Hotel California

Ben is stuck in an existential hell

Hotel California

It was a hot summer day. A blue convertible drove down the winding highway. It followed the road through the edge of the Mojave desert and up into the golden hills. The sun began to set in the west and the car was low on gas. The driver decided to find a place to stay for the night. He’d been traveling a long time. By nature he was a wander drifting from town to town. He found odd jobs or stole to keep himself alive. Huge fields of grapes and other crops rolled endlessly before him. With the setting sun came the watering of the fields by large machines by the side of the road. It was a long lonely view, but then Ben was a lonely person.

Several more miles down the road he came upon a hotel. It’s red neon sign glowed bright against the twilight sky. Ben’s eyes were growing heavy. He knew if he didn’t stop he’d fall asleep at the wheel before he found another place. As Ben pulled in the gravely, dusty driveway he saw a woman standing inside the doorway. Ben parked the car beside an old beat up Ford. The sun’s last rays lingered for a moment on Ben and the woman as he made his way to the door with his bag. The woman was extremely beautiful and exotic. Her long black hair framed her pale complected face and her light eyes were almost translucent. Her dark red lips did not smile, but were nonetheless seductive. Ben drew in a deep breath. He knew that trouble lay ahead. There was an air of excitement, but also an air of danger. It was just the mixture Ben loved, a balance between heaven and hell.

Wordlessly the woman with the lovely face led Ben inside as a bell rang out from a near by mission. The California landscape disappeared with the bell’s last ring. The woman stopped at the front desk. She said, “Welcome to the Hotel California, we have plenty of room here. Follow me and I’ll show you to your room.” She took a candle from the desk and lit it. The candlelight cast an eerie glow across her face, making her look strangely disfigured. Ben shook his head and blinked his eyes sure it was just his extreme tiredness that made her look that way. As she started out the back of the lobby she added, “The electric is out.”

“Do you need money now or do I pay when I leave?” Ben asked puzzled that the fee had not mentioned.

“You have already paid,” she replied.

“But I....” Ben stammered. He was confused but he decided not to pursue it. If he could get a room without spending a dime he would. Suddenly he heard voices echoing in the dark hall that they were passing though. The voices were soft and almost seemed like a part of the cold breeze that he felt. He shivered and then they emerged into the courtyard. Guitars played Spanish tunes quietly as several people talked and mingled. There was the man playing the guitar, a black woman, a red haired woman and another young man like himself.

“Who are they?” Ben wondered out loud.

“People like you,” the woman said. The guitar player, whose name was Julian downed some tequila and handed Ben the bottle. Odd, Ben thought, I don’t remember him moving from his bench to where we are standing. Letting it go Ben downed some tequila himself. Warmth filled his body. There was a tingling sensation and he felt as if he was on acid, but he didn’t remember taking any. It was then Ben realized that something was wrong.

The woman was suddenly dancing with Ben. The candle disappeared and instead Ben was in her hands. She swayed seductively against him, her red dress brushing his jeans. He felt his excitement rise within as her rounded rear end swayed against his hips. Her hair and body smelled of the golden fields of California. It was a sweet smell that he had never known before. Oh that sweet summer sweat! Ben was intoxicated even more than before. His hands reached out to touch her. She whispered, “Are you dancing to remember or to forget?”

“To forget, to forget,” he answered not sure of why at first. As the courtyard faded he knew why. The pain he’d been running from was what he wanted to forget. He wanted to forget the fists of his step-father, the cold look in his mother’s eyes and the loneliness inside.

The woman danced away, surrounded by a group of men. Ben was filled with jealously. She was his, and his alone. The woman laughed and smiled while watching him. Ben was not aware of the fact that he was standing perfectly still as emotions overwhelmed him. Desire, rage, passion, love and fear were all there tumbling around together. It seemed like an eternity until she danced back to him.

“Who are they?” Ben asked her.

“Friends,” she replied. “Brian over there gave me a Mercedes Benz.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

They were in a room late that night. Ben looked up from the paint flaked walls to the mirror on the ceiling. He was naked with the woman on top of him. She thrust and pulled and wildly moaned, then screamed. Ben hung on, focusing more on his drifting thoughts then her. How did he get here? What had happened to the rest of that night? The voices stayed in his head, pounding and echoing, “Welcome to the Hotel California.” What was this place? It wasn’t an ordinary hotel, that was for sure. It was more like a place from a dream, neither here nor there. Though he knew it was 1974 it could have easily been 1934 or 1994.

The woman, whose name he either didn’t know or couldn’t remember finished after he did, though he barely noticed when the orgasm hit him. She pulled away, but lingered long enough to kiss his bare chest. She giggled and took the pink champagne from it’s place in the ice beside the big bed.

She offered him some, but Ben refused. “No, I want the wine, not the champagne.”

“Then call him,” she suggested.

“Call who?” he asked, “The manager?”

“No, the Captain of this ship.”

Ben picked up the receiver and dialed the number. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. The numbers were barely visible in the pale candlelight, but he found them as if by memory. “Please bring me my wine Captain,” he asked slurring into the phone. He could barely focus because his head was spinning and nausea rolled over him in giant waves.

“We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969,” the voice on the other line replied.

“Oh,” Ben said hanging up. “No spirits here. Or is it all spirits?”

Things went black again.

He woke up hours later in this endless night. He had had a horrible dream that he had been trapped in this weird hotel. He kept hearing these voices, “Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Lovely place. Lovely place. Lovely face.” Ben sat straight up breathing hard. It was just a dream he told himself. Then he saw the woman from his dream sitting naked on the edge of the bed. Her eyes pierced right into his soul and saw the well of fear. “I’ve got to get out of here!’ Ben exclaimed.

“We are all prisoners here of our own device,” she said unblinkingly.

“Who?”

“You, me, all of us. We chose to take this path. We chose to be prisoners. We chose to come to this place.”

“What the hell is this place?” Ben demanded panicking. An ominous feeling over came him. Whatever this place was, he didn’t want to be there any longer.

“Didn’t you know?”

“Hell,” he muttered.

“In a very Sartre-like way.” Her eyebrows arched. “Let me show you something.”

Ben found himself in a very dark room. There were no pictures or decorations and instead of bed there was an alter. Black candles flickered in the cold wind that came seemingly from no where. A group of men and women in crazy costumes gathered around the alter. Was this some strange costume party, he wondered. Why weren’t they dressed like anything he recognized? The costumes were a mixture of black gothic dresses and medieval style outfits. Ben noticed they were all gathered around the alter in the middle so he strained to see what they were all looking at. Music filled the room as if they were all in a movie. He pushed through the crowd to get a better look. When he finally got to the middle of the room he couldn’t believe it. It was him on the alter. He was shocked and paralyzed as found himself staring into his own eyes.

“We are here to kill the beast,” he heard someone say.

Ben closed his eyes. When he reopened his eyes a creature lay on the alter where he once was. It was a grotesque thing that looked like something between a pig and a spider. Ben heard a scream. It was his own. It was the creature’s. The crowd raised their steely knives in the air. As the knives fell on the creature Ben began to back out of the room. Blood covered their knives, the walls and the floor. Ben saw the creature still writhing in pain as he backed out of the door. He ran through the courtyard and down the dark corridor. The voices grew stronger. “Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the Hotel California. Such a lovely place. Anytime of year. You can find us here. Lovely face. Welcome.”

“NO!” he screamed running and running. He finally reached the door. A single doorman stood at the exit. He appeared to be casually hanging out. The man had no uniform, just an official air about him. He turned his eyes from the empty road to Ben, who had paused to catch his breath. “I need to get back,” Ben thought out loud.

“Back to where?” the man asked.

“To where I was before.”

“Where was that?”

“Something familiar. Something I know.”

“You gave that all up,” the night man told him.

“When?”

“When you entered this Hotel, this home of lost souls.”

“I want to leave.”

“We are programmed to receive guests, but we are not programmed to give them up. You can check out of the hotel, but you can never leave you see.”

“No, I don’t see.”

“You will,” the night watchman warned.

Ben hopped into his car and started it up. He pulled away. “I’m leaving no matter what.” And it seemed to work. Ben was indeed back on the road. Miles stretched ahead of him, lost in the night. His headlights only illuminated a few feet ahead of him. No other cars or vehicles were on the road for the longest time. Then out of the dark came a blinding light. Ben saw nothing but he felt the car spin out of control. He was tumbling. The sound of metal filled his ears.

He was back in the room. The alter was full of food. There were fruits, vegetables, and meat dishes. Everyone was talking a piece, a piece of him. Ben was the food on the table, the beast that was still alive and yet being consumed like a roast pig. Horror and disgust threatened to make him sick. He tried to move out of the room but he couldn’t. Someone came up to him. It was a woman. She raised her knife as if strike him. “No,” he cried, “Don’t stab me. No! I’m alive.”

She didn’t hear or didn’t care because the knife plunged right down into his heart. He screamed in horror and pain. It was a blood curdling scream that echoed throughout the empty hotel and down the highway.

Ben awoke in bed, alone. His head pounded. Was it a hangover? The strangest memories haunted him. Had it all been a dream? More like a nightmare. He prayed that that was all it was. Confused, scared and tired he turned over to go back to sleep. Thunder rumbled and rain poured down on to the roof above him.

Author's Note

From my 2000 book Radiant Darkness