Headlights(16)

Running through the parking lot, throwing it up in the air and catching it. Mom calling from inside.

“Danny!”

Voom.

The pieces fall from my hands. The wind blows in the grass, and the Colorado soil softens the landing. I don’t need to see what it says on the back.

Daphne stops a foot away. Her eyes find it on the ground.

Three pieces of an orange and yellow plastic motel room key tag. With words in white cursive on the side. Words that form when Daphne bends down and fits the pieces together.

FREE SMILE WITH EVERY STAY AT THE HAPPY INN!





7



A motel by the side of the road, south of Denver on I-25, a flickering neon blue WANDER INN sign. We, and a SWAT team, pull up to the front parking lot. The motel lights shine in my eyes.

I could have driven this way a hundred times and not known it was the same road, the same motel. When I was a kid, it was wide open stretches, nothing around but open road in black night. Now, houses. New developments everywhere, a sea of brown roofs, strip malls, subdivisions. All their lights so bright. Nearly suffocating.

I was told the Happy Inn was torn to the ground.

You know you’re my shining boy.

The Wander Inn now, it’s been painted blue and white, given a cosmetic overhaul. But it didn’t fall. It’s the same structure. I’d know it anywhere. This place hasn’t died. It hasn’t even been reconfigured. Just soft colors added, mountain flowers on the front office sign. Befitting a motel near these new neighborhoods. The road itself a main artery now, no longer a back road. No more carnival-saturated orange and yellow. No more clowns.

But the Happy Inn is still here.

Officers jump out of vehicles, feet on pavement. The main office is over on the right with the Innkeepers’ Suite, a little apartment and garage where Sherie used to live, same as it used to be. The rooms on the left. The towering sign in the middle.

Mom stands and walks to the door of our room, Dad’s fist pounding from outside.

“ROSE, OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!”

Mom, please don’t—

Shh, Danny.

“DON’T YOU FUCKING TALK TO MY SON! LET ME IN!”

I’m out of the car, somehow. Standing on the asphalt. Pavement? I don’t— Mom looks scared. She turns to me. “Put your boots on, Danny, okay? Get your boots on and go for a little walk while Daddy and I talk.”

She opens the door, and he stumbles in.

Wander Inn. Happy Inn.

Glitches in time. Static. Pressure.

Wearing too-big cowboy boots, the ones my mom found for me at a thrift shop. The ones she said I’d grow into. That we both thought John Denver would wear.

A tired couple is dragged out from the apartment attached to the office, the innkeepers. Jack asks for a manifest log. The plastic key tag pieces shoved in front of them, the innkeepers’ eyes wide.

“I … I haven’t seen one of those in years. Not since the renovation. Not since we took over. I don’t … Where did you say you found it?”

SWAT starts at the nearest room. I drift behind them. As they knock on doors, push into empty rooms. Ask if they can look around inside the occupied ones. Probable cause, warrants. I don’t know how Jack’s handling it.

Dad trips on his way inside, stumbles. His head swings around, looking for me. He pushes past my mom.

“Danny, get outside,” my mom says.

“You think you can take him from me?” Dad yells.

“Mom!” Hiding between the beds.

“Shh, Danny, it’s okay. Calvin, let’s just talk, okay? Let’s just—I wasn’t—”

Outdoor walkway, lights flickering. Static, in the air.

“That’s not his name, Rose!”

Bad Feeling. Bad Feeling.

A black Cadillac, in the final parking spot out front. Thirty paces from the room. My room. Mine and Mom’s.

Glitch. Static.

I blink. No Cadillac.

Glitch, again.

Yes, there is. It’s there, and I’m staring at it.

“Calvin, let’s get Danny outside, and then we’ll talk, okay?”

He’s crying. Dad is crying, stumbling, running his hands over his head. “I can’t even look at you. I can’t believe you would do this. How could you do this?”

He leans on the wall, his head resting on a sunset painting, knocking it crooked. He breathes, heavy, through his nose. It’s loud. So loud. “Haven’t I given you everything? You wanted space, you wanted—I can’t—”

I don’t mean to, but a sound comes from my throat. I’m scared, and I’m shaking.

Mom’s eyes cut to me, and she shakes her head, to say be quiet. She takes a step.

I’m here. On the mat. In front of the room, just outside.

Blood on my cowboy boots.

Someone on the SWAT team steps in front of me, knocks, and puts his ear to the door.

I blink. The motel is the Happy Inn again. Orange, yellow, I— Blink again.

Mom crying too. Both of them crying.

“Go wait outside, honey, okay? Go take a little walk, and Mommy will—”

Two officers, knocking on the door. One of them young, new. A third and fourth holding formation. I’m just standing, just— “How could you do this?! How could you!” Dad yells.