Chapter 2: The Sanctuary Hotel

“Thank you Great Spirit,” our rider muttered out loud as he was thankful for four things. Firstly his faith in God, his mother for her wisdom and knowledge, his father for his untapped strength as well as his air-bike, something he has been working on with many trials, errors and nasty spills for two years. He flicks a switch, turning on his music putting on his headphones and puts on E-40s “Sideways” a classic rap song from the 1990 era. He usually uses the loud speakers located in his saddle bags and rides as fast and as far as he can. He likes loud music but this area he suspects is not one to draw attention in. Three jets pass close overhead, causing the ground to shake. One jet doubles back, hovering just above him.

Sway proudly throws his fist in the air and the jet moves ahead of him and rocks its wings side to side before rocking its tail twice just before putting on afterburners to join the other two far ahead. There is definitely something strange going on, something not talked about on HAM radio and he can sense it. Wanting to find shelter before dark, he quickens his pace, putting on his own version of plasma afterburners, a mix of magnetic plasma and high-burning fuel. Coming to what used to be civilization, a stronghold of a port near the run down town of Irvine, California; he spots a billboard for the Sanctuary Hotel. This area he knows is only miles down the highway from where The Last Mistake had occurred. This unsettles him yet his destination is called Sanctuary Hotel, a known neutral spot for all types of spirituality and races, so what could be there to fear?

Getting close he passes by a few other bikers, one large dark, mat black semi-truck with a driver wearing a gas mask and thinks “What kind of freight is he carrying?” Five jets fly by overhead, temporarily blotting out the sound from his earphones playing Jimmy Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” as they pass. Spotting the hotel, he rapidly slows down and circles it, looking for alternate roads of escape in case he needs to make a hasty exit. If there is one thing he has learned in his travels across a torn country, it is “never enter a place with only one way in and one way out, that is if you can truly avoid it.” Sway cruises to the back of the hotel and decides to park at least fifty yards away next to an old run-down factory with a decaying, rusted sign that reads Star Crossed Metal Works.

The wind is blowing in a Western direction towards the Pacific Ocean in a warm breeze. The sun is three hours away from setting so to his plan, he arrived right on time. Interestingly there are remnants of a metal bridge of sorts, perhaps an old conveyor belt connecting the factory with the hotel. Getting off of his bike he looks up, walks cautiously underneath the decaying platform to the hotel and imagines what this place must have looked like full of life. He knows that this relic of a building he is approaching was possibly the manufacturing and delivery portion for the metal fabrication plant.

At the end of the last rusty metal pillar, he pauses, reaches to the inside of his cool jacket and pulls forth a pouch with sage and loose tobacco. He sprinkles some of the tobacco on the dry, parched earth, reaches in his pocket again and grabs a rolling paper. He rolls himself a cigarette with sage bits and smudges himself with a thick branch of sage tied with a small red string, putting it out in the pillar once his cigarette is almost done. Sway walks around the large building to come to the double wooden doors laden with perforated sheet metal letters with rivets in the middle of each door. One door on the left has the letter “S” while the opposite on the right has the Letter “H”.

Sway finds it funny that to the right of the door are two more metal letters with rivets, two “H”s making it look like it says “Shhh.” Looking up, he sees a small neon sign, above the door and almost to a window, halfway working that reads “Sanctuary Hotel.” Entering he is overcome by the intense smell of cigarettes and a strange chemical smell he doesn’t quite recognize. To the left is a bar, filled with interesting characters that seem like they are out of an old Western flick and at the same time, a Star Wars movie.

“Can I help you?” asks the front desk clerk, a stocky Mexican looking guy with short dark brown hair and light-grey cowboy hat, white long sleeve shirt, jeans and a bolo tie with a shark tooth in the middle with gold surrounding it.

He has a brass name badge with black lettering that reads “Sani.” Sani is sitting down in a comfortable looking, tall leather office chair reading an old National Geographic from a few years past, since they have yet to release another issue.

“So, Sani, is that right?” asks Sway, trying his best to pronounce it correctly.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” jokes the clerk.

“That’s Navajo?”

“Yyup, why do you ask?” as he puts down his magazine on the desk in front of him, looks up showing that his right eye is partially blue, and stands up slowly, staring Sway square in the eyes.

“My mother taught me a bit of Navajo but I never practiced except with her, and you see, I just don’t want to offend you man,” explained Swaying Palms.

“Offend me? You would have to steal from me, stab me or bite me to do that… and maybe steal one of my women,” says the short yet strong looking guy with the Cowboy hat.

“I don’t steal,” says Sway with a serious look on his face.

“That’s good, well, what do you do? Asks Sani

“So I fix things, make things and I ride,” explains Sway proudly.

“Ride what kid, one of those scrap metal wonders with wheels out there?”

“No sir, I have my own toy that I sit on,” Says sway, then looking down shyly, trying to hide his smile.

“A wild one huh?” asks Sani.

“Some would say so sir,” answers Sway.

“Sir? I haven’t had anyone call me that since my oldest daughter’s christening. Do I look that old? asks Sani, raising one eyebrow and taking a slow step back.

Commotion stirs in the bar area to the left, as you can hear faint arguing and glass break.

“Be right back stranger, don’t budge a hair,” asks Sani.

More glass breaking can be heard then a few thuds and one loud moan. Sani walks back with a crooked grin on his face, explaining…

“You have to excuse me, I have to deal with these mixed breeds around here. Their blood is so wild, they just don’t know how to act when they get emotional,” plopping down in his comfortable swiveling office chair.

“I’m mixed sir, and I don’t have emotion problems,” contends Sway.

Sani then leans in from the table closer towards Sway, squinting both eyes, then smiles big, answering…

“We are all mixed around here but, not like some, not that way,” as he leans back. “What do you want kid?” asks Sani looking serious once more.

“A room please… some sanctuary from the dark,” explains Sway.

“Yeah, you’d want to stay in the light around here kid, but then again it don’t matter much when it’s overcast like this, they will find a way,” tells the front desk guy. Moaning can be heard coming from the bar area, along with another thud, followed by a short burst of laughter and a voice asking “Another bottle bartender!” Sani takes a deep breath in, then breathes it out fast, standing up to waddle back into the bar area. When he returns a minute later he asks Sway…

“Just call me Sani, brother I appreciate the sir though, It’s obvious someone raised you with manners. Do I look that old to be called sir?” he asks Sway.

“Well no, but you sure walk like a guy that had some work done on his leg or something… old one,” Sway slips in there with a crooked grin.

“Tell me your name brother and are you Navajo, or Mexican?” asks the Sani directly.

“They, I mean my grandmother and Mother named me Swaying Palms Santana. My grandmother was Black and Cherokee and we don’t know exactly what my grandfather was. He once told my grandmother he was Pawnee and Jewish, but we think he had some other blood too,” finishes Sway.

“I see… so, let me get this, you’re Black and Jewish, hahahaha,” laughs Sani hysterically, while spinning his chair to a metal box on the wall behind him that looked sort of like an old kind of Fuse Box. He opens the box to a row of keys, smiles for a split second, looks around, takes the last key on the top row and slams it down on the table with is hand on top of it, as if it were the winning hand in a card game.

“How long are you planning on staying kid?” asks the seasoned native man with one blue eye and a cowboy hat.

“Oh, I think just a couple of days until I decide on my next move, being so young and all you know, us young people have all that freedom and stuff,” jokes Sway with a smirk.

“That’ll be two gold pieces kid, or anything shiny and gold,” he explains.

Reaching in his jacket pocket, he pulls out a pair of sunglasses, one gold coin and a small lithium battery.

“This is all I’ve got on me, but hold up,” Sway asks, reaching down from his neck, into his shirt to pull out a bright dark yellow gold necklace with two feathers golden attached. Sani leans forward, pulling open a drawer to his right, with an old digital scale inside, placing it on the desk in front of sway. He presses a button, causing a light-blue screen to pop up that has a small “g” in the bottom left corner of the display.

“Put it there Palms!” commands Sani. Swaying Palms then takes off the necklace, kisses it and places it on the scale with one gold coin with two Kangaroos on it. Sani’s eyes light up as the numbers climb quickly to 50.5.

“I’ll take these two,” says Sani, reaching for the gold coin on the scale and the sunglasses in Sway’s hand. Sani then takes the coin and rubs it against a stone, before taking his hand off of the room key. The key is an old-fashioned type, a relic compared to the modern computerized ones used for over twenty something years. It has a small bendable rubber hand attached to it the size of a chicken’s foot. His uncle Tito had one similar hand hanging from his motorcycle except that it was a little bit beat up with the metal showing from underneath and it was fashioned in the middle finger pose. “Fuck it,” thought Swaying Palms Santana as he recalled the memory of his funny uncle and the motorcycle as well as the very fast 1979 Pontiac Firebird he used to baby.

Grabbing the key he knew what he was getting himself into. He had heard stories of how this hotel held many mysterious secrets, that it was centered on an old geomagnetic hotpot for spiritual as well as interdimensional phenomenon. The number on the key is 004.

“Which way to the rooms?” asks Sway.

“That way young buck, up the stairs… there are no rooms to sleep in down here,” explained the old guy with a stone stare.

“Alright old guy, I’ll see you at dawn,” says Sway as he begins to walks away.

“Your room is up those stairs, that way,” suggests Sani. Sway then swaggers in the direction of the bar instead. Sway waves his hand at the Front Desk Attendant then greets the Bar Keeper. “Fancy seeing you here, isn’t it a small world?” jokes Sani before asking Swaying palms… “So, what’ll it be nephew?”

“One Badunkadunk with a shot of tequila,” orders Sway.

“So you like those things huh, you know that is poison,” says Sani, the Front Desk Guy and Bartender.

“Yeah, I know but who doesn’t like a Badunkadunk?” asked Sway with a smirk.

A woman leaning on a broken juke box looks in Swaying Palm’s direction and floats him a kiss with a snagged-toothed smile.

“Even with that mug, she’s beautiful!” notices our traveler.

“By the looks of things, it seems like she’s already yours,” alludes Sani, the old wise dude.

“By the look on her, I can tell she’s had quite the hard life. Perhaps it’s better if I don’t complicate it any further.” Explained Swaying Palms Santana.

“Well who makes decisions these days, based on the assumption of what’s better and what ain’t?” asked Sani in a testing voice.

“Shiiiiet, this man old man!” answers Sway firmly. Sani smiles big at this answer.

“Suit yourself wise man,” says Sani.

“Exactly!” says Saying Palms as he gently slams the empty glass, followed by an empty shot glass down on the highly polished lacquered wood bar table.

“This was an old tree, a very special oak tree I believe,” says Sway, running his fingers over the aged natural lines as well as indentions made by other slammed glasses that once held a bit of relief to the sore traveler.

“Thanks for the nightcap friend,” thanks Swaying Palms.

“Sure, I’ve got my good eye on you youngster,” says Sani with a laugh. “If you feel awakened at any odd hour and it’s still dark outside, just stay in your room, okay?” warns Sani the old hotel attendant.

Sway hops up off of the bar stool and makes his way, past the elevator looking at it, straight to a pair of stairs with a lit up neon arrow pointing up the stairwell towards his destination of slumber. Once he reaches the top of the stairs, he reads the placard directing him towards his room number, directing him to the right. An abstract painting on the way to his room catches his attention. It is an interesting painting depicting a hand pointing. The hand has claws on its fingertips.

Swaying Palms thinks about his bike and wonders if this room has windows or at least a window which he can watch his custom Indian Air-Chopper. Reaching his room, he unlocks the door and the first thing he does is open it slow for 1. An ambush then makes his way over to what appears to be a window with a black curtain covering it. He is surprised that the room is spacious, the size of three hotel rooms combined. Reaching the window, he sees that it is nailed shut with hundreds of nails. Sway presses his face against the glass, trying his best to look down at the steel piling which his bike is parked behind.

Smiling as satisfied, he walks across the long room toward the bed, checks underneath it, then jumps high to plop right down, folding his hands behind his head.

“Knock, knock, knock!” “Hey cutie…” is heard from the other side of the door.

“Cutie is not here!” yells Sway with an irritated frown.

“I haven’t seen a proud man in forever, come to room 52 if you want some company and well, conversation,” says the voice from the other side of the door.

“Alright, goodnight!” yells sway as he turns over, thinking about the craziness he dealt with hours earlier at the creepy clinic. He wonders what, what he will dream about tomorrow will look like and if he will, like always rise just before the sun. Rest assured he can hear anything if someone messes with his Air-Chopper and that shot will hopefully help him sleep sound. The ground shakes with the sound of the jets passing close overhead and he closes his eyes to dreamland while waiting to greet the morning sun.