The Hotel Ghost is a Dick

My attempt at a ghost story.

The Hotel Ghost is a Dick

“You're saying there is an actual, honest to God ghost in this hotel?” Jonathan, our new General Manager asked. Asked with a touch of suspicion, as if we were having him on for an initiation rite.

“Yes”, I replied, “and you don't have to believe that. But if you don't believe that, you're going to see some things around here that otherwise just won't make sense.”

“So what does this ghost do? Does it terrify people?”

“Not really”, I replied, “mostly it just does what you don't want it to do. Or what it thinks you don't want it to do. It's really just kind of a dick.”

“An example?” Asked Johnathan.

“When we had the wedding party in last week, we asked it to be nice and it short sheeted the bed. Stuff like that.”

“So you have no control of this … ah …. ghost?”

“No”, I said, “it can be placated.”

“How?”

“ Dirty jokes. Or clean ones that are really weird. Like that dead parrot joke I told at the bar last night.”

Johnathan chuckled. “No family style jokes?”

“Maybe if they're really twisted. But in general no. And no jokes that it's already heard. It'll get you for that.”

“So you sit around and tell dirty jokes to keep the ghost out of mischief?”

“Basically yes, but we play old comedy routines for it too. It likes Richard Prior and Lenny Bruce. All the old National Lampoon films too. Stuff like Animal House.”

“Well how would I know if it's around? Can I see it?” Asked Johnathan.

“Johnathan, you have to be careful not to set yourself up …....”, I began, but I was too late.

The kitchen doors boomed open behind us and a cream pie flew out. The flying pie turned the corner and then flew straight into Johnathan's face.

“We have to get rid of this ghost”, said Johnathan, as he stood at the front desk wiping pie from his face with paper towels handed to him by the desk clerk.

It was August and the summer season was over, and the winter season would not arrive until mid November. During these periods, the owners would rent to whomever had a buck and could fill up a bunch of rooms. And, preferably, throw a banquet. And maybe rent a couple of convention rooms during the day to boot.

And every year, with a buck in hand, arrived the infamous Sigma Alpha Tau fraternity. The worst of the breed. Drunken, snotty rich kids who would threaten to tell their dads on you for anything they didn't like. We had to take a substantial damage deposit from them and we usually kept most of it. Security from the resort stood at each entrance to their annual ball to block entry to those too inebriated for civil society. Amazingly, they managed to splash all of the water out of our two jacuzzis during the daytime hours.

But their real specialty, however, was barfing in drawers. After their stay, each drawer in every room and condo that had been occupied had to be checked and, if necessary, taken to the back of the property and hosed out. There was even one heroic incident of barf on the ceiling, but thankfully this was and isolated incident.

We had been planning to refuse to host their event for years, but each year the alternative had been to sit empty, and the owners would not stand for that.

The big Friday morning arrived and they checked in. By 4:00 PM both Jacuzzis were half empty, the “No Glass Allowed” area of the pool deck was carpeted with glass beer bottles and what wasn't covered with beer bottles was covered with bathing suits, discarded shirts, sunglasses, lotion bottles and just about anything else one might bring to the pool area.

By 5:00 PM, the group's dates were in the rooms and condos prepping for the night's annual banquet. The male members were in the lobby drunkenly singing a song about female genitalia that snapped shut like a clam. The banquet itself was a drunken affair, but the known presence of security prevented food fights and such behavior.

And so it went for two more days. I had made no effort to placate the ghost that weekend feeling that his antics would not be noticed. What fun is there in putting a t**d in the punch bowl when one of the guests has already done it?

After checkout, the damage was tallied up and the two representatives from the fraternity arrived at the front desk. “

“We have an itemized list here that comes to $2200 for the stay, but as usual, we'll retain $500 of the deposit until we can check all the drawers in the rooms. The rest will be immediately refunded.”

“That's fine”, the fraternity Vice President said. “But there's another matter. Otto would like to come with us. He says he doesn't like it here and you don't treat him very well.”

“Who is Otto?” I asked.

“Why, your ghost. He knows you. Didn't you know you had a ghost here?” And upon saying this, he held up a small beer cooler, “He's going to ride in here on the way back to the house.”

The cooler gave an affirmative rattle.

“Well”, said I, “It will be dull around here without him. But I suppose his happiness comes first.”

The two representatives from the fraternity nodded in agreement. And with this, the hotel ghost was carried out the front doors and loaded into the back of a new, but well dented up SUV.

Reviews

[Vivian Fisk]

Very amusing. Particularly enjoyable is the idea of these rich little tadpoles complacently co-opting the imp as if they owned it--true-to-life depiction of this sort. A delicious denouement for the story.

[Samuel Dickens]

Well, that worked better than having to call up Ghost Busters! Escorted away inside a beer cooler--now, that's hi style. Do you think the drunken hell-raisers will regret it? A great story, I liked it a lot.

[Miss Fedelm]

Thank you. Believe it or not, a lot of this story is true. The fraternity, the hotel in the off season (Mountain Thunder Lodge in Breckenridge) and the barfing in drawers. We would hire extra security when they came, but I forget if I put this in the story.

[Mehta]

is it true story

[Samuel Dickens]

Sure, I believe it. Being a believer in "write what you know", I do the same thing by using pieces of my reality to construct fictitious or semi-fictitious stories around.