The Purple Mountains Motor Lodge wasn’t a seedy fleabag like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty might have stayed in, but Frank was thinking it was the modern-day equivalent, as he turned into the parking lot of the one-story, brown, cheaply built sixties era residential motel.
Going inside the room with Larry, the man having looked over his shoulder the entire drive here, Frank was experiencing some uprisings in his gut.
His gut was his most reliable predictor of the future, and right now things weren’t sitting so well down there.
He watched Larry in the bedroom shoving clothes and miscellaneous items into a large olive-drab military surplus duffel bag and an old, but still in good shape brown leather suitcase that was probably a hand-me-down from his parents.
Frank looked around the room. Place had a kitchenette with a small stove and refrigerator and dirty coffee cups in the tiny sink. Fast food bags were scattered on the counter and in the trash and there were empty Budweiser cans on the small coffee table in the living room, along with two black plastic ashtrays containing butts with lipstick stains on the filters. The green couch didn’t look particularly comfortable.
Frank had to take a leak and when he came out of the bathroom Larry was standing there in white pants and a blue polo shirt, a half-drunk grin on his face. “Ready to hit the road, Frankie, my man? Time is a wasting.”
“I’m not so sure, Larry,” Frank said. “That booze is hitting me like a load of bricks. Not sure if I’m up to another round of freeway flyin’ at the moment.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s not the Frank Ford that I remember.” He reached in the pocket of his white trousers and brought out a brown plastic pill vial. “Here,” he said, extending the vial toward Frank. “Take one of these and you’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a heartbeat.”
“That’s all right, man, I’ve got a couple of black dex left in the wagon.”
“Black beauties are crude compared to these dudes. This shit is state-of-the-art. Got them from a doctor’s wife I know.”
“Fuckin’ her too?”
“I was, yes. But, sadly, that’s over now.”
Frank suppressed a groan and shook out one of the orange, glossy-coated pills.
“This shit is a lot smoother than black beauties, I guarantee. Let me get you something to wash it down.” Richards went to the refrigerator and pulled out two plastic ring six-packs of Budweiser tallboys, plucked two cans from the rings and gave one to Frank.
(End of Chapter 7)
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