The Long Road Home; pt. 2

He walked through the tight hallway corridors, the walls seemingly closing in on him by the time he made it to the stairs. There was a strange smell in the air, not bad per se, but certainly alarming. The smell of years of whores and johns and killers and thieves and scoundrels making their presences known throughout the tiny rooms of the dingy hotel. This was an unholy place.
He walked downstairs to the bar. Cigarette smoke clouded his being, to which his only response was to light another cigarette. He made his way to the dingy and dimly lit bar. There were an assorted group of individuals there that night. He sat at an open stool next to a biker gang. They had equal length of hair, and they smelled something awful, the result of old leather and days on the road at the time. He looked at the girl and noticed that at one point or another she might have been attractive, but years of abuse (both from thy self and from others) have left her run down, and beat up, not even a shadow of her former self, but a different entity all together. The life of the nomadic American.
He ordered a Bud Light. It tasted acidic going down his cotton-mouth ridden throat and his stomach was having trouble accepting it. The speed was running down finally and he was left with an unpleasant sweat and jitters in his muscles. He looked around the bar. So many lost and wandering souls all gather to places like these. A refuge for those without refuge; taking comfort in the familiar feeling of an alcohol buzz and a nicotine rush.
After the first beer went down, the rest seemed far easier.
“Have I been headed here my whole life?” he thought.
He took out a picture from his wallet. Her shimmering gold hair and full and protruding lips seemed miles away from him now. He didn’t know the person she once loved any longer. He felt cold and distant. Emotions seem so scarce on the road.
Someone put a Van Morrison song on the jukebox, and the music soothed him to an extent. He tried to contemplate how he had gotten to his hotel, this bar, this place, and with these people. Was he one of these people? Though the thought terrified him, he really couldn’t seem to care.