ROAD JOURNAL: November Cape Girls

1. A dead beach town is autumnal murder mystery make-up; good DNA for a story, rough on a work week. Disconcerting. Chucks one off. The sand dunes, more so the weedy bluffs, scored by the cool nothing of an empty town behind, all feels awry.
2. I estimate this motel has sixty rooms. We are the only vehicle in the lot. Two teenage hoodlum girls meet us at the side entrance, and, like gatekeepers, try scrounging us for a lighter. I don't care if these teens are hanging around the lot smoking, but there is something in the approach I feel obliged to reject. Teen girls shouldn't be in a shit motel lot approaching working men. And by handing them a lighter I'd feel as if I was complying in something nearing inappropriate: a yokel goshes, gollys, and winks while handing over the lighter with a wolfish eye. This is all my thing; a dead girl story in my mind recently, and this creep town, and these young girls too familiar around men, all of it sitting wrong on me. I could have told the girls, no lighter, but that would have felt more.. What? Lying to avoid rejecting a forward child seems .. perverse? So I say, "How old are you?". I say it with some pretty square indignation.
She misreads me as flirting, and says something she thinks is sassy cute.
"No." I say.
The girl tells me to "Get fucked, Loser".
Now I'm giggling. Not at the language. No, I'm laughing at the look on her face. To parking lot girls everyone is either a pervert or a shithead daddy, and they hate daddy, no matter their age.
3. I walk upstairs to the next motel room on the circuit with an improved mood. Thanks, Girl.