A Last Night in the Rock Hotel

The man on the bed watched the roach. It wasn’t looking back at him exactly, but it wasn’t moving. Its antennae were waving: insect semaphore, Dale let out a laugh that turned into a sigh. Maybe the thing was debating whether to cross the sticky patch on the carpet. Dale had walked around it on his way to the bed, three days ago.

The bottle on the bedside table was empty. 2 litres of Fanta had lasted until yesterday. Dale wondered when the roach would start talking to him. His talking to the roach didn’t count. Didn’t look much, the room. Big, though. It had been the Honeymoon Suite in ’69. The sag in the bed’s mattress told him that maybe they had been in this very bed. Dale reckoned he did know how hard it could be.

The back-pack in the corner still looked new. All his clothes were still inside. Except the shorts and tee he’d worn crossing the border from Spain. The guard had made him empty out the rucksack. He’d passed comment on the newness of the clothes to his buddy. Dale had picked up plenty of Es-pan-yol in Tijuana, back in the day. Which day was that anyway? It sure hadn’t been any recent day.

He looked at his watch 12.15 on the 25^th of something. Throwing his mobile into the Mediterranean had been a damn’ good idea. Tarifa was a nice town, full of surfers and bums. A bit like home in some ways.

La cucaracha was on the move; circumnavigating the stain on the carpet. Humming the song turned out a bad idea and Dale tried to stop coughing, but couldn’t for too many sweeps of the second hand. The spoon and spike were beside the empty fanta bottle, next to the belt and the cellophane. It wasn’t time for that yet, no sir. Not until the insect started answering back.

He’d never dipped into the merchandise, not once. Junkies made bad mules, and no money. No money at all. Dale had made plenty, enough for the best oncologists on the west coast. Enough to take a trip to the bottom of Europe. To the Rock, to the Rock Hotel: a stone’s throw from Africa and a long way from L.A.

The bug had made it to the other side of the hard-matted fibre. It stood up on its hind legs. Could they really do that?

He inched his back up against the old headboard, could HE really do THAT? It seemed like it. He pulled the zippo out of his pocket, since the cockroach was singing at him, it sounded like John. It could have been worse, he reflected, the roach might have sounded like Yoko.