The other night, I woke up to pee. I was in the hotel again. Monica had been there earlier, but now she was gone. I could still smell her on the pillow next to me. And on my hand. Now it was just Honey in the bed, curled up in the greater-than sign of my knees.

I got up. Made my way to the bathroom. In these moments when I'm barely awake, I'm always struck with a kind of infirmity. Fuzzy vision. Or worse—no vision whatsoever. Eyes glued shut. My body feels swollen and bruised. Like it's been in a fight. Often it has: with an IPA. Or six. My mind isn't any better off. It's full of some terrible static. And since neither mind nor body can fully depend on the other, they begin to act independently. Each one thinking he knows best. Stubborn. Mean. Two sorry gangsters with loaded guns unable to see eye-to-eye, ready to pull the trigger if the other so much as looks funny. And let me tell you, they both look funny.


I'd told Monica about the conversation with Gary. I'd asked her why she hadn't told me about him.

"Because. I didn't think I had to. It's really not your business."

"I run into him all the time. Don't you think...I should know?"

"Why? He doesn't know anything."

"This is a small hotel. He knows."

"He's not that bright."

"Perhaps, but that beard. I think it knows things he doesn't."

"If you'd of asked me, I'd have told you, Papi. I will always tell you what you don't want to know."

God, I love it when she says things like that.


In these moments of early-morning wakefulness, my body is the wiser of the two gangsters. That doesn't often happen. But Body knows we have to do this thing and he figures the quicker the better. Mind isn't entirely convinced. He has his own agenda. And he carries a Glock, so there's that. Maybe we can stay here a bit longer, he says, waving that piece around like a drunk mafioso. It's not quite a question. He calls this "reasoning." He says: Maybe it'll just go away, this urge. Let's just stay in bed. He says: If it comes to it, we could just do it here. And Body's irked response: We go through this every time. It's not...proper. In these moments, Mind always feels a little betrayed. He feels like he's just being dragged along. Like he has no say in this matter. He's not used to that.

And Body...you'd think he'd like all the power, but he's really not too keen on the whole thing either. He moves awkwardly. He slams his shoulder into door frames. He kicks stray rawhides with his bare feet. He's often reluctant to let go of an erection.

And both act blameless over this last thing. My god, the finger pointing. The name calling. Body: You were the one with the fucked-up erotic dreams, asshole. Why don't you get rid of it. By the way, what was with her? And the boxing gloves? Mind: I have no idea what you're talking about, you perv. And, would you look at yourself? Christ, you look ridiculous all hunched over like that. Are you actually going to try to piss that way? Body: Look, I've done this plenty of times. Just go back to sleep. I'll take care of it.

It's in these early hours that both Mind and Body are a little on edge. Scared and mistrustful when it comes to familiar things. The floor fan. The light switch. The bathroom sink. Silent things seem suspiciously animate. Quiet things seem downright rowdy. And loud things seem...goddamned ferocious.

God, this early hour bathroom dance...when it's still so dark. A hand on the wall. Searching. For a light. For a switch. In the hotel, we need it. Because it's all so unfamiliar. And it's awful, really it is—awful and jarring—when it pops on, shining a spotlight on this mafia showdown. But we search for it anyway. And when we find it, we have to figure out how to operate it. In the more modern hotels, you just put your finger on this little indention on the wall, and the light goes on. Like magic. It's hard to grasp at three in the morning. No switch?! I've been in a few rooms where the light comes on automatically, too. Motion sensors and all. You'd think these would be good. But they can make you paranoid. And they don't go off without a fight.

This hotel isn't new. It's got a switch. And while those are easy to wrap your head around, they still have to be found. And they come with sounds.

But we do it. Mind, Body: The ugly team of us. We manage to find it. And we flip the switch up. A loud pop. We look around the bathroom and try to suppress our panic. We mark the goal. There! There it is! We understand our position in relation to the other objects in the bathroom. The sink. The trash can. The toilet. We organize the space between here and there in our head. We do this in a split second. And then it's back off with the light. Another loud pop. And we walk over to where we are. And we stand there. And we do what we've decided we must.

And here's the thing that strikes me this time: when you flick on the light like that. On and then off. Real quick like. The image of the scene remains, burned in your vision. In your mind's eye. It just hovers there in the darkness. Etched on your retina. As real as anything you've ever felt or touched. And it feels close. And it feels distant, too.

And it occurs to me in that moment, that sometimes things are like that. Real things. They remain with us, long after they've disappeared. We can see them. We can smell them. We can taste them. They are both close and distant. And it's not imagination. It's some other faculty that operates independent of our consciousness. The light comes on, the bright 100-watt bulb, and the things are there. And the light goes off, and they stay with us for a bit. Even if we move around. Even if we leave them.

Category: InBetween