¡Chinga tu puuuta madre!
¡Aaaaaaagh!
— An Official Resignation
Oh, Chicago.
The plate was gone, but the dream lived on, and Gary felt like it could be my staging ground. My starting point for a life filled with bigger and better things.
Gary used to be a booming steel town, but it's been in decline since the 1960s. By the time I arrived in June 2018, it was just getting by, but so was I. Hey, you've gotta start somewhere. I chose to start there, and I felt proud for having made the choice.
I had a couple hundred bucks in my pocket, and I needed it to last until I could find an apartment and a job. In the meantime, I needed a cheap place to crash. I spotted some bros dumpster diving behind a Wing Wah Chinese restaurant. They didn't look like big spenders, so I asked 'em, "What's the ugliest, nastiest, roach motel around here?"
A guy who was either complimenting me or offering me a bag of moderately squished food said, "You lookin' for the Boxtan, dumplins? Hot stuff! It's couple'a blocks that way. Just follow the sirens."
He wasn't kidding.
The Boxtan Inn was the color of puked-up pumpkin pie, with just enough bricks on one side to let you know it wouldn't fall down. When I got there, the not-orange but not-brown exterior was being enhanced by the swirling red and blue lights of a trio of cop cars and an ambulance.
Lucky for me, I found a place to live and work in one shot, as in, the cleaning lady had just been shot. She was screaming what I assume was a long list of obscenities in Spanish while getting hauled out on a stretcher.
"¡Hijo de puta! I fucking quit! ¡Pinche cabrón de fucking mierda! ¡Chinga tu puuuta madre, carajo! ¡Aaaaaaagh!"
The manager was barely even pretending he couldn't hear her as he greeted me.
"Yeah, so, whadaya need?"
I said, "I need a room and a job, and I'm guessing you have both."
Too soon?
Apparently not.
Welcome to Gary, Indiana.
The manager started asking if I had any references, but as the screaming in the background got louder, I guess he realized he didn't care.
I said, "I can start today."
"Good 'nuff."
"¡Chinga tu madre, you fucking cabrón jodido! ¡Aaaaagh!"
I was only at the Boxtan for six months, the highlight of which was when I spotted some jackass trying to rob one of the rooms.
I was coming from the parking lot, where I'd been doing my best to hose a previous incident off the side of the building, when I saw a guy in a gray hoodie trying to pick the lock on room 219. "Are you KIDDING me?"
It was too late to stop him from getting in, but it's not like he had other options for getting back out. A motel room only has one door, and 219 was right at the top of the stairs.
I tied the end of my hose to the railing and I held the other end while I waited, a few feet away. The moment he came out of the room, I whipped the hose hard and high.
The hose went, "WHAP!!!"
And the man screamed, "FOHWWWWWW!!!!!"
I crotched him.
He doubled over in pain before tumbling down the stairs like a drunk slinky.
"OHHH! HO! OH!!! UGHH!!!"
Flop, flop. Fump, bump. Crash.
The paper bags he'd grabbed from somebody's room scattered everywhere as he kaplunkunked his way down the stairs. But scattering them was better than letting him steal them, right? I followed him down the stairs and held him at gunpoint, with his gun, while the manager just stood there, dumbfounded.
I said, "Seriously, man? You're just gonna stand there? Call the cops!"
"Do you know whose room he robbed?"
"Like I care," I said, as I handed him the gun. "Just keep him down!"
The manager watched in disbelief as I tied the guy up with the hose.
"Not callin' the cops," he said.
"Don't let anybody fuck with the Boxtan, man! Come on! Call 'em!"
I am not like these people.
What kind of idiot tries to rob a roach motel?
What kind of manager just lets it happen?
I turned my attention to the guy I'd tied up as I went through his wallet.
"I'm new here, but I read an interesting statistic about this place," I said. "I read that one hundred percent of guys named Amir who get tied up at the Boxtan also get shot with their own gun. That true, Amir?"
"Dandy, he robbed Foke's room," The manager said.
"Who's that?"
"Foke owns the place. He uses that room for business. Nobody's callin' the cops. His guys'll handle it."
"Make sure you give 'em Amir's gun."
"They won't need it. They got plenty."
"Oh, shit. Well then Amir, I guess you won't be getting shot with your own gun after all. Is that... better?"
":باغز باني عنيييف!!! Biiitch!!! آرون سوركين يكتب حواراً أفضل!!! Fuck!!! المحرر لازم ينطرد!!!"
The Boxtan Inn was an interesting place. It had a surprisingly international flair, but regardless of what language was being spoken, some words are universal. I suppose that's true anywhere in the world.
And as for Amir... whatever happened next was not my fault.
Bro chose his fate.