Sunday, March 11, 2007

Murder Is My Beat, The Miami Motel Is Just Plain Creepy




Wish I had gotten around to typing this up on Friday, as the walk home and my thoughts are under the surface now, but I had to write a story with a three-hour deadline that evening, send it on to Maurice Broaddus, then go to the post office early the next morning to mail a huge box full of stuff to Johannesburg and buy some DC superhero stamps, then promptly leave for an Ice Cream Social at the 57th Street Bookstore near the University of Chicago, to hear Larry Santoro and Marty Mundt read from the works of H. P. Lovecraft. You can find each of the people mentioned above in the blog links to the left. Well, not Lovecraft's, but you can always Google the crazy old sock if you might be inclined to do such a thing. (By the way, I missed the readings because I got off the bus on West 57th, not East 57th, amost immediately realizing my mistake when faced with an intersection bordered by four vacant lots.) Here's what I would have typed Friday night, as I walked in spring-like rain for the two miles from the place that gave me my tax refund to my home. I love walking in rain, preferably when it is not freezing rain, because I had Lasik corrective surgery done back in the year of double-ought, and whereas I can never know the convenience of driving a car, I can revel in looking into a sky the color of torn plums and watching droplets of water hit my open eyes. To get home, I walked though the suburbs of Oak Lawn, Hometown, then a slight wedge of Chicago, before turning towards my home in Burbank. I passed in always creepy Miami Motel, which has somehow found the need to trademark their claims of offering "Four Hour Naps," uh-huh, right. My highlight of any walk in the vicinity of Cicero Avenue and the train crossing at 88th Place is to see the amount of cars parked in the lot; once I actually counted five. The joint was jumping. While I typed that story, one-fingered as usual, later that night, I listened to the CD pictured above, which has songs from films such as KEY LARGO, LAURA, DARK PASSAGE, and MURDER, MY SWEET. The kind of music I will hear in my head as I walk the dark streets in the rain, having my long thoughts about both the days ahead and of the days already behind me.

7 comments:

Drizel said...

Such a lovely picture to imagine....except the rain hitting you in the eye....ouchie:)

James Robert Smith said...

Three-hour deadline. That's one I'd like to see. Keep us posted.

Charles Gramlich said...

"A sky the color of torn plums" is one of those perfect phrases, Wayne. I can see it, and feel the rain in your words.

Cathy VanPatten said...

Four hour naps???

Too funny!

and I second Charles--that phrase is sheer magic.

Sidney said...

I like walking in the rain too, but I have to watch the spatter on my glasses. I pulled out The Call of Cthulhu the other day, coincidentally. It's not Lovecraft but Bloch stories I've wound up reading in that collection, though, because Stewart recently mentioned Bloch's mythos stories and put them on my mind.

lee said...

haha-not much napping going on.

RK Sterling said...

Thirding that. (Ok, so it's probably not a word, but I liked that phrase too.)

Sounds like a long walk. Today was a nice one if you have to hoof it.