The boy walked past the hotel on his way to the beer depot – Gentleman  Jim’s.  He was picking up a carton of cigarettes, a case of beer, and a bottle of 

bourbon for his father.  He would pay the man, place the goods in his wagon, take a  pretzel rod from the jar at the cash register, and head back home.  His father had  placed a call to the owner to notify him but never told the boy.  The kid figured that  he looked trustworthy and that was good enough.  He enjoyed doing these errands  for his father, a man who was perpetually working, or drinking, or sleeping.  The kid  liked the word depot – like a train depot - but didn’t understand how it applied to a  liquor store.  He also liked the sign that hung over the entrance; on it was a cartoon  like image of an old fashioned, shirtless, and tattooed boxer with a swirl of hair on  his bare chest.  He had a handlebar mustache, was wearing knickers, and had both  fists up, ready to fight.  What that had to do with a liquor store or a gentleman he  didn’t understand. 


          He walked past the hotel again on his way back.  It was next to a run down  trailer home park that sat between the beer depot and the hotel.  The idea of living  in a trailer appealed to him.  He thought it must be like camping, but without the  trees, and right in the middle of this urban blue-collar sprawl.  The hotel was set back a little from the sidewalk.  There was a long narrow parking lot in front of the  entrance.  The lot was flanked on each side by a line of towering Colorado blue spruce that almost completely obscured the entire front of the building, creating a  tunnel or passageway effect.  Only the wooden door and the neon sign that hung above it were visible.  These majestic trees were refugees, survivors of the urban  expansion that had developed this area as this manufacturing and brewery town  outgrew its confines. They seemed out of place, as if they were attempting to shield  the run-down two-story hotel, it too a remnant of better times.   The parking lot was  usually empty during the day and easy to overlook, which is exactly what the boy  did as he rolled his wagon home, pretending to smoke the pretzel rod, beer bottles  clinking.