Thirteen-Ten Belmont Ave

I booked a room on Belmont Ave
two months before my trip to Ohio.
Being the ever-OCD traveler, I called
about every ten days to ensure the foundation
hadn’t sneaked away, like a game
of Red Light, Green Light:
when a kid scampers twenty paces
while your back is turned.
The Motel 6 receptionist would tell me,
“Yes, sir, we’re still here.”
“1310 Belmont Ave?”
“1310 Belmont Ave.”

Soon arrived the end of April.
I boarded a bus in downtown Youngstown,
labeled BELMONT. Paying my fare,
I asked the driver about 1310, about the Motel 6.
He squinted his eyes and replied, “We’ll see.”
So I sat and waited as the bus lurched
block to block—my own eyes on overdrive,
the house numbers skipping by.

The nine-hundreds. The thousand block.
Eleven. Twelve. Twelve and a half.
Fast approached my destination point.
But I didn’t pull any cord for halting,
didn’t toss any Heys the driver’s way.
And as fast as it had approached,
the point was gone.

For when what should have been 1310
came into view, no motel stood up to take credit.
Instead, an abandoned lot boasted desolation:
some ghetto grass rising up through
concrete cracks and a long-since-locked-up
building, big enough to house
a small-town dentist or chiropractor.

I couldn’t help but think to myself,
'Green Light! Green Light!
The damn kid ran!'
I then did what any decent traveler would do—
I kept riding.

At about the forty-five-hundreds,
the bus turned around and took
a five minute break by a grocery store.
I said, “Driver, I’m going to make a call.”
He replied, “Yeah, man, let’s figure this out.”

I dialed and in no time a familiar voice
was thanking me for choosing Motel 6,
she finished with, “How may I help?”
“Are you still at 1310 Belmont Ave?”
“Yes, sir. 1310 Belmont Ave.”
“Are you sure?" I queried. “Do you
get there by this and that?”
“You can get here by that and this,”
she attempted.
“Ask her if it’s by X, Y, or Z,”
offered the driver.
I did, and got back: “No.
It’s by 1, 2, and 3.”
“And this is 1310 Belmont Ave?”
“Yes—sir—1310 Belmont Ave.”

Then, sitting in that dirty seat
and grabbing my luggage by the throat,
all the silliness had, at last, a face.
And I asked, “My dear receptionist:
what state are you in?”

And my dear receptionist replied.

They were, indeed, at 1310 Belmont Ave.
In Centralia, Washington.
Not Youngstown, Ohio.

I politely responded with a Thank You,
got off the phone, and matter-of-factly
told the driver, “Wrong state.”
His response was a simple, “Oh.”

So he dropped me two blocks down the road
and I stayed at a Super 8 instead—
coincidentally, still on Belmont.