I had already bought the evening's pasta and tomatoes back in 
Stockton, but when I got to Jackson I went into the big Safeway
on the edge of town anyway. Jackson sprawls across several small
Sierra Nevada foothills. I didn't want to ride past the cheap 
motels and have to turn around and ride back. 

The Safeway women were friendly and told me which motels to try. 
I drank my soda, ate a Snickers and rode up the hill.

At the top of the hill, I got a second opinion; a fellow in an 
old pickup truck who looked at home in Jackson said that one of
the two motels right there next to the station shouldn't be too
bad. Those the women had recommended were down at the bottom of 
the hill. I might as well try here first. I thanked him and 
rolled up to the office of the one that didn't have "Casa" in 
the name.

A room was available for $37.50, which didn't seem unreasonable 
for a Sunday night. I paid with my credit card and was awarded
the "fern" room. 

"It's my favorite," the old girl working the hotel desk told me.
Her voice percolated with barely suppressed bronchial mucous,
and I suspected she left a cigarette burning in the ashtray in 
the next room when she got up to help me. She asked where I'd
ridden from and when I told her San Francisco, by way of Palo
Alto, she said that she'd be scared to ride a bicycle like that.

The room had newish curtains and bedspread with -- you guessed 
it -- a fern motif. It was fairly clean, except for a pair of
blood-encrusted boxer shorts found under the bed the next morning 
during final inspection. I washed some clothes, took a quick 
shower and looked around for a place to set up my campstove. It 
must have been about 10 p.m. 

I checked out front in the parking lot, but there was a rough
looking old character, maybe a logger or a miner, smoking in 
a chair there, and I didn't want to disturb him. I looked in 
back of the motel, where there is a small garden with fountain 
and chairs. I saw a strangely immobile person sitting in one 
of the chairs, staring straight at nothing. I could not 
determine gender or much else in the gloom.  There was a pot 
belly, short grey hair, a tall, angular build. I made several 
steps into this garden area, but when this person failed to 
acknowledge me or even turn his or her head in my direction, 
I thought better of bothering them. I determined to set up my 
stove in the walkway between the front and back of the hotel, 
a short, narrow hall on which four doors opened. 

About five minutes after I started the stove, just before the
pasta was done but before I was finished cutting up tomatoes, 
I smelled the strong aroma of cigarette smoke and looked up to 
find the androgynous garden zombie hovering nearby with a most
displeased expression. It held a cigarette in its fist like a 
weapon. I could see now that it was an old woman, very tall and
severe looking, possibly a victim of Alzheimer's Disease. 

"Turn off that stove right now!" she demanded. "It's too loud. 
You are a rude, rude person!"

The stove was indeed loud there in the constricted hallway. 
Yet the woman's manner made cooperation unthinkable. So grating 
and forceful was her request that thoughts of cooperation never 
actually entered my mind. I even found myself rather thankful for 
the large Leatherman knife in my hand; without it, I thought the
woman might have attacked me, perhaps with her cigarette. 

Soon, the woman disappered, only to reappear with her (I'm guessing)
son, whom I'd noted earlier in the office, a bearded and stocky 
but affable-looking man of middle age. He seemed much-accustomed 
to diplomatic intermediation on behalf of his mother. With an 
apologetic, conspiratorial tone he asked me about the possibility
of moving the stove to the gazebo, a mosquito-netted tent behind
the garden. I could have moved the stove easily enough, but instead
said truthfully that it would only be another three minutes or so.
I smiled, shrugged and went back to the tomatoes. 

The man left to turn on the lights in the gazebo, in case it would
be needed afterall. I took the pasta off the stove to drain it in 
the bathroom sink, reluctantly leaving the stove unguarded. I did
take the bowl of tomatoes with me so that she couldn't spit in it.
The woman redoubled her abuses when I returned to cook the tomatoes,
but I just smiled and said things like, "Won't be but a minute now!"
"There, there... just a jiffy more!"

I breathed a sigh of relief when my tomatoes and oil were warm
and I could escape back into the comforts of the fern room. I
peeked out of the curtains to see that the old woman had returned
to her place in the garden, sitting quietly like a statue next to
the fountain just as she had been 10 minutes earlier, before I had
started my meal.