¡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 a couple'a blocks that way. Just follow the sirens."
He wasn't kidding.
The Boxtan Inn was two story motel that, even on its worst day, probably looked like it hadn't seen better days. It was the color of puked-up pumpkin pie, and had 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 an ambulance and a trio of police cars.
Lucky for me, I found a place to live and work in one shot, as in, the motel's cleaning lady had just been shot. She was screaming what I assume was a long list of obscenities while getting hauled out on a stretcher.
"¡Hijo de puta! I fucking quit! ¡Pinche cabrón de fucking mierda! ¡Chinga tu puuuta madre, asshole! ¡Aaaaaaagh!"
The manager barely pretended 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 betting you have both."
Too soon?
Apparently not.
Welcome to Gary, Indiana.
He tried to ask if I had any references, but the screaming and sirens in the background drowned him out.
Weeoo! Weeoo! "¡Carajo!" Weeoo! Weeoo! "¡Aaaaaaagh!"
I said, "I CAN START TODAY!"
Good enough.
I was only at the Boxtan for six months, the highlight of which happened a few days after I started working there, when I spotted some asshole trying to rob one of the rooms.
I was in the parking lot, doing my best to hose a previous incident off the side of the building, when I noticed a guy in a gray hoodie was trying to pick the lock on one of the upstairs rooms.
I said, "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 out. A motel room only has one door, and this room was on the second story, so there was only one way down.
I ran up the stairs and tied one end of my hose to the railing. I laid the rest in a line in front of the room he was in, and I held the other end of the hose while I waited a few feet away.
When the guy came out of the room, he ran past me. And as he did, I yanked the hose and whipped it.
My plan was to trip the guy, but I got him right between the legs.
The hose went, "WHAP!!!"
The guy went down as he screamed, "FOHWWWWWW!!!!!"
So that went well.
He tumbled down the stairs like a drunk slinky.
"OHHH! HO! OH!!! UGHH!!!"
Flop, flop. Whump, bump. Crash.
I followed him down and held him at gunpoint with his gun while the manager just stood there, dumbfounded.
I looked at the manager and said, "Seriously? You're just gonna watch? Call the cops!"
"Nobody's callin' the cops," he said.
"But..."
"Not callin' the cops."
"Fine," I said. "Then take his gun and keep him down!" The manager watched in disbelief as I tied the guy up with the hose. "Don't let anybody fuck with the Boxtan, man! The hell's wrong with people these days?"
What kind of idiot tries to rob a roach motel?
What kind of manager lets it happen?
I turned my attention to the guy I'd tied up as I went through his wallet.
"I'm new here," I said, "but I read an interesting statistic about this place. Apparently, a hundred percent of guys named Amir who get tied up at the Boxtan also get shot with their own gun. I don't know if it's true, but I guess we'll find out. Right Amir?"
"Yeah yeah, girl," The manager said. "You had your fun. Foke'll handle the rest."
"Who's Foke?"
"He owns the place. He'll send somebody to take care of Amir."
"Make sure you give 'em Amir's gun."
"Won't need it. Foke's crew 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... What happened to him was not my fault.
Bro chose his fate.