chpt 1 part 2

in the night's moonless gloom it took a moment to familiarize himself with the door's outside lock , while his eyes would require only a minor readjustment to the partial light inside , once he had re-entered the motel room .

the muffled sound of a canned laugh track of a studio audience almost forcing itself to into humor to the point of inane hysteria suddenly met him as he had turned the lock cylinder and opened the door- abruptly reminding him that he had left the television on -- idling at some anonymous channel to give any passersby -curious or larcenous- the illusion of life inside .

He quickly closed the thin wooden door behind him , locked it and from habit then twisted and pulled on the brass colored metal knob to make sure that it was secured . He tossed the key onto the nightstand and fell on to the empty bed unable to contain the loud sigh of air that the descent forced from his lungs .

he felt a great trapped and restless numbness gnawing its way outwards from within the center of his being --something that he knew sleep would not help. he also knew that the coffee he had consumed while waiting at the diner would not permit him to sleep even if sleep could cure the deep weariness that ate at him from the core like a migraine , but without the sharpness of the head pain's cranial bite .it was more like a dull inner nagging , lacking the intensity to cause any real overt pain , but whose strength lay within its persistence . a constant presence that he could not shake during his waking hours that effectively siphoned away his peace.

he had grown over the years into the conclusion that no remedy could be found , that there was nothing he could do that would provide more than momentary relief -distraction of only a temporary nature .

he sat up abruptly and reached once again for what he often jokingly called his therapist ...the black leather carrying case that contained the old laptop .

After unzipping the casing with one hand and impatiently removing the computer with the other , he allowed the case to drop to the "made in thailand" tagged , plum brown bedspread that covered each bed in gravel-colored motel .

he instinctively narrowed his mouth as if whistling and blew out a long breath of air as if the room were a rubber raft he was inflating to carry him downstream to some safer and alternative destination . as the laptop warmed up and displayed its start page he knew almost exactly where he would continue with his story.

fiction was something he knew he did not do well but to him it made no difference because to him the novel was a form of sorts ,of an author's own biographical statement ,but this novel was for his eyes only.

he felt and believed somewhere within the deeper regions of the back of his mind that somehow putting his life , experiences and thoughts on`floppy discs would reveal some coherent patterns of hidden logic to the skewed mess that he had through the years steadily made of living...writing about it , perhaps , could help him make sense of it all ...something he had sought to do but had proven unable up till that moment to efectively do so to his own satisfaction .

he felt a strange eagerness to get at it . to once again give life through actors of his own creation to his own morbid dramas being constantly battled out within his mind against struggling portions of his own self . this he felt was his harmless and rare opportunity to play a real life zeus working out from olympus his own whims ,jealousies and personal angst though not through flesh marionettes, but instead through dark characters breathed life on an electronic page .

His fingers , needing only the blended half light provided by HP screen and the motel's bolted down tv , raced quickly across the keyboard .

'Memoirs of a No one'- chapter 9 ...at times , Louis Tharrio had over the years confided to his shrinks that he partially suspected that it really had begun during his military years , particularly the months he spent on assignment in europe , strictly in civilian garb , quietly prowling jazz clubs in germany and france ,casually bedding the local girls whenever he felt like it and occasionally performing decent enough solos on various open mics to plausibly cover his pretense of being an aspiring jazz guitarist.

of course this cover allowed him to get close enough to his preselected targets in order to gather and piece together any tiny bits of information innocuously dropped when alcohol , lust and the festive night moods relaxed the normally guarded personas of minor foreign embassy personnel seeking entertainment in the exotic .

he could spot them as quickly as american cops spot donuts. he was well trained . he followed the script . he played the songs...brooded over gentle ballads on his seductive guitar .he made them each feel special and that he was performing only for them. And afterwards , he made them laugh ...teared their eyes with the tragedy of the misunderstood artist . he embellished and shared his story of 'tortured genius'. he aroused their maternal instincts while at the same time subtly keying in and working up their female lusts . he screwed them . convinced them each that he'd payback their small loans after the next gig . promised he'd pay them back when his recording deal went through. he took their money . he made fools of them in front of others of his victims. he played the gigalo-troubador , the wandering minstrel-lothario with an adolescent glee . he played his given role with a gusto rooted in something deeper than any sense of 'duty' . he neither showed or felt any shred of remorse .he played the full fledged scoundrel. he enjoyed himself .