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| Sign for the Texas/Illinois Motel |
Every
story has its genesis, and the genesis of a story can be from some monumental,
soul-shaking event or it can be a common mundane thing of little consequence.
"The Texas/Illinois Motel," came from a childhood memory. My family
came from Arkansas, a southern US state, and, when we would visit relatives
there after we moved north to Indiana, we would pass the Texas/Illinois Motel,
so named because it lay, supposedly, halfway between Texas and Illinois. Truck
drivers on a trek north could bed down there halfway through their journey. And
quite a few did, at least when I was very young. The place always seemed full.
It sat on a stretch of road that ran from Little Rock up to the northern
reaches of the states. Lots of trucks and cars would park there and in front of
it stood a sign with the name of the place emblazoned and outlines of the
two states. Then a new highway went through.
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| Abandoned motel, still standing |
After
the interstate highly bypassed it, travel on the road slowed. Pretty soon the
Texas/Illinois closed. It decayed and stood a ruin. For some reason, no one
tried to reopen it and no one demolished the site. It stands, a testimony to
what had passed away around the Arkansas towns of Searcy, Bald Knob, and Judsonia,
where my parents had grown up, where most of my relatives still live. It is a
sad ruin and a sad testimony to the economic decline that put so many places
out of business.
Deserted
motels are creepy. You wonder if the ghosts of people who once stayed there
might stop on whatever journeys ghosts might take. That gave me the idea for a
story about Sossity Chandler. She has just achieved a level of success as a
singer, has had one or two hits, is in the money and building her career—not a
superstar yet, but has a good chance of becoming one if she plays her cards
right. She is on tour, opening for a hard rock musician named Davis Clark. She does not
like him and does not approve of his exploitation of groupie girls and other
aspects of his life, but touring with him makes for good publicity.
Once she
played the town in which they are staying and decides to take a sentimental journey that
will recall her days of struggle. She eats an old restaurant she ate at back
then and plans to drive over to the Texas/Illinois Motel, where she stayed
during that time. A man in café tells her it's abandoned because a girl died
there. A lot of people, he says, think it's haunted. Sossity drives there and
sees a girl in a smock standing barefoot in the snow. Thinking she is homeless,
maybe addicted, and lives in the abandoned site, she offers to drive her
downtown to a shelter. "What if I'm a ghost?" The girl says. Sossity
lets her in the car and, through things the girl tells her that only a
supernatural creature would know, finds out she is telling the truth.
And
more: the girl, Joetta Holland, was a groupie
of Davis Clark and claims he murdered her by deliberately giving her an overdose
of heroin. She convinces Sossity, who buys her clothes and food and listened to
her story (ghosts have bodies for a short while around midnight). She wants
revenge and will not be able to go to her rest until she gets it. The two of
them hatch a plot. She wants to haunt not Clark's house and not his car, but his
music.
It's
tricky, but Sossity manages to get Davis Clark to come to the motel. When he
does, Joetta appears to him as he is playing his guitar. She hovers near him
and then her phantom-like shape breaks apart. Clark is glad she has vanished
and thinks she is gone. Sossity knows she has entered his music and will live
in it, torment him every time he picks up his guitar and plays, ruin his
career, and finally kill him.
The Sixth Sense told us the old truth that
ghosts want something. They are ghosts because some traumatic event has
attached them to a site or a person and they cannot go on to their reward, to
the afterlife, until they resolve the conflict that has anchored them to an earthly
spot. Joetta has to deal with Clark's deception and revenge herself.
Sossity is willing to join her in her plot because she wants to see justice
done.
The
story appeared in a journal no longer being published but with an archive. Read "The Texas/Illinois Motel" here.
wuxia are all found in my latest
novella, The Sorceress of Time.
For more titles, explore my Writer's Page.
I would love to her your comments.
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