The motel desk clerk didn’t find it odd, four men checking into one room with only one king-size bed at three in the morning. He’d seen every slice of life imaginable since taking the night shift so he could finish his degree at the university and get the hell out of the fleabag he’d been stuck in for seven years. He didn’t even look at the people anymore, unlike the first year on the job, when half the fun was reading a face and guessing the story behind it. That game had long since grown old and he just wanted to graduate and move west so he could attend his next high school reunion with a little more pride than the first.

He didn’t notice they looked like they’d just stepped out of a Gap commercial, the one currently running in various parts of Jordan and India as a result of the oxymoron ‘free trade.’ The bright pink polo shirt on the quiet, skinny one did not catch his eye, though it had prompted some serious razzing from the regulars at the saloon down the road. The beer drinking, blue-collar patrons had no problem stereotyping the men, noting that only two things came from Arabia, steers and, well, these four guys.

The modest, but distinguishable Middle Eastern accent lilting from the one doing all the talking also failed to make an impression. The motel got many foreigners; after all, it was right off the interstate and a mere five miles from the airport, so this guy was nothing special. In fact, he spoke rather well, complimenting the inviting appearance of the motel from the road that had prompted them to stop. “Any room is fine,” the single-room-for-four man said, “as long as it has cable television.”

The crisp, new hundred dollar bills laid on the counter were nothing uncommon. The clerk had an oriental gentleman, fifty-something with a twitchy left eye, come in every month with a standard request for a drive-up room in the back. The short, balding man drove a big sedan and in the days when the clerk still gave a shit, he would notice a young, demure oriental girl sitting in the passenger seat. The small man would always appear on Friday; always around midnight; always with a different girl. “You got room?” the Asian would say with a pudding thick Japanese accent, before dropping two stiff, spanking clean Benjamins into the clerk’s waiting hand. One was for the room, the other for anonymity. Cash got you a nice room at this motel, along with a lost memory of your visit.

As far as the night clerk was concerned these four, equally indistinguishable men could do whatever they wanted in the room as long as they didn’t piss on the bed or leave spent condoms hanging from the light fixtures in the hall. Some dirt-track fans had done that several months back, prompting a new motel policy regarding urination, smoke detector inspection and proper garbage disposal. The smell from the burning rubber and sperm had forced an evacuation of at least a half-dozen rooms, awakening the manager from his unofficial slumber to deal with the hot and somewhat sticky situation. The odor still lingered in parts of the building, as did it’s memory, but beyond that, what people did behind closed doors was their business, the indifferent clerk reasoned, as long as none of it dripped on him.

“Room 13,” the clerk said pointing out the lobby window. “Go around to the back of the building, it’s on the ground floor.”

“Thirteen?” the guest asked, “this is unlucky in America, yes?”

The apathetic clerk handed him the key. “Don’t worry, the cable works,” he said before returning to his chair and his paperback copy of Psycho.

Room 13 remained quiet through the weekend that followed, its guests leaving occasionally and returning only with food and a newspaper or two. They did not again grace the saloon down the road with their presence, or any other recreational establishment for that matter. They kept to themselves, as did most at this motel, choosing to remain indistinct, almost invisible, to the world around them. Inside, however, they talked non-stop in Arabic, speaking English only when the maid came in to change the sheets and clean the bathroom.

“Four men in one room?” The cleaning woman would ask herself while making the bed in the next room over, “So polite and very tidy, they must be from Texas.”

It was Monday morning, four days into their stay, when Room 13 uncharacteristically had the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging from its doorknob. The maid didn’t care; it meant one less room to clean and one more cigarette break. From next door, she could hear the television and their vernacular, monotone voices. She wasn’t interested, slipping on the earphones to the iPod she’d just bought herself for her birthday. The fly on the wall could only guess by her dance steps, she was listening to hip-hop.

No one else in the tri-county area cared either. Their existence went unnoticed - black ice on a winter morning, out of sight and out of mind until your car tires begin to slide toward oncoming traffic and the adrenaline injects itself into your veins. For now, the roadway appeared clear, so it was live and let live in this middle class stem of America with everyone going about their business including the four foreigners ‘from Texas,’ inside their little motel room.

“I do not trust the American,” one of the men said.

“He is necessary,” replied the one who had conducted their business with the motel clerk. He sat rigidly upright in the room’s only chair, giving him the appearance of leadership, while the others lazily adorned the bed. He had an unforgettable face, hard and cold with darting, shifting eyes, like a chameleon. One eye was black as night while the other was blue, like the water on a toy globe, but it was glass and covered with a ghostly film that could easily trigger a gag reflex from the unaware.

“What of these clothes?” the distrusting one asked. “They are too tight, I cannot breathe.”

The other three men ignored his recurring complaints, engrossed in the program on the small television sitting on the lone dresser in the room.

“They press into my skin,” the whiner continued, “and my feet are full of blisters from these terrible shoes.”

Annoyed, a third man spoke. “Be quiet, Wilbur. We’ve heard enough of your complaints.”

“I do not accept the name I have been given,” he snapped back. “I wish to select another.”

“Enough,” the presumed leader said. “If you persist I will…what is the term Ralph?”

“Bitch slap, Andy” the fourth man, Ralph, said. “I believe the phrase is bitch slap.”

“Yes, I will bitch slap you throughout the village square, or at least the parking lot. You will be a disgrace to your family and be…” he searched for the correct word, “exorcised.”

Wilbur folded his arms, pouting like a five year old reluctantly accepting his dinner of liver and peas. He did not like his alias but public humiliation was much worse. Still, he glared back at Andy, his cold, black eyes saying all that he was feeling.

Sensing the stare, but keeping his attention on the glowing screen, Andy slowly waved the index and middle fingers of his right hand. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a flicker of light, like that of an old stainless steel fender, a Buick perhaps, catching the sun as it turned into the driveway. Then, a shriek of pain, filling the room like an incensed zoo monkey, momentarily drowning out the television. Wilbur’s hands leapt, covering his face in horror. Instantaneously, red blood began oozing between his fingers, sliding past his wrist and down his arm.

The third man, Darren, was quick with his knife. An eight inch Italian Stiletto, to be exact, with a genuine pearl handle and polished bayonet blade. It was one of many he had and was hidden back in his shirtsleeve before his victim could spill a drop of blood.

“That,” Andy said blankly, “translated in English, means ‘Shut your pie hole.’”

The bleeding man retreated to the tiny bathroom, gently closing the door behind him, careful not to foolishly invite further wrath in with him. There, he attended to the deep gash stretching from his lower lip to the peak of his chin, all the while listening to the cackles from the other room. It was vicious laughter--carnival fun house laughter reeking with grotesque satisfaction. He stitched himself up with a common needle and thread, looking in the mirror as he quietly grumbled his American name repeatedly, “Wilbur, Wilbur.”

They did not use their given names, unpronounceable as they were, for fear their true identities might be unveiled and subsequently spread like nude photos on the internet. Consequently, American names were established; mainstream names that would blend into the American landscape like baseball and apple pie. TV Land provided such names and after careful consideration, along with sixteen hours of non-stop reruns, Andy, Ralph, Darren and Wilbur were chosen. Actually, the first three were chosen, the latter was assigned.

To be sure, there was purpose behind these selections; a calculated, desired reaction in mind for those crossing their path. They wanted people to laugh at them; to look past other characteristics; to disarm their suspicions before they knew they should even have suspicions. For each new location, there were new names and consequently no trail to follow. It was all part of the plan and it was working perfectly.

As if truly American, they had unwittingly become addicted to television, watching anything with gunfire and explosions at all hours of the day and night. On this day, however, Andy, who proclaimed dreams of owning his own restaurant one day, had channel-surfed to the Food Network, which, with the clock dangling just past noon, was presenting one of its widely popular cooking programs.

“What is Mud Pie?” Darren, the serious, knife wielding one asked.

“It is like baklava, only everything is chocolate; chocolate like Hershey bar,” Ralph answered. Intrigued by American culture, Ralph endlessly studied the Western customs and local slang wherever their operations took them. He had heard the term ‘bitch slap’ one night while garnering a prostitute, unbeknownst to Andy and the others, the meaning of which had been promptly displayed in all too living color. Ever since, he was a sponge, soaking up everything he heard and saw on the streets, in the restaurants and on what he often heard referred to as “the boob tube.” He had become the translator for the group, a role that was indispensable as they stretched west, away from the mélange they had enjoyed in New York City.

Darren pulled a second blade from his pocket, a green and brown camouflage handled, cross-lock buck knife, and flicked open the three inch saw with gut hook. It had a look of medieval torture, like something used on Mel Gibson at the end of Braveheart. He proceeded to gnaw at the innocent bedpost. He was preparing--warming up like a ballplayer--for something, something yet to be determined.

“We risk much with this one,” Ralph said, pointing at the man on the television. “His motives shift like the sands of the Kara Kum.”

“He is necessary,” was all Andy said.

Had the maid pulled the raspy, plastic gumdrops from her ears at that moment she would have heard nothing from the room next door but the television show host enchanting his audience with his latest twist on an old recipe for Mud Pie, the dessert that, not so coincidently, carried his nickname. She might have felt his unbridled enthusiasm had she put her ear to the wall, visualizing the maestro-like gestures accompanying his tenor sax voice. She might have assumed the men had left their room to grab some lunch, leaving the television on. If so, she would have assumed wrong. They were in there all right, watching intently, waiting for something that even the fly on the wall could not discern.

At approximately 12:29 PM, on that Monday afternoon, the dessert maker thanked his audience for watching, promised a new and delicious recipe for next week and, as usual, reminded them to always bring a fork. It was a sugary ending, but it was a sugary show, no pun intended.

At 12:45 that same afternoon, while the pop culture pastry chef was having his makeup removed, Room 13 of a motel somewhere in the Midwest was empty. It would remain empty the rest of the week even though it’s most recent guests were paid through Sunday, a full week, all in cash. The motel manager would purposely leave it empty to alleviate any obligation to provide a refund should they return, his mind not curious or concerned, but instead, filling with counterfeit tales of the four men’s non-heterosexual exploits to share with his friends at the saloon down the road. All the motel guests lived imaginary lives at the saloon down the road; they were the only interesting ones to ever walk in.