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The hotel had been painted and braced against the decrepit indignities of old age, and here we’ve violated its whole backside. Shattered windows line the tilted cement sidewalk—not only ours; incompetent stray shots blew out the neighbors as well. The geriatric brick walls are cratered and punctured, filling the air with century-old brick dust and probably a collection of mold spores safely tucked away since World War Two. The August air’s warm and humid enough to sprout them. The bystanders are long gone. The geezer who’d been sitting out in front of his room has vanished, hopefully to somewhere with more than a couple brick walls between us.
Whoever’d painted and scrubbed up this place? We’ve destroyed their aspirations.
The shiny new rental SUV we’re hiding behind? That’s another
