Motel Life

Tears skew my vision as I try to see my husband disappear into the office of a local motel. Wiping the tears I peer to the back seat of the car where our two boys slumber as if nothing is wrong. Piled high around them are all of our belongings that we were able to gather in the ten minutes we were given to vacate my parent’s home.

Returning to the car my husband hands me the key to our new home, a room in some motel on the wrong side of town. I struggle with my thoughts. Maybe we can go back tomorrow and claim more of our possessions. Would my mom really be so callous as to keep her grandchildren’s toys from them because of a bit of a spat in the middle of the night? How did this happen? Did she really just throw us out of the house? Did we leave in an immature fit of anger?

My husband pulls me from my thoughts with a demand that I help him find our room number along the dimly lit sidewalk. Peering through the darkness we drive further into the parking lot and closer to the group of people hanging out there. The closer we get to the group of people the stronger the smell of burning dope becomes. Their shouts are ringing, like gun shots through the night.

Locating our room we discover the only way to get there is to walk through the crowd gathered less than ceremoniously between the parking lot and building. My husband pulls our oldest child from his car seat as I struggle to unbuckle our youngest with shaking hands. I cover my son’s head as best I can as I carry him through the sea of second hand dope. Along the way I notice that each person I walk past has very expensive shoes, making my five dollar sneakers look even more poverty stricken than they felt when we were rudely kicked from our home just thirty minutes ago.

As I was walk through the last of the crowd I see one reach out to grab me and for the first time I hear their voices, they are yelling about what they would do if they could get me alone. I run the last three strides, into our new home.

“What now?” my husband asks.

“Let’s just get the boys back to sleep,” I respond.

Lying in bed with my boys next to me and their father on the other side of them I realize, it is two in the morning and the party outside seems to still be going strong. I try to focus on my olfactory sense to block out the party. The place smells moldy, damp, and yes, I smell the second hand dope seeping in the open window. I feel something on my arm, I swat it away, I think it was a bug. I leap from bed and find the switch on the bed side lamp. As I turn the switch on I watch cockroaches clearing out, up the wood paneled walls, over the seeming twenty-year-old, heavy duty carpet, some are even crawling under the bag of food my husband had set on the desk.

I wake up my husband, “I can’t live like this! I can’t raise our children in some drug clouded, bug infested motel room!”

“We won’t be here long,” is his only response. I watch as he continues his slumber as if undisturbed.

I wait for day break in an uncomfortable chair, my feet pulled from the floor and placed safely under my butt. I watch the roaches scurry about the room; occasionally I swat them away from my children as they sleep.