Photo Source: Unsplash Vacancy The motel sign blinked VAC NCY where the missing A had surrendered years ago to wind. Inside Room 12, a traveling saxophone player soaked his swollen feet in ice water while an old sitcom laughed through static. The wallpaper peeled like sunburned skin. Outside, trucks drifted along Interstate 40 all night long: great mechanical whales crossing the dark American desert. At two in the morning he stepped outside to smoke. The ice machine hummed beside...