Information (tilde.town/~mozz/index) | |
All You Love Will Be Carried Away | |
By Steven King | |
(part 1 of 7) | |
It was a Motel 6 on I-80 just west of Lincoln, Nebraska. The | |
snow that began at mid_afternoon had faded the sign's | |
virulent yellow to a kinder pastel shade as the light ran | |
out of the January dusk. The wind was closing in on that | |
quality of empty amplification one encounters only in the | |
country's flat midsection, usually in wintertime. That | |
meant nothing but discomfort now, but if big snow came | |
tonight__the weather forecasters couldn't seem to make up | |
their minds__then the interstate would be shut down by | |
morning. That was nothing to Alfie Zimmer. | |
He got his key from a man in a red vest and drove down to | |
the end of the long cinder_block building. He had been | |
selling in the Midwest for twenty years and had formulated | |
four basic rules about securing his night's rest. First, | |
always reserve ahead. Second, reserve at a franchise motel | |
if possible_your Holiday Inn, your Ramada Inn, your Comfort | |
Inn, your Motel 6. Third, always ask for a room on the end. | |
That way, the worst you could have was one set of noisy | |
neighbors. Last, ask for a room that begins with a one. | |
Alfie was forty-four, too old to be fucking truck_stop | |
whores, eating chicken_fried steak, or hauling his luggage | |
upstairs. These days, the rooms on the first floor were | |
usually reserved for non_smokers. Alfie rented them and | |
smoked anyway. | |
Someone had taken the space in front of Room 190. All | |
the spaces along the building were taken. Alfie wasn't | |
surprised. You could make a reservation, guarantee it, but | |
if you arrived late (late on a day like this was after 4 | |
P.M.), you had to park and walk. The cars belonging to the | |
early birds were nestled up to the gray cinder block and the | |
bright_yellow doors in a long line, their windows already | |
covered with a scrim of light snow. | |
Alfie drove around the corner and parked with the nose of | |
his Chevrolet pointed at the white expanse of some farmer's | |
field, swimming deep into the gray of day's end. At the | |
farthest limit of vision he could see the spark lights of a | |
farm. In there, they would be hunkered down. Out here, the | |
wind blew hard enough to rock the car. Snow skated past, | |
obliterating the farm lights for a few moments. | |
Alfie was a big man with a florid face and a smoker's noisy | |
respiration. He was wearing a topcoat, because when you were | |
selling that was what people liked to see. Not a jacket. | |
Storekeepers sold to people wearing jackets and John Deere | |
caps, they didn't buy from them. The room key lay on the | |
seat beside him. It was attached to a diamond of green | |
plastic. The key was a real key, not a MagCard. On the radio | |
Clint Black was singing "Nothin' but the Tail Lights." It | |
was a country song. Lincoln had an FM rocker now, but | |
rock_and_roll music didn't seem right to Alfie. Not out | |
here, where if you switched over to AM you could still hear | |
old men calling down hellfire. | |
He shut off the engine, put the key to 190 in his pocket, | |
and checked to make sure he still had his notebook in there, | |
too. His old pal."Save Russian Jews," he said, reminding | |
himself. "Collect valuable prizes." | |
He got out of the car and a gust of wind hit him hard, | |
rocking him back on his heels, flapping his pants around his | |
legs, making him laugh a smoker's surprised rattlebox laugh. | |
His samples were in the trunk, but he wouldn't need them | |
tonight. No, not tonight, not at all. He took his suitcase | |
and his briefcase out of the back seat, shut the door, then | |
pushed the black button on his key fob. That one locked all | |
the doors. The red one set off an alarm, what you were | |
supposed to use if you were going to get mugged. Alfie had | |
never been mugged. He guessed that few salesmen of gourmet | |
foods were, especially in this part of the country. There | |
was a market for gourmet foods in Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, | |
and Kansas; even in the Dakotas, although many might not | |
believe it. Alfie had done quite well, especially over the | |
last two years as he got to know the market's deeper | |
creases-_but it was never going to equal the market for, | |
let's say, fertilizer. Which he could smell even now on the | |
winter wind that was freezing his cheeks and turning them an | |
even darker shade of red. | |
All You Love Will Be Carried Away (Part 2 of 7) | |
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