This must be Cortez

It had to be Cortez, I should have written it more clearly in my notes. Anyway, let’s say it was definitely Cortez, near the southern border of Colorado. I was in a motel, and I arrived late, as usual. Late check in at night and leaving early in the morning, as the best no land man, mad, ’40s or 2015. The key for my room is in a letterbox glued on the front door. This motel is clearly family-run and objectively there was no reason to stay up and awake, doing nothing waiting for the last guest to check in. In addition, there was this letter itself — handwritten — which wished me a good night and gave me information on everything I may have needed to know. The previous motel (in Pesos, Texas) was a solotraveller-eater monster instead. But this, learn, thanks to a couple of sentences written with kindness, gave me already a pleasant welcome.

Parked my mega bolide, a metallized Chevrolet renamed by me Silver Machine, and thrown away a bit of trash that I had magically created driving semi-non-stop from Santa Fe, here I go into the house, in my motel room. The car parked in front of the door I always found a “movie” feeling. The characteristic of traveling alone then allowed me in my head to interpret the character I wanted. I could be Tom Cruise in Rain Man, I could shut the door shut, like someone who had a day full of problems and was about to commit a massacre if he did not take a shower right away. I could also look around, like a cold-blooded fugitive who verified that no one was following him. Or be a wandering poet and write a few lines while I smoked a cigarette. But I did not smoke, I did not feel nervous and went into the room that I could not wait to undress and take a shower.

The motel room was two decades old, like any motel, I started thinking. But it was clean and tidy, I added to my thinking. There was a TV (old wood coloured one), a double bed with pillows and clean sheets on the top. A very small yet essentially equipped kitchen, an essential bathroom, white tiles, a clean shower tray, a towel. Soaked up all my stuff on the bed, picked up the keys and got in the car to go and look for some food. The motel was slightly out of town, and Cortez seemed to be a tiny town, so in less than five minutes I was already up and down the central avenue, maybe the only avenue around. My choices for dinner were just a question of which fast food. All very similar to each other, four or five but none of them particularly got me (I can become picky on the easiest things). From a cinematographic point of view, I did not give a damn at that moment, I just needed to eat, the pop art experience had already been fully lived, smelled and performed in front of my eyes in the previous weeks, in Chicago mostly, so that night I just went out to eat in order to get carbs to write all night and then sleep. I noticed a couple of dodgy places, of that marvellous dubious nature, one with a neon light that sounds like “naked women here” (whose for?). I would have ventured in search of unusual characters but I was hungry, period. I stopped at a drive-thru or something like a drive-thru. Anchored my Silver Machine in front of a screen full of options, in a parking space in a parking lot where each slot has the same large screen talking out on the driver’s side. The voice is automatic, I make my choices, I obviously exaggerate with the quantities. Double cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, fries. The United States of America lick their lips on this, sexually aroused. After a couple of minutes, a guy from the fast-food arrives and gives me the big package. I don’t know what’s the difference with a normal drive-thru, if not just the possibility of eating there directly in the car. So I was there, with that big bag of treasure. I went back to the motel, and spread all the junk food on the table next to the television. I put on music, it was ten o’clock in the evening, maybe eleven o’clock, maybe it was already midnight. I started eating, a crazy hunger got me. I came all the way from Santa Fe, and my plan was dictating me to leave the next morning for Mesa Verde, like a gentle tourist from Germany. I was inviting to my room the Boston, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Spirit and they all came, we had a party. I felt like I was still driving, with all that music in my room, and I could have left and drove again immediately. But, after all, the french fries were properly salted, the coke was just cold fine and everything was fine actually, there was no rush. The bed was calling, tidying up ideas before writing, without taking my breath out I wished I could have had a pint, but getting out for that would have brought just nowhere and dangerously out of gas. What was messing through my head? There used to be more space, so I had to write all that down as soon as possible. In essence, I was going to sleep around two o’clock, as usual. The morning after I opened the door of the motel room, breathed in, asked myself how great I was, and started loading the car. Colorado was showing me a clear gigantic sky and giving me some wonderful fresh air, chilling my skin and firing up my lungs. I returned the keys to the reception desk and jump into the Silver Machine and, left the parking lot, took a long trip to the Mesa Verde National Park, until lunch, and then a non-stop way to get into the Monument Valley before the glorious sun was down.