location: saddle west hotel

p a h r u m p , n v

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

Casey peeked around the corner to get a look at the hallway. Ten minutes had passed since he’d last spotted Thomas or heard him running along the hall upstairs. That could have only meant he’d found a secure hiding spot — one which Casey was confident he would be able to find, no problem, but the threat of Thomas finding him first still lingered, so he knew he had to keep moving.

To the other residents passing by, Casey was just an annoying kid doing a serpentine down the second-floor hallway. But to Casey, he was the self-proclaimed villain in a race against time — in a battle of wit and skill. Anyone he happened to run into, or trip over in the process was just a casualty and villains weren’t supposed to care about that. Without a single apology, he jolted down the hall. At the end of it was an exit that lead to an outdoor staircase and if Casey got out there, he could sneak back in on the second floor and catch Thomas before Thomas even realized he’d left the building. Unfortunately, he was thwarted before he even made it to the door.

“That one?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! He ran into me three times out in the lobby. He damn near trampled my wife coming down the hall! There’s another one upstairs doing the same thing!” A brown-haired guy in an ugly polo was yelling, pointing at him. Shirley from the front desk was staring at him, shaking her head.

Casey contemplated running, but thought better of it considering he’d already been in trouble the week before for splashing water on people from his balcony while they were coming in, and then a week before that for purposely running out in front of peoples’ cars while they were trying to park. Judging by the look on Shirley’s face, she was no longer amused by him. This was no longer a case of “kids being kids.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Shirley said, then parted ways with Polo Shirt. Before Casey could do or say anything, she snatched the water gun from him with one hand, then latched onto his shirt with the other so he couldn’t take off. “What is this?”

Casey didn’t say anything. In that moment, his demeanor had gone from cool, collected villain back to his usual self. Small. Wanting to run, but there was nowhere to escape to.

Shirley prodded further. “I sure hope you weren’t running around trying to shoot people with this, Casey.”

“I wasn’t,” Casey said, trying to shrug her hand away, but the grip only tightened.

“Okay, then what WERE you doing with it? And what were you doing running around tripping people?”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Look, hands off, we were just playing around. I didn’t even run into that guy, he’s full of sh*t…”

“Uh-huh… Well that guy’s not the only one giving me complaints, so forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” Shirley remarked, beginning to walk. “Walk.”

Usually, when Casey would get into trouble, Shirley would just walk him back to his room. On the off-chance his mother was home, she would scold her for not watching him while making the point that a thirteen year-old boy shouldn’t have had to be watched so closely anyway.

There was once a time where Casey pretty popular there, but that was before its residents got to know him and became aware of the fact that his mother basically allowed him to run rampant around the hotel while she was nowhere to be found. When they reached the top of the stairs, Thomas was in the midst of an encounter with the some family next door, quite similar to the one Casey had just had with the polo guy. Casey didn’t say a word as Shirley gathered Thomas too and began ushering them back to Casey’s hotel room.

Shirley asked several times where Jennifer was. For some reason, it took her actually seeing their suite for herself to realize Casey hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know. In fact, he hadn’t seen her in two days, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. Last time she disappeared, she was gone an entire week, and before that she was gone so long Casey gave up counting the days all together. Because she was so absent, she didn’t really know or care what the room looked like.

Thomas was always remarkably unfazed. He walked in so casually it looked like he’d memorized all the junk piles. Casey was more hesitant, at least trying to step over things or kicking them out of his way when he became frustrated with that. He wanted it clean. He wanted to do something about it, but at that point, where was he supposed to start?

Casey expected a rampage when Shirley saw the state of their room, but she seemed more sad than anything. “You should go home, your parents probably worried about you,” she said to Thomas, then focused on Casey. “You stay in here for the rest of the night, okay? We’ll try and track down your mom.”

“Ch’yeah, good luck,” Casey muttered under his breath, but didn’t look at her. Instead he started spitefully picking up some of the dirty clothes off the floor.

“Do I have to go home?” Thomas asked. Shirley glared at him, which got him up off the couch. He looked back at Casey. “See you tomorrow, man.”

Casey acknowledged him with a small nod while dumping some plastic dishes into the trash can. “Yeah, sure.”

It was nearing midnight by the time Jennifer rolled through the door, ranting about how Shirley had embarrassed her out in the lobby while stumbling over the remaining piles Casey failed to clean up. “I can’t believe she would tell me that!? Who is she to tell me that?” She rambled on, only stopping when she reached the bathroom and found the door was locked. “Casey!”

Casey, who’d been listening the whole time, was in the midst of scrambling around trying to dispose of the cigarettes he’d stolen from her purse the last time she was home, homework scattered in a disarray across the floor. When Jennifer shoved the door open, it stopped short after hitting him in the shoulder. Just in the nick of time. He’d shoved the cigarette — only half-smoked — into the sink and washed it down. “Hey, occupied!” he snapped.

“And now you’re done, get out here!” Jennifer fired back, snatching his arm and dragging him out into the room. She was still stumbling. She reeked of alcohol, rage alone propelling her through her spiel as if it sobered her to some extent. “Well, first of all, I’m sure you know we gotta get this cleaned up since I have Shirley on my ass now. I can’t believe you let it get like this, look at this! You wanna tell me what the hell happened in the hallway also?”

Jennifer was using every trick in the book to get her point across, but the only thing she was successfully doing was igniting a flame in Casey, who leered at her the entire time she was talking. “You wanna go back to grandma’s basement? Huh? Because that’s what’s gonna happen if we can’t make this work.”

“Grandma’s not a dead beat,” Casey remarked, gaze trailing from her, over the mess of their hotel room. If they got kicked out, he thought, it might not be so bad.

Jennifer paused, her eyes springing open, somehow wider than they already had been. “What did you just say?”

Casey folded his arms, shaking his head.

“Noah Casey Caverly, what did you just say to your mother? What did you say to me? I will beat it outta you, you little brat —”

“Hit me then, mom!” Casey snapped. “Come beat it outta me so someone can call the cops again and you can clean this up by yourself tomorrow.”

Jennifer took a small step back, her mouth open, but Casey had her coming up short for words.

“Exactly.”