Must Be Hard to Relax

Another area flophouse has closed to make way for redevelopment. Decatur's Relax Inn and the recently torched original location of My Sister's Room will give way to new apartments. The Dairy Queen will return.

I served on the Dekalb County Grand Jury in the early nineties. Basically, we had to hear about every felony case the DA wanted to proceed by seeking our indictment. We heard several cases that took place at the Relax--drug deals, solicitations and guns being shot off. It struck me as not a particularly restive place.

Later I used it as a setting for a Tennesee Williams pastiche with a Blanche Dubois and Brick-like characters down on their luck and residing at the Relax. Creative Loafing's Curt Holman gave it a non-negative notice in an otherwise negative review of the show it was part of. ('Course, I wasn't in that show.)

The heroine in the sketch uses an Atlanta bus route to defend self-delusion. What might she make of the proposed Cityville development? Would she note the bilingual redundancy of city and ville? Would she find in the half-assed pretention a kindred spirit? Or would she simply steel herself for the forlorn walk to the Suburban Extended Stay on Church St.?

At least the Last Chance Thrift Store is right across the street.