Now They Call Me Gunner

  * * *

  The motel that Katie had spied was called Wright’s Inn and the sign carried the slogan, “The Wright place to stay.”

  Corny. It sounded like exactly the kind of place that we wanted.

  I parked the bike outside the office. “You can stay here,” I said. “I’ll get us a room.”

  “Okay.” Was that a note of eagerness in her voice? A man can always dream.

  The office was small, but clean. The man sitting behind the counter was black.

  I don’t think I’d ever spoken to a black man before. There were no black men in Wemsley. Not even the tourists who came were black. Negros. That was what my parents called them but everybody knew that they wanted to be called black now. Black is beautiful. Black and proud.

  I didn’t care. I was happy to call a man whatever he wanted to be called.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello.” He didn’t sound like the black guy on The Mod Squad. His voice was deep but not as rounded as Linc’s.

  “I’d like a room.”

  He peered out the window at Katie sitting on my bike. “For one?” he asked.

  “Right.”

  “Then where’s she going to sleep?”

  I felt my face flush. “I meant for two.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “You got ID?”

  I fished my driver’s license out of my wallet and handed it to him.

  “This says you’re eighteen.” He looked hard at me.

  “I lied about my age when I got my license.”

  “Why would you want them to think you’re under age? Because you don’t want to be able to buy liquor?”

  “I don’t drink. I’m a Mormon.” That was the only thing that I knew about Mormons for sure. They didn’t drink.

  “Right and you and that little saint out there are missionaries.”

  “That’s right.” I had no idea what he was talking about but I was so deep in my lies now that I had no choice but to brazen it out. “She’s my wife. We Mormons marry young.” I was sweating.

  “How many wives you got?”

  “Just the one.”

  “You aren’t wearing a wedding ring.” He peered through the window. “Don’t look like she is, either.”

  “We don’t wear our rings when we’re on the road being missionaries. We don’t want to lose them.”

  “Does she have ID?”

  “No. She doesn’t drive.”

  “If she had ID, would it have your last name on it?”

  “Probably not. We just got married a couple of weeks ago and she hasn’t changed all her ID cards yet.”

  “You got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  “I just want a room.”

  “Ten bucks for a double for the night.”

  I handed him a twenty from my wallet. I was glad that I’d remembered to bring enough money.

  “You got a credit card?”

  “No. I’ve got money.” I pointed to the bill in his hand.

  “Then I’ll need a fifty dollar damage deposit.”

  “I don’t have fifty dollars.”

  He looked at the bill in his hand. “Then it’s ten for the room and a ten dollar damage deposit. Non-refundable.”

  I knew that he was ripping me off but I wanted the room so badly, that I said, “Okay.”

  “And you better not mess up the room, Phillip, or there’ll be an extra cleaning charge on top of the non-refundable damage deposit.” He passed me a blank registration card. “Fill that out, Phil.”

  When I finished, he checked the address that I’d written against the address on my driver’s license. Then he handed it back to me along with a key attached to a big orange plastic tag. “Room one oh five. Next building over.”

  He looked out the window again. “I assume that you don’t need a bellhop to help you carry your luggage.” He laughed at his joke and then went back to reading his newspaper.