This is a work of semi-autobiography and therefore should be considered fiction. Names and events have been altered. "Seven Years Bad Luck" is an ongoing series. This is part four. Part one here.

The motel clerk shuffles past us, out to the road. He mutters something incomprehensible – or maybe that’s just an elongated grunt? – as he passes by. I shoot the security guard a narrow look – he’s been staring long enough.

“Okay, time to get back to the car, Kelly.”

I shoo her back into the passenger’s side of the car. This douchebag is still hanging around, staring like his eyes are attached to her by strings. Protective feelings on the rise – nevertheless, there’s still something I have to do before we get out of here.

“Kelly, stay here,” I say, slamming the door and locking the car.

She’s highly suggestible in this state and isn’t going anywhere. Gotta make this fast.

I turn back to the road. The motel clerk is shuffling back, the dustpan swinging slow like a pendulum in his fist from the weight. What an ignoble end. But then, I think, dying rarely pretends to be a lofty act. It’s not clear to me if I’ve ever believed in the sacredness of anything: certainly not the final moment, let alone what happens to the discarded material that life leaves behind.

“Hey,” I say to the clerk as he comes close.

I don’t look at the dustpan; I’ve got two dead pets under my belt, one of whom I’ve seen after a semi hit her. There are some experiences that don’t bear repeating. I look at him, into his ugly features, and for a moment I don’t see the flesh at all.

“Thank you, for doing this for us.”

He gives another odd grunt, shuffling slowed, looking back at me from the sides of his eyes.

I go back to the car and leave before security guy can do more than startle and splutter out his hope that Kelly feels better. I project silently unimpressed at him and, especially, particularly, at this Halloween night. Kelly cries the entire long way back. My hand continues to tingle on the steering wheel, and somehow it feels unclean. I drive back over a dark bridge and through lightless trees, going home under a full, round moon.

2012

A Late Wedding

I will be late to just about anything that is not directly related to keeping a roof over me, but this time I am genuinely caught off-guard. I’m reading off a wedding invitation to a friend of mine over the phone, wondering what I should buy as a wedding present, when I catch myself and read the wedding date twice.

“Holy shit!” Then I apologize to my friend, who is one of those people in that peculiar camp who believe that certain sounds that come out of one’s mouth are somehow bad in the spiritual way. Placing their weighty judgment on anything that mentions God, or Jesus, or even poop, which is a weird category to place next to the first two.

It’s really odd to me that some people think some words are intrinsically bad in and of themselves, rather than what they’re used for. Slurs -- sure, those are bad. They hurt people. But "shit?" The objection isn’t even to the “holy” part: no one’s offended when I say “Holy bananas!” But mention excrement, with or without the holy, and then man, you’ve crossed a line.

Or they make the argument, “It’s the creative demise of the English language, using those words as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and sometimes even proper nouns. Young people these days, can’t they be more imaginative than that?" I imagine these people out on the streets, correcting people’s language in order to encourage creativeness. “No, dear, what you want to say is you’re having an atrocious day, rather than just saying bad. Using one-syllable adjectives makes you look terribly stupid.”

Or, “You are supposed to say, 'At what are you pointing?' Not 'What are you pointing at?' Do not use prepositions at the end of sentences as it is incorrect!” I imagine the totally creative street brawls that must occur in this elaborate fantasy.

Despite my apology, I’m showcasing my rampant lack of creativeness to Brooke as I shove on my old Sunday dress and shoes, and run out the door with my make-up bag and a brush. And probably showing off my lack of godliness too, when I have to run back in for my purse.