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Is there HBO in Heaven?
I spend a lot of nights alone. As I sit here at my fluorescent-lit, formica-topped Hampton Inn desk, listening to the air conditioner buzz, I find myself ensconced in yet again one more hotel room in a blurry long line of hotel rooms. I wonder about the fellow travelers hived around me. Is their experience like mine? Are they at home among the silk plants and plain-vanilla bird prints that feebly attempt to offer some succor to the credit-card homeless? Does the business of business numb them more effectively than it numbs me?
Don’t get me wrong. It only reads like I’m grumbling. I chose this life and while I might hate little pieces of it, I love the whole. I’ve been a road warrior so long that I can honestly say that I’ve wondered whether heaven comes with room service. Is there HBO?
Alone comes in many flavors. At home, after a frazzling day, few things are sweeter or more rejuvenating than some alone time. In a crowd - especially a crowd of boisterous friends - alone is a little bit awkward and embarrassing. Ironically, warmth and attention don’t help much; they just make me feel ungracious, like someone with a terminal illness who squirms at compassion. And then there’s motel alone.
Motel alone is one of the reason I detest hotel suites. Just give me a single room. Crowd it with furniture and fixtures. Make me work to find space for my stuff. All that space in a big hotel suite just amplifies the fact that I’m the only one in it. I rattle around these places like one piece of gravel in an empty beer can. All that space and just one pebble. Some nights on the road are tough on the spirit. It’s soul-killing to unpack in these spaces; even my socks don’t want to leave the suitcase. At times like this I miss my wife so much that it makes it almost hard to breathe. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary and I won’t be home...again.
One of my favorite movies of all time is “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.� I love John Candy’s character in that film, mainly because he’s been able to find and be himself on the road. Motel alone doesn’t phase him. His trunk, pictures, rituals, and bonhomie endear him to the people on his journeys. He embodies a tough sweetness that I admire and respect. While the movie is one big hilarious series of sight gags and situations, the contrast between Steve Martin’s character - an aloof, tight-assed advertising man - and Candy’s bumbling, chatterbox salesman explores something deeper. It compares and contrasts the way that people find and connect with each other according to their hunger for connecting with another human being. Candy’s character has found a way to stave off motel alone.
Earlier this evening I went to a new friend’s house for barbecue here in Memphis. The pipe and cigar club, which is about 45 guys, threw this shindig. I was lucky enough to be invited. The wild boar was cooked by Rocky Janda, a world-champion barbecue master. His sauce was so good that it made my teeth hurt. There were amazing beans, fabulous slaw, and enough beer and bourbon to float the Lusitania. Frankly, being on the road doesn’t get any better than this. The food and the people were so terrific that I forgot I was on the road. It was such a great time that when I had to leave and come back here, the motel alone thing banged down like a fire curtain after a torch song. The smell of a hotel room after wild boar “Q� takes on an almost perverse meanness.
Posted on June 22, 2007 08:14 AM | Permalink
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