The Welcome Inn: Axe Murderer's Choice
Saturday morning I woke up and called Tama and her family for Hotel/Motel recommendations in her town as Phantom and I were heading over to see her production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She gave me the number of the Budget Motel, and the Welcome Inn. The Budget Motel had no vacancy, so the Welcome Inn was it. The room was 70$, but we had no other options so we went for it.
Phantom and I headed out of the city on the Go Train to Pickering at 3:13pm. It was a fun ride seeing as how we rarely find ourselves on go trains. We found Tama at the Pickering Go Station where we also met up with Wanda the wig maker who was coming to see the performance, as well as Ryan who was starting as Hedwig. Tama gave us the advice before we left to look for a big black man in a furry coat with a mohawk if we couldn't find her. Ryan was definitely a character in himself. Nothing like meeting a larger than life gay man with blue fingernails to brighten your mood. Everything was going fabulously as we headed towards Port Hope. Then we pulled up to the Welcome Inn. It was at the side of the highway accross the street from a Fresh Produce Market and very little else. The horror movie jokes began immediatly, but at first I wasn't phased. We got our bags out of the car and I took down Tama's cell phone number.
The "front desk" was in this wrecked up looking house. We had to ring the door bell to be let in. I filled out all the information and paid for the room. The manager of the hotel was sleazy looking. The room smelled of stale smoke from decades passed. The man was bald and greasy. His shirt was unbuttoned enough to show hig gold cross that was tangled amongst his chest hair. He asked if we wanted a smoking, or non-smoking room, and he called me "Dear".
As we left the office the sky seemed just a little bit more grey and gloomy which enhanced the atmosphere as we walked to room thirty five. To our left was a building that I suppose used to be the motel. The outside looked the same with all the paint chipping off, but the inside was charred to oblivion and filled with rubble. Very unsettling. As we made our way around the corner we tried not to be noticed by the the men standing around their beat up pickup truck. One of the men was standing in the doorway of his room in a towel. They all looked just a little too at home in this place. The rooms faced a huge open field. The kind that you could look out onto in the night and see a dark figure steadily approaching wielding some deadly weapon.
We unlocked our room and immediately closed the curtain accross our huge window. It was quite the room. It was huge. So big in fact, there was an echo. The floor was covered in bright orange shag carpet which complemented the huge wall covered in a seventies retro floral wallpaper featuring the colours of brown, yellow, orange and green. This suffocating pattern was intensified with the pattern of the bedspreads on the two double beds and on the chairs. The opposite wall was plain white but there was a big, almost to clean window in the middle so that you couldn't escape the pattern. The wall opposite the window had a hideous painting of flowers that was of to the side (not in the centre). Before the bathroom there was a sink and a mirror. Underneath the sink, the shag carried on up the wall. The bathroom had a brown swirly wall paper in it, and a clear shower curtain, (which was actually comforting). We made the rule right then and there that we would keep the bathroom door open no matter what.
We sat down on the bed and I had an overwhelming feeling that we just shouldn't be there. Between the two of us we had seen too many movies, and had too much imagination to not feel threatened in this place. It felt like the kind of place that people come to do corrupt things. I mean, our room looked like it could easily be the set of a cheap porno. It was the kind of place where you come to beat your wife to death, or torture some one, or brain wash someone, or commit suicide, or force someone to loose their minds by staring at the wall paper you just couldn't escape.
Phantom did a check for holes behind the the mirror and the painting and in the bathroom just in case someone was going to go Norman Bates on our asses. We put the chain lock on the door, which was all we had as a lock and I decided to call Tama. We started to talk about whether or not we could get our money back for the room. We decided probably not. By that point we were trying to decide whether fifteen minutes was worth seventy dollars. We had to dial nine to get a line out, but every time I dialed nine I got a busy signal. So I'm in the middle of nowhere, and I can't use the phone. I try about twenty times before I can't handle it and Phantom takes over. He ended up calling the front desk to tell the guy what was going on, to which he replies "Hmmm. It wasn't doing that yesterday. I guess someone will check it later." Then it starts to rain.
At this point the set up for our slaughter is too perfect. We can't call anyone if there is trouble, and there's no peephole in the door so if someone came and pounded on our door insanely we would have to open the curtains to see who it was, which would undoubtably lead to a chainsaw through the forehead. We're both genuinely nervous, so we walk out to the pay phone and call Tama's cell. Shortly following Hello, Phantom yells "save us" into the phone. As I tell Tama how horrifying it is, I actually started to cry. Tama immediatly headed over with Naomi and Mea to pick us up. When they saw the room they agreed completely. They even offered to stay there with us. Then the horror jokes continued, which were funny, but also ended up scaring us more as we were the ones who had to stay there and we hadn't yet been brave enough to turn down the sheets or check under the beds.
When we left the room we made a brief stop at Tama's house and then headed to downtown Port Hope. Phantom and I were both still shaken up after the shock of room 35, but we were also hungry and cold and wet from the rain so we set off to find something to eat. As if the evening weren't creepy enough, the streets were practically deserted and everything was closed. Well, everything except Stippy's Restaurant that specialized in Greek and Dutch food. We decided to get Stipped, and the dinner was really good. Phantom had ham with all the fixin's and a huge plate of poutine. I had fish and chips. It was all good. The meal calmed me down a bit and I was ready to hit the theatre.
The show was so fabulous. That's really the only word for it. From Hedwig's sparkly entrance to Yitzhak's sparkly entrance I couln't have been happier. I've never seen the stage version, I've only read the script, so I was really impressed. And I was so proud of the whole Long Grift Productions team for pulling it off. And Tama's art was perfect. Tattoo worthy. 
)
After the show we all went to the Beamish House, for nachos and chatting. I was really tired, but in no actually hurry to get back to the Welcome Inn, so I wasn't complaining. By the time we got back to the room it was about midnight. There was an eerie glow over the field outside of our window. Tama, her dad, Mea, and Noami all came in to "warm the room up" for us. I was glad they did.
Since the initial shock had worn off we were okay. When everyone left we turned on the tv and tuned into a staticky tv station showing SNL Best of Christopher Walken, which wasn't good, but at least it was something. We got up the courage to check under the bed as well. When that ended we put on Led Zepplin (luckily we remembered to bring the mini speakers that attach to the walkman) so that the room wouldn't be silent when we turned off the lights. Phantom and I squished into the center of the bed because neither of us wanted to be near the edge of the bed. He fell asleep first and left me to battle my imagination. I kept drifting off during the slow Zepplin songs and then waking up during the fast ones. When the cd ended I had to fight the fear and try not to hear sounds in the night.
I woke up again in the middle of the night because, in true motel style, when we turned on the heat a little bit, it cranked up so high that I was ridiculously uncomfortable. By the morning of course I was freezing again. We got up at around ten and sighed a breath of relief as we had survived the evening with no horrific attacks.We enjoyed our last bit of time together before Tama came to get us at quarter to eleven so we could drop our keys in the key box and drive the hell away from the Welcome Inn.
We had a long and leisurely breakfast at Tama's and I had the best peanut butter and honey toast I have had in a long time. We reached the Go Station for the 3:13pm back to Toronto. The tiredness made the ride quiet, but we ended up playing a random game of hangman that passed the time. We reached my house right before the thunder began to rumble, so we hid out in my basement eating the burritos we had made, having a drink, and playing full-contact Jeopardy with the Dunce feature.
Later we watched Yellow Submarine and played another game. Phantom fell asleep though before anything finished, which was cute. We ended up having a really nice sleep in together this morning, before he left me here to contemplate how lucky I am to have him as I drank my three cups of coffee.