When I first called Saxon Burns and offered him the assignment for this week’s cover story, “My Stay at the No-Tel Motel,” he eagerly accepted it.
This surprised me. Why would anyone be excited about the proposition of leaving a warm and cozy home to reside at a seedy motel for a week?
We got the idea from our sister paper in Las Vegas, which last year sent someone to live at the local equivalent for a week. He left early after he, well, started losing his mind, developing an urge he’d never had before: to cut himself.
Just to make sure Saxon–a University of Arizona student who, despite his young age, is developing into one of our better writers–understood what he was getting himself into, we had a meeting over coffee. I told him to be careful, avoid confrontations and to carry pepper spray, just in case, and to leave whenever he felt like it. I asked him once more if he was sure he wanted the assignment; he said he did.
This is part of the e-mail I got from Saxon after his first day:
“I can see why that guy in Las Vegas went crazy. I must say that I flipped out a bit last night–as well as this morning. I had neighbors who kept their door cracked so they could peer at me whenever I stepped outside. I feel like I’m being watched when I leave my room, which–by the way–is really scummy. — So, yeah. I’m scared. But I’m hanging on. I also have pepper spray to protect me.”
Well, Saxon made it. I hope you enjoy his entertaining, if somewhat disturbing, true tale.
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2003.