Prince: The one whose name slips your mind, except for the word Motel.
Lustlieb: No, that one is boarded up “By Orders of the Local Constabulary,” quote unquote, so I settle for a Motel 6.
Prince: A real motel.
Lustlieb: Right. So I settle for a real motel, check in, then stroll down to the local café for a bite to eat and something that has the right combination of chemicals to wash it down with, all the time being in a state of deep spiritual despair, thinking about Michelle and wondering whether I am still on her schedule or whether I’ve wasted the last decade of a perfectly good life learning a dead language that’s not gonna do me or anybody else a damn bit of good.
Prince: Lots of people could identify.
Lustlieb: Then I sit down in a booth with a plastic seat split down the seams and look over the menu, which is sitting up straight and tall between the salt andpepper bookends, and suddenly there is a sound as of a rushing wind and my personal angel of the Lord appears at my elbow with a pencil behind her ear and chewing Wrigley’s finest and she wipes off the leftover hamburger and Heinz products from the last customer and asks for my order.
Prince: This was Michelle.
Lustlieb: Right, and this time I’d give her about an eight.
Prince: Whatta you got against waitresses, Al?
Lustlieb: I demand a certain level of class in my angels.
Prince: You’re like God in that respect. Go on.
Lustlieb: So I place an order for a Waldorf salad and a Manhattan, just to see her reaction, and then I ask her when she gets off work and what her plans are for the evening. Her reaction is, she scribbles down my order without batting an eyelid, then she says she gets off at ten but she’ll appear in my room at the Motel 6 at the stroke of midnight, first she’s got other business to attend to.
Prince: She show up on time?
Lustlieb: She’s half an hour late, but I don’t mind, I’m busy perusing some material placed there by the Gideons.