The torn sheet from a real estate catalog floated downwards, flipping its corners on the eddies of air until it drifted onto the frizzy hair of the kid sitting across from me. He didn’t notice it at first, but then snatched it off his head, tore it in half with disdain and deposited it on the floor while narrowly dodging a flurry of additional glossy advertisements that were trying to plaster themselves on him from behind. Big, Crazy Steph was staggering around the Motel Room, crashing her big feet down on other people’s toes as she tore a sheet out at a time and tossed it into the air with a deranged, celebratory cackle. She seemed to be refusing to bend her knees, so she just violently swung her legs from the hips, finally goose-stepping into the smashed face of the room’s television. Her leg tried to swing upwards again, but caught inside the tube, making her fall on her face and laugh maniacally into the beer-sodden carpet. Someone threw a half-empty Busch can at her.

“Two years ago.”

“What?” I hit the joint a second time, no hands, squinting one eye shut to keep the smoke out.

“Two years ago,” the frizzy-haired kid answered. He turned his gaze back at me from the gorgeous flame-haired girl who was tongue-bouting an older guy on one of the beds. “That’s how long ago I left my parents’ house in Madison.” I wondered what the kid’s name was.

“My name’s Amesha, by the way.”

“How did you get that name?”

“I dunno…” Amesha looked genuinely puzzled. “Everyone just started calling me it one day when I woke up. I thought it was all some sort of hilarious plot, but then I went to a grocery store and everyone was calling me Amesha there too. The cashiers, the produce manager, the speakers announcing the daily specials, even the security guard called me Amesha when he was dragging me out for trying to steal two mags of wine by stuffing them down my pants.”

“Fuck that.” The third member of the table, who had up to this point had his tattooed face smushed into the table’s surface, decided to put his two cents in. “Alcohol should be free. My mom was an alcoholic an’ got the shakes real bad if she didn’t drink for a couple hours, so I was always havin to get her drunk off my hooch. One day the pigs had me locked up on some bullshit and she went into a coma and died. Fuckin capitalists.” The tattoo-faced kid smushed his face back into the table and started to drool.

BC Steph was still cackling on the carpet, but her wild guffaws were intermingled with mews of pain; she had cut her cheek on part of the decimated television and the drops of blood were mingling with a fresh wine stain on the carpet.

“Do you want a rail?” Amesha pushed a smear-stained compact mirror towards me with a fat, white line of power laid across it.

“What is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, somewhat.”

“It’s OxyCott’n.”

“Oh, nevermind then, I’m good. Don’t like fucking with painkillers.”

“Why?” Amesha looked perplexed. “They’re so good for killing pain.” Before I could rebut, Amesha dismissively waved his hand at me and passed the joint.

“So…Madison…why did you leave?”

“My Father doesn’t approve of homosexuality.”

“You’re gay?’

“FUCK naw. I ain’t no cocksucker. Fuckin fudgepackers. My Dad thought I was though, because I got my ear pierced. ‘You suck a dick to pay for that?’ he said. I tried to tell him that, no, I didn’t suck a dick to pay for that, and had in fact felt up a girl over-the-bra just that afternoon. But he wouldn’t hear it, so I grabbed my Mom, who was trying to calm him down, and gave HER the ol’ over-the bra.”

“Is that why you got kicked out? For feeling up your Mom, I mean.”

“In a way. My father said this proved I was a fag because all fags love their mothers.”

“Seems logical.”

“Then I punched my father in the face.”

“That must’ve not helped.”

“You’re right, of course. My dad said it closed the case because all fags hate their fathers.”

“I never knew my father,” the tattoo-faced kid breathed into the table. “Prolly a drunk.”

Amesha craned his neck around to stare myopically at the flame-haired girl, whose make-out buddy had crawled out the door to vomit. Two Germans from an adjacent room crawled in immediately afterwards and set upon the flame-haired girl, each one giving an under-the-bra to the tit closer to them, respectably keeping their moist palms to their respective sides.

“I dunno though…” Amesha trailed his last word off into the whispering ether. My attention had been diverted by trying to see a glimpse of the girl’s nipples through the hairy knuckles of the two Germans, but when I turned back to Amesha, his face had twisted a little.

“Sometimes I wanna go back. I’ve spent the last two years sleeping with as many loose women as possible to prove that I’m not a fag. I’m up to 36 now. See?” He slid back his shirtsleeve to reveal 36 black lines tattooed onto his forearm.

“Do you think that will prove to your father that you’re not gay?”

“Yeah. I fantasize about it all the time. Once I get up to 50, I’m going to parade back home to Madison and show my father what’s up. He’ll be jealous, I know. He’s only sleeping with my Mom, and her tits aren’t even that great.” Amesha face twisted further as he stared at the line of OxyContin in front of him.

“Are you gonna get off the road then?”

Amesha’s face had untwisted and gone wax as he turned to the situation with the drunk girl, which was being addressed by a shrieking BC Steph, who was going after the Germans with shards of screen from the TV set.

“You said only one a day.” BC Steph snarled through her teeth with malice. “Only one a day.”

The Germans slipped out of the frame, leaving the flame-haired girl staring up at the scarred hulk of BC Steph with fear and sorrow in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…I just have never been with two Germans at once.”

“We should get out of here,” Amesha remarked. I agreed.

We both stepped out to the snow-swept parking lot, shucking on our ratty coats and strolling coolly across as we heard sirens approaching. We saw the tattoo-faced kid bolt out of the motel room, jet across the parking lot and run directly into a snowbank, where he quickly camouflaged himself by smearing snow over his outer layers.

“Are you gonna stay?” I asked.

“Stay where?”

“In Madison. After you show up your dad.”

“Why would I do that when I have all this?” Amesha spread his arms wide.

But then the cops were there and we had to keep running.