Member-only story
The Admiral Oasis Motel
**Trigger Warning: Themes of childhood trauma**
Pickled pigs’ feet, silverware
soaking in scummy water
silent, motionless
a rancid orange edging all of it.
There,
in a reeking basement motel room
full of smoke and desolation.
Was this a normal life?
Who knows.
I didn’t know anything about
normal life.
Oh, but at least
I didn’t have to live in this
festering place, with him.
It was weekend visits,
for the number of months—
years? — that he lived there.
He lived here.
My father, whose towering IQ
I had heard about my whole life,
lived in this rank hole
in the basement,
where the most derelict tenants
were stored.
Linoleum floors.
Green? Auburn?
Two single beds.
Two chairs pushed together
to make a third.
That’s where my brother slept.
Grime coated everything.
A half fridge, that’s where my
father kept the pickled pigs’ feet.
That’s what there was to eat.
But there was a restaurant
upstairs, where they made
spaghetti and meatballs
that tasted more extraordinary
than anything I’d ever eaten.
The entryway was arched,
looking vaguely Moroccan,
like something that
might just
transport me.
And there was a swimming pool
on a busy road
where I could lose myself
for hours, going under
the…
