their bodies against one another. That was the best time of all, for them and for Mrs. Bains. They had signed the register; they had not been challenged, the room was theirs, the path was clear, the ways were greased, the gods were good.
Mrs. Bains would feel a little tug in her heart as the door of the cabin closed behind them, and she would wish them good luck and much pleasure in her motel.
And in the morning, when they came to check out, she would smile a secret little smile at the sight of their flushed, happy faces, and she would very gently say; "Thank you, folks. Come again."
And they would drive off, back to their individual realities. But Mrs. Bains went on forever.
The neon sign out front said: Happy Inn Motel-No Vacancies, but the bottom part was not usually lighted. Beyond the sign, a graveled court opened back from the road, framed by a semicircle of small cabins. In the exact center of the court stood a large frame structure.
This was where Mrs. Bains lived; it was also the central office, where you signed in and got your keys. To one side of the office there was a bar and grill where you could eat and drink and, in general, get primed for whatever you had come to the Happy Inn Motel to do. Mrs Bains had an infrared cooker in back of the bar that made hamburgers and franks in thirty seconds. There was also a small kitchen in back for those who wanted something more substantial. The kitchen was seldom used. Hamburgers franks, and something to wash them down with was all Mrs. Bains' customers ever seemed to want.
Of course, most of the customers were in a hurry to get back to their rooms.
Outside the central building, and around to the back, were the men's and ladies' rooms. There was another pair of rest rooms at one end of the long U formed by the cabins. So even if you got up in the middle of the night and found the toilet of your choice occupied, you always had some place else to turn. In case they were all being used, why there were always the dense woods behind the cabins. No one would have to be uncomfortable for long.
In the evenings, around six o'clock. Red Ballew would close his hardware shop in town, drive out to the motel and officially open the bar. Red was an old friend of Mrs. Bains, and had been a friend of Norman Bains, her husband. When Norman had died (of a heart attack, after some heavy drinking), Red had helped her keep the motel operating until the funeral expenses had been paid off and the business had begun to show a profit once more. It was hard in the beginning, but with Red's help, Mrs. Bains had managed it. She had been managing for twelve years. It had never occurred to her to operate the motel without Red. It had never occurred to Red either. They made a good team.
When Red opened the bar, it always seemed to Mrs. Bains that the day had officially begun. She thought of days as beginning around six or seven o'clock in the evening, reaching their noon at one or two in the morning, and tapering off to the sad farewells and the signing-out at ten or eleven A.M. Mrs. Bains knew when the day really began for her customers, and she liked to keep the same schedule.
Consequently, she seldom got to bed before three or four in the morning, which is a hell of an hour for a sweet, little old lady.
Sometimes, she and Red would sit in the bar after it had closed for the night and talk. Just talk.
Red would reminisce about the old days when he and Mrs. Bains and Norman would go to town on double dates and see the latest William S. Hart or Art Acord movie at the Cameo. Those had been the good old days.
The Cameo was still doing business at the same location, but Red and Mrs. Bains never went near it any more. They both felt that modern movies were not worth looking at. Color, wide-screen, sound; these were cheap tricks designed to conceal the fact that movies were worse than ever. There was nothing, as far as they were concerned that could replace the true excitement of a good silent western.
Mrs. Bains had loved silent western movies. They were so male, and she liked men.
Sometimes, Red and Mrs. Bains would get quietly stoned together. Red liked to drink and so did Mrs. Bains, but she held it better. After half a dozen or so, Red would start to nod, and one more would usually put him to sleep.
Mrs. Bains did not mind this at all. She would push his big, limp body around until it rested comfortably on the bar, and then she would cuddle up beside him and toy with his hair and think of the good old days.
It never went any farther than that.
If Red had managed to stay awake, it might have. But he never did.
After a while, Mrs. Bains would awaken Red gently and gaze into his sleepy, puffed face until his eyes focused. Sometimes, the wood grain of the bar would be impressed into his cheek and she would rub it until the marks went away. Then she would help Red to his car and aim him down the road toward town.
Red was one of those drivers who can drive perfectly in any state short of unconsciousness. He had never had an accident, and never had any trouble getting home.
He lived in a rooming house in town, with eight other men. He had never married. He never went out anywhere, except to the Happy Inn Motel.
Mrs. Bains never paid him a cent for running the oar.
Mrs. Bains slept alone. She did not really like sleeping alone, but the habit had formed after her husband's death, and by the time she began thinking of the connubial bed again, the pattern had been set. After all, she told herself, she was a widow now; a widow who wasn't getting any younger and who had left her figure somewhere a few years back. She had had her fling while she was young; she had been courted and sought after and loved by several fine young men, and she had picked from them a husband to be hers till death.
Well, the death had come, and much sooner than she had expected, but who is ever prepared for these things? The death had come; Norman was wrapped in pine and put into a quiet, shaded grave, and Mrs. Bains was a widow.
That was the way things were.
But she could still remember, on those nights when the occupied cabins were especially quiet with that tense silence she knew so well, and when the moon was shining in the window onto her plump, night-gowned body, and when the cars were hissing by on the road outside with that special middle-of-the-night sound-she could still remember the feeling of Norman in her arms; the way he had caressed her in all the ways she liked best; the way he seemed to read her mind and always had his hand or his mouth in the right place at the precise moment she wanted it there; the way they would struggle wordlessly, far into the night, their bodies perspiring and straining, their lips crushed in an endless kiss; the way the finish always took them unaware, unprepared for the glory of it, and carried them over the brink into that sweet, dark oblivion which they would ride through the night.
Norman had been quite a lover, and Mrs. Bains had enjoyed every minute of him to the fullest.
But that was all behind her now. She was getting old, and women of her age and size and station in life were supposed to forget about love.
It wasn't easy, especially on the nights when she let her mind wander back into the past, but she tried. She would close the shutters against the moon and the car noises and the silence from the cabins and she would wrap herself in her covers and ignore the old familiar ache until sleep came.
Sometimes it took hours. But Mrs. Bains would quietly tell herself that such things were all over for her, and after a while her tired mind would begin to believe it, and then she would be asleep.
But it wasn't really true.
So the days and nights passed, and Mrs. Bains derived her pleasure from the pleasure of her customers.
And it looked as if nothing would ever change the way things were at the Happy Inn Motel.