She was a nobody looking for fame…
He was a somebody looking to forget…
Out of a huge blackened rocknroll arena he runs from the wild applause into a waiting limo with crazed fans attacking the car – the tumult and terror of fame surround him. His eyes see and hear a world he must escape.

She drives her funky pick-up truck down a foggy road. At a crossroads, his limo speeds through the stop sign almost hitting her truck, which she swerves into a ditch. Angrily she grabs her guitar and begins walking down the empty fogbound road.

The blue neon sign says “Memory Motel” in the fog ahead. She walks across the empty parking lot. Standing in the fog he watches her approach sadly. He is a somebody looking to forget his fame. She is a nobody seeking fame and fortune. On this fortuitous night their paths cross, forever changing their lives. They discover an answer to their loneliness in each other’s arms. Desire seeks desire. The fog enters their motel room, coming between them and with their heat they burn it away, while Billie Holiday sings in another universe.

Morning comes with anticipation and rejuvenation. The limo returns. She accepts a ride to her ditched truck. They part in the bright light of day, with promises exchanged of a future meeting. With giddy hope of a new love she goes back to work waitressing in a restaurant bar. He is back in the treacherous arms of the music business with all its various tentacles of slime, scum, liars and accountants.

The days and nights pass with telephone calls holding them together. They are fascinated by their intoxication. Other characters, (his wife, manager, connection) notice a change in him that threatens them. Her friends warn her against a broken heart but she needs to believe in her crazy love. She sings on a bare stage in an almost empty bar while he faces thousands begging fro his recognition. Both of them are remembering the Memory Motel. “Wouldn’t it be great if it were like this all the time?”

Suddenly she is with him on top of the world. They fall into bed with animal passion which spreads into their life his tour: the crowds, the excitement, the craziness, the heightened reality throbbing day and night. She looks into the fans hungry eyes and is frightened by what she sees. He has been re-born as a performer by her involvement but now his appetite for greater fame and attention is growing at an alarming rate. Questioning his direction, she feels uneasy surrounded by his sycophants.

With her girlfriend she sits in the audience of his show and believes he is singing to her but she feels the enormous distance between them. She begins to recognize the impossibility of being with him. Their worlds are too far apart. A riot breaks out at the concert – they see each other being forced in opposite directions. Later at his regal suite he reads her note asking him to pardon her disappearance.

She sadly sings at the bar of the Memory Motel to a bunch of drunks as he enters the room. He joins her in a duet of Fire and Desire. Afterwards in t Memory Motel they find their lovemaking more tender and tearful. On her guitar she strums a song she has written about him. By the end of the song he is joining in the chorus like they are two falling wild leaves.

He refuses to understand why she can’t be with him. It is their fate to be together he insists. She wants him to understand but she also knows her search must continue without him for the present. On the beach they walk as the fog rolls in. The penetration headlights of the limo pierce the fog, isolating the two lovers from each other. Above them in the fog the blue neon word “Memory” floats.

© 2004 by Richard Sassin

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