The Hotel

The day was hot and muggy. The sun was high in the sky. The water in the pool looked cool and refreshing, but the time for a dip in the pool was not now. The man walked by the pool and toward the building. There were people mingling outside, he struggled to get by them and through the door. He slid through the doors and into the elevator just as the doors were shutting. The elevator was cramped and smelled of old leather he held his breathe as the lift creaked its way up to the sixth floor. He anxiously watched the numbers light up 5,6. He licked his lips in anticipation. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but somehow he knew he had to go there. He watched as the doors of the elevator opened. He stepped out of the shaft and onto the floor under him. He looked around to see if anything out of the ordinary was about, but all looked normal. He looked down the hall one way then another to decide which way he should start. He decided he would go left. He started down the dingy hallway. The carpet that once was a rich brown, now was dingy and old, parts worn away from years of walking on it. He remembered the first time he was in this old place he was 6 years old and living with his grandmother. She and he lived in a beautiful house on the other side of town. His mother came to the house and took him from his grandmother and brought him here. Back 30 years ago this old hotel was grand. The ballroom echoed late into the night with music played on the piano, sometimes a voice would belt out a jazz tune. The chandelier in the foyer was the grandest of them all. Encircling the ceiling like a vulture circling its prey. The child was amazed at the dresses and suits that the women and men wore. His mother didn’t fit it here even as a 6 year old he could tell that. It wasn’t until years later that he understood what was really going on. The boy spent most evenings in the one room suite watching an old black and white television that his mother had gotten from somewhere, while his mother danced and drank the night away down in the ballroom. He shook his head and continued down the hall, he was looking for room # 67, he still couldn’t believe that he was back at this place, he hated it as a child, but since he had heard of his mothers death he felt obligated to go back to his origin, or at least his origin that he remembered with her. He got the news of his mothers demise on the news Jessica Lynn Dies at 85. He sat astonished, but he listened as the lady on the news droned on about her life as a stripper and how she had brought honor to that particular profession. The story continued by saying that Jessica Lynn had died in the very hotel that her career started in, The Grand, although not so grand now. It didn’t take him long to drive to the hotel.

 

He felt as if he was a child again instead of the 36-year-old attorney that he eventually ended up being, he wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued down the hall reading the numbers on the door, 65,66. He stopped at 67; he paused at the door remembering. He was 9 years old again, sitting on the chair watching his mother put on the clothes she had just went and bought, and sprayed the cheap perfume that she smelled of most nights. He was tired of being left in this dingy room watching this old black and white television that was older than his mother he thought, not to mention that he was hungry and his mother seemed to think nothing of the fact that it had been a few days since he had last eaten. She just bought her clothes and her cheap perfume and went to the ballroom and danced with everyone there. He scowled at his mother, she didn’t seem to notice, he coughed loudly and walked to the refrigerator opened the door and then slammed it again. Still she did not notice, and if she did, she didn’t make it known. He walked back over to the chair and plopped down and sighed loudly. Finally, she looked at him what she asked. He scowled at her and moaned that he was hungry and would like her to fix him something to eat. She fished around the kitchen and opened the pantry, she found a can of pork and beans and tossed it to him, it landed near his feet, and there ya go she said to him and blew him a kiss and slammed the front door. His eyes stung with tears but he refused to cry he would never cry it was a sign of weakness, which was what she had said to him when he cried after she took him from his grandma. He would never forgive her for taking him from his home and brought him here. For what? He often thought to be left in this room? He thought it unfair that he never got to go outside, or go to school with the other kids and often in the morning hours he would sit at the window and watch longingly as the other children ran and skipped to school. Friends he thought was what he missed most. Night after night, he sat alone in the room watching the black and white television and listening to the music coming from downstairs.

He stood in the hall with his fingers around the knob of the hated room, when something caught his attention down the stairs. He released his grip on the door and headed directly down the stairs, he mused that this time he had no fear, unlike the first time he ventured down the stairs. His mother had left him in the room alone again, and again with no food. He thought to himself that he didn’t want to spend another night with his stomach growling so loudly that he could not sleep. He walked toward the door and when his fingers touched the knob, they quickly turned it as if they had a mind of their own and were acting on their own accord. The door swung open and he stepped outside. It had been awhile since he had been out of the room, she kept telling him that if the manager saw him she would raise the rent, but he knew she didn’t want anyone to know that she had a 10-year-old son, that might ruin her. He had not quite figured out what she was doing but he knew whatever it was a son would not be a good thing, he knew this because when she had “company” as she called it, he was always sent in the bathroom before she would let the person in, he would hear noises from the bed sometimes laughing and sometimes he thought she was dieing but within a couple of hours she would open the bathroom door, and sit on the edge of the bed, with a drink and a cigarette telling him how much she loved him. He tiptoed down the hallway toward the music, and slowly one step at a time made his way down the stairs trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible, worrying that is she saw him; it would be the end for him. He knelt down on his knees just at the bottom of the stairs to watch the goings on in the huge ballroom. The ladies all dressed in their best attire, the men in tuxedos danced elegantly around the floor. Some people mingled around the table where they had the bar, while others stood around the table with the food. FOOD he thought to himself well no wonder she didn’t think of him as being hungry she came down her and ate like a queen every night and he was starving in that old room. He had to find away over to the table of food. He slinked his body as close to the shadows as he could and made his way under the table nearest him. The tablecloth hid him until he could maneuver his way down to the next table he continued in this manner until he reached the table nearest the one with the food, he just would have to get under that table and to the other side of it and he would stuff every pocket of his pants and anywhere else he could put it and make his way back up the stairs before his mother ever knew he was gone. He waited as the music stopped and everyone went to the tables, he crawled on his belly as fast as he could to under the table of food and to the other side.

He was busy eating a mouthful of bread when he heard someone announce something about for his or her enjoyment, the dancing talent of Jessica Lynn. His mouth dropped open as he watched the woman come on the stage she was dressed in a long tight black skirt and a halter-top she had on long gloves and as the music droned on and on she took off the clothes methodically. He watched in amazement as his mother stripped down to the nothing but a smile and he was completely astonished that she would do this, but then he saw why the men giving her money, bills and bills. He could not believe that she would make that kind of money and they would live here. It didn’t not even occur to him that it was a profession that she should not be proud of or that he should be embarrassed about, just the fact that she made that money and he was starving and really how no clothes to speak of, he made his way back to the stair well and up the stairs. He turned and saw his mother dressed only in a robe laughing at something that some big-toothed plump man said in her ear. His distaste for his mother grew exceedingly that day. His palms sweated as he sat at the end of the stairwell remembering how could she still have such a hold on him, after all these years, the last thing he remembered telling his mother was that she was a self righteous pig headed selfish s**t and he didn’t want anything to do with her. That was four years after he first saw her strip in the ballroom when she came back to the room that night he looked at her with distaste and hatefulness, she asked him what was wrong and he told her the whole story what he did and what he saw and how angry he was with her for starving him and having all that money and leaving him every night, how upset he was that she thought only of herself and nothing of him when she went out shopping and brought home bags of new clothes and he was wearing shorts that were tight and a dingy t-shirt and he had one other pair of pants to his name. She looked at him with her mouth open and tears in her eyes. He never spoke of that night again, nor never asked her for anything, he would continue to sneak downstairs and get food. He didn’t care what she thought any more as she never cared what he thought.

When he was 14, he walked out the door and never looked back. He went back to his grandmother’s house, he knocked on the door, and he had not seen her since he was taken away but the familiarity of the house was comforting. She came to the door frailer than he remembered her being and older. She smiled through the tears when she saw him. He got a weekend job and with some tutoring entered backs into school. He graduated high school valedictorian, and with a full scholarship of his choice. Grandma died that summer and he put all her stuff in storage and leased out the house. He entered into Harvard, and with in 4 years he had his law degree, within the next two years he had passed the bar, and was now an upcoming lawyer. Now thirty-six years old he had his own law firm and a flourishing career, he had written two bestseller books one on a case of his and one fictional law novel. Now as he sat in this building with all the fear and hatred of his young life, he felt all of six again. He rose off the steps and headed up the stairs. He decided he didn’t need to go into room # 67, he placed the roses next to the door one pink one, one red one, and one white one. He said good-bye to his childhood ghosts that afternoon, and to his mother. He buried her next to his grandmother, his mind asking why he should bother, his heart telling him how can you not? He went into the house that he loved and kicked off his shoes. He wondered how he survived those long years in the Grand Hotel, he smiled, he knew how he survived, and he had finally understood, and forgave his mother. He would live happy and he would die happy, that was a promise he had made to himself when he walked out of his mothers life, and into his own. It was a promise he would keep.