On Route 9 South in Howell, NJ, there stands a landmark called the Moon Motel. The Moon Motel is called this, I’m told, because there used to be an amusement park nearby that had an astronomical theme. I’ve never seen it, nor, for that matter, have I seen the inside of a Moon Motel room. I do know, however, that they are air conditioned, feature color TVs and waterbeds. It says so in neon on the giant sign facing the highway. This sign also outlines a V-2 style rocket, cartoon-y, like the one Woody Woodpecker rode to Mars; also a ringed planet; also a giant crescent. Quite lovely.

As kids, my parents would threaten me with a stay at the Moon Motel if I was bad. "Clean up your room, or you’ll be staying at the Moon Motel!” I passed the Moon Motel every day on the way to school. The older kids on the bus said that they sold trojans in the bathrooms. I also heard from a kid, and he knew because his cousin was there when it happened, that a guy got his dick caught in the suction filter of the swimming pool. This I found odd, as the pool was covered year-round. When I made this counter-argument I was told the pool remained covered beacause of this incident. Interesting.

In college one weekend Todd had his parents’ convertible and wanted to take his girlfriend on a drive and stay somewhere nifty. Of course they had no money. I was bound home that weekend anyway, so I hitched a lift and regaled them with stories of the Moon Motel’s décor. They were both into a phase of experimenting with dirty sex. Or, at least talking about dirty sex. They would talk about getting a threesome going, or crazy role-playing, but the most that ever happened, so much as I heard, was they rented some pornos and laughed at the acting. Why is it that women always want to watch pornos, and then laugh at the bad acting? And then say the bad acting kills their sex drive? And then yells at you for not having your sex drive killed by the bad acting?

Oh, anyway, we three drove to the Moon Motel, and spent about 15 minutes trying to find the guy to rent a room. We were there at around 4 in the afternoon, so this may’ve not been their busy time. Finally, off to the side by the pool, a guy opened the baby-blue wooden door and spoke at us through a screen. The deal was made, keys and money exchanged, and we never got a look at the guy’s face. There was a Beware of Dog sign there, so we didn’t try and push it.

In college, G-man found himself in a long-term relationship with a girl he knew just wouldn’t please him long term. But he couldn’t get the energy to break up with her. I mean, it was college, she was fun, she came to his room every night, that’s a pretty hard sitch to run away from. But over Christmas break, the deafening silence and painful boredom of the New Jersey suburbs forced him to listen to his inner critic. He needed to break up with her, and he needed to do it now. He called her on the horn, and came right to the point. She was crushed, and wanted to discuss it in person. Or course, she lived in Ithaca, NY.

She drove down and they “discussed” things, but there wasn’t much to discuss. Her ride on the G-train had ended and that was that. Her heart was broken and the only thing that would mend it was time. By the time she resigned to her fate it was past midnight, there was no way she could drive home. She asked if she could stay in the guest room. Knowing this was probably a trick to use her feminine skills to get G-man to change his mind on her, he refused her. He was a sport, though, and paid for her room at the Moon Motel.

So she spent that night crying her eyes out, staring at her quaking form reflected in the mirrors on the ceiling.

And it’s hard not to pass the Moon Motel to this day and not imagine that both of these occupants are still there. Two college kids slumming as tourists, searching for lurid sex, and a girl who just drove six hours to have her dreams smashed to bits by the stronger sex’s curious ritual. Maybe they’ll all meet at the ice machine.