Get a Room

There is something illicit about hotel rooms. Anonymous and secretive. I don’t know what it is. When I was a kid I used to give myself chills thinking how far away from home I was, how disconnected I was from everything “safe.” I used to look at the people around me and think it a small thrill that no one I knew knew them. Yet, here I was, with them. I felt like I was getting away with something; that my life was in danger in a happy way.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s what it’s like to have an affair. Kisa and I were at our second hotel. He wanted to swim and I was chapters deep in my book. I agreed to read by the pool to keep him company. That really wasn’t necessary because frolicking in the deep end was a rather loud, giggly couple. It was obvious they were in the mood for more than a swim, but rude enough to stay where they were. Discretion be damned. Later, kisa told me he thought the man was married to someone else. It was the way the man explained things to his chirping companion as if they had just met, yet he wore a wedding band. Was this man really renting a room for romance? Did he really have a patiently ignorant someone at home?
It didn’t matter to me. All I wanted them to do was use the room they paid for.

Always Outnumbered


Mosley, Walter. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned is like looking at snapshots of one man’s existence. Each chapter is a different time in Socrates Fortlow’s life, a different picture. His past, his friends, and his skewed sense of morality are the common threads in each scene. Socrates is a man, free after 28 years in prison, trying to make his way in Los Angeles, California. The violent streak that landed him in the penitentiary is still prominent in his personality. He is an angel and a devil all in one. A saint with a dark side. A demon with a halo. My favorite example of this split personality is when a friend’s wife comes looking for her husband at Socrates’s door. While telling Corrine she should leave her no-good husband (and be with Socrates) that same no-good husband is hiding out in Socrates’s back room.

Some of my favorite quotes describing Socrates:
“Back then he enjoyed the company of fear” (p 19).
“He wasn’t a thief. Or, if he was, the only thing he ever took was life” (p 64).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust and the chapter “Walter Mosley: Too Good To miss” (p 169). Happy Birthday Mr. Mosley!