‘Two Doors Down’ is a song I wrote a few years ago now. I was thinking about the song when I wrote this story the other day.

Content note: This story includes mild violence, crime themes, and adult references.

I check the street behind me. So many faces, but none I recognise. The city has its own rhythm. People are spilling out of the bars onto the streets. The restaurants are packed. On the street, there’s an easy vibe, but there is something bubbling beneath the surface. Always is.

I cross the alley and duck into the side door of the hotel. Someone has used a fire extinguisher to jam the door open. I duck through the door and along a dusty corridor past the kitchen, where someone is listening to the radio. Weather Report. No end to the hot spell.

I climb the stairs and into my room. Room 135.

It’s not the same room I had before, but I bet they are all the same. It hasn’t changed much. Same furniture. Same places we stashed the cash. Still in need of a paint job and some new carpet.

I didn’t pay a lot, but it still feels like too much. I lay the guitar case down on the bed and place the bottle of whisky and my wallet on the table. I walk over to the window. It’s open, but you would never guess. The hot air stands.

Eight p.m., but the mercury must be pushing 30. It’s the same heat out there as it is here. I can hear the hotel’s neon light hum.

Looking out the window, the streets are still busy. Groups of people on a night out. Couples, hand in hand, arm in arm, kissing in the corner in the headlights. Some people scatter as a police car tears up the road, sirens loud and lights flashing.

I remember her.

She waited in the car, usually with some takeaway while I went in. Grab the money and we’re out of there. She could drive. Fast. 

She didn’t say much apart from, “Shut up and let me drive.” Talking about her brother. Or: “When’s the next job?” “Let’s go steal a car.”

I can see her there by the bed, sleeping in that old Rancid t-shirt. Said she always had a thing for Tim Armstrong. Bundle of cash like a pillow. Irritable in the summer heat, drawing on a cigarette.

I pour a drink. Cheap whisky. Burns on the way down. Just what I need. I can almost hear her voice. “Christ, you pour whisky like my grandmother. Just drink the damn thing.”

I remember she whispered, “I’ve got the truth,” as she had poured it over her chest.

The locks click as I open the guitar case. I lift it out and hold it in my arms, sitting at the end of the bed.

Fifth string. Slide from E to D. And back again. Down the scale to the low E.

Blues. Steady. Pulse. Sings. Two doors down. Two doors down. Singing my blues.

I grab the receipt for the room. Scribble it down on the back. I can see it. Like an old movie. The money. Banknotes all over the bed. The bathtub.

Her whispers. “Hey now, babe, won’t you stay a little while?” The wall. She kept her boots on.

I breathe out, slow. I took the money. Left her the bill. Guess her brother isn’t getting that operation.

There’s a knock at the door. Her perfume drifting in like a ghost. “Tell me that you’ll be here… when it all comes down.”

I open the door. She smiles. “I knew you’d be back.”

A shot rings out. Gunsmoke curls up. An acrid chemical smell.

She walks away in those boots. Doesn’t look back. She’s muttering the lyrics to Roots Radicals, I can hear the sound of her boots, and the sound of the street.

Fading out.

This is the song, recorded at home on an old tascam 4 track I’ve still got somewhere.

(c) Paul Andrew Sneddon