oldnumberseven

Then I was the night manager of a tall hotel along the Monongahela River in Morgantown West Virginia. The building was five stories tall, and the top floor was large apartments full of people who could afford the space. The Monongahela River was mostly muddy and crawled north. The river valley was narrow with creek tributaries, the hills were close to the river, wooded, with little bottom land. The river crossed the border into Pennsylvania and met the Allegheny, formed the Ohio at the triangle at Pittsburgh. The Ohio flowed west. The people who leased the large apartments spent warm evenings lodged on their balconies with their invited guests, listened to music, and served drinks. The river flowed beneath them. When the snow fell the balcony parties were over. Few lights shown on the far riverbank. The equipment and the workers of Oliverio and Son Builders threw up new apartments on the far bank in the daylight. The Westover bridge spanned the river.

Carl Smith sat in my chair. I happily despised Carl and was pleased to have him around. Through Carl I learned to appreciate my friends. Carl gestured to a young man who stood beside the desk.
“Dash, this is Stephen.”
Stephen and I shook hands.
“Stephen finished his training and will be at the front desk tonight.”
Carl handed me Stephen’s file. Carl was the flex manager. He flexed between the three different shifts, and flexed past me to the doorway. Carl worked any hours. When he worked the shift before my third shift, I think he made it a hobby to add one or two hours of paperwork to my schedule. Carl tried to help me, and then three hours were added, the first undoing Carl’s work, and the other two performing the job correctly. The mistakes Carl made with the guests were rarely correctable until the guests blew up. I never blamed the guest for the explosion, as it was very expensive to stay at the Riverfront Hotel. Carl had a wife and two or three children. Whenever one of the children had a birthday Carl informed me, and I wondered if he expected accolades for another year of survival for the child. Good old Carl, how I despised him.
Carl left the office with a mock salute. I looked through Stephen’s resumé. I saw he was Captain of his intramural hockey team.
“This is my first hotel job, sir.”
“It isn’t difficult, just make sure all the guests are satisfied. Don’t lie to them, and don’t let them believe something that you know isn’t true.”
“Right”
“You follow the Pens?”
“I was there the night Crosby scored his first goal.”
“Good. Like any good goalie, I do not mind being the last line of defense, but I hate being the only line of defense.”
“Got it.”
Stephen and I went to work. He brought me the reports I wanted when I wanted. Carl only managed to set me back forty-five minutes, and I thought, perhaps, Carl was slipping. It was very generous of Carl, and I appreciated him a little. Stephen did not come to me with any cockeyed questions, his few questions were intelligent, and he listened to the answers.
“Want to take a break?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll be up on the roof for a smoke. Call if you need any help.”
The frigid wind whipped me around on the roof, and I only smoked half the cigarette. When I returned to the office the bar and restaurant receipts were on my desk. I finished the audit and all the rows and columns added up perfectly. I flipped the business date. I transmitted all the data to the Inter-State Hotels office. I went up to the front desk.
“Staying awake?”
“Yes sir.”
“Feel like taking a walk?”
“Sure.”
I handed him the stack of express check-outs.
“Slide these under the doors of the rooms.”
I stood behind the desk and looked over the ornate lobby of a very expensive hotel. I wondered about the capital necessary to build this palace. I calculated the pounds of individually wrapped soaps. There was over a hundred pounds of soap if each soap weighed four ounces. Check the weight of the soaps, I thought. Did the supplier count the weight of the paper wrapped around the soaps, or stamp out a single soap and weigh it, and that was the weight of their soap? The soaps were swell though, French milled bath soap. The lobby had many sofas and arm chairs spread about in different conversation areas, and a pillar of modern design from floor to ceiling at the center. The hotel company paid a designer to arrange the furniture in the lobby, and another designer for each different room type. Those designers made their money. The hotel company made their money hand over fist. Stephen returned to the desk. We talked about Sydney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and our hopes for the Penguins’ season, and knocked on wood to avoid jinxes.
“We’re killing time now. We’re coasting to the next shift.”
The morning shift rolled in, and I introduced Stephen to Valerie and Holly. Valerie and Holly were attractive women. Hotels employed attractive women to work the morning shift. How would it look if you were an angry guest fuming at a woman who would normally turn you down flat if she was not paid to listen to your complaint? If you are at a hotel and there is no attractive woman behind the desk in the morning, either the hotel is very confident, or the management does not care. Stephen and I turned the hotel over to Valerie and Holly.
“Which way do you go?”
“Not too far, I live over on Mon Boulevard.”
“Want to take the trail?”
“Sure.”
“I’m passed the Westover bridge.”
We walked along the trail and the river flowed north on our left.
“You were right. It isn’t a hard job.”
“Not at all.”
We walked along the train tressel bridge over Decker’s Creek, then through the park and amphitheater. It was cold out and we walked fast. Snow covered the ground.
“Come up and have a drink?”
The small apartment was in an old low brick warehouse. Black bands were painted around the building, the first in 1910, the stripe faded, the lettering Fleischman’s Furniture Company, and the other, painted last summer, worded Loving Insurance LLC in bright white. The insurance company rented the bottom two floors for offices. Fleishchman’s Furniture Company was located in Wheeling or Pittsburgh, and painted banners on buildings along the rail line, influencing the consumers’ preferences as the trains rattled along. I opened the security door and climbed the staircase. The staircase split the building, climbed, then made a 180 degree turn at the top into a hallway. The front door was ten feet from the end of that hall. I showed Stephen in. The kitchen was on the right. Stephen stood by the café table in the kitchen, and I made us a few Lynchburg lemonades. I took Stephen’s coat, and handed him his drink. I hung his coat on the rack beside the door.
“Come on in and have a seat.”
The front room was around the corner from the kitchen. Stephen sat in the armchair. It was a very comfortable chair. The fabric was red with gold and blue threaded paisleys. I sat across on the beige sofa. Stephen whistled low under his breath.
“My wife’s.”
“A lovely painting.”
“My wife painted the picture.”
Susan Cress was nude, in repose, on an antique chaise lounge, on canvas, framed, on the wall.
“She captured the colors.”
“Let me see if she has the slides of her blaspheme series.”
Rachel opened the bedroom doors. There were double doors to the bedroom, and on the opposite wall double doors to the balcony. The sets of doors lined up.
“Hello,” Rachel said. She leaned against the door and ran her hand over her cropped blonde hair. The instep of her right foot was leaned into her left knee. Rachel wore her fleece pajama pants and a dark blue sweatshirt decorated in glow in the dark stars, moons, and other celestial orbs.
“Hello,” Stephen said.
“Rachel Graves,” I said, “Stephen.”
“Lietch,” Stephen said.
“Leech?”
“Lietch,” Stephen shook her hand.
“Leitch?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t show those slides, Dash.”
I put on a pot of coffee, and made two more lemonades. I raised my eyebrows at Rachel.
“No thanks, Cait and I had too many last night at 123 Pleasant Street. The Bindlestiff’s were there.”
Rachel drank the hot coffee. Stephen nursed his drink. I moved on to whiskey straight. We had our drinks, made eggs, hash browns, and toast. I shouted “Toast is up!” when the bread popped out of the toaster.
“How do you like the upside down shift?”
“I like it.”
We enjoyed the food. Rachel and Stephen lingered over the table and I dropped some ice cubes into a tumbler and splashed some whiskey over the ice. Stephen looked at his watch.
“I should shove off. Very fine to meet you.”
“Swell to meet you.”
Stephen shook both our hands. He pulled the door closed, and I clicked the lock. I sat down at the table. Rachel came around behind me and rubbed my shoulders.
“He may be a failed Quaker, or Latter-day Saint. He said he went to some christer school in the northern panhandle.”
“A failed saint is better than no saint at all.”
Rachel sat down at the table.
“He’s a handsome fellow.”
“He looks like Christian Slater.”
“Yes,” Rachel banged her open hand on the café table, “I knew he reminded me of someone but couldn’t place him.”
Rachel picked up her coffee cup, and held it against her lips, and drank deeply. I drank my whiskey.
“cait had way too much. She said over and over, ‘Let’s go see Dash,’ and I told her ‘no.’ I had to walk her home. Hell, I had to carry her up Grand Street.”
Rachel drank her coffee.
“‘Let’s go see Dash,’” Rachel said. “She likes you.”
“Cait doesn’t like me so much. She just wanted to go with you somewhere she thought you wanted to go.”
Rachel finished her coffee. She stared out the window. There was only the steel blue wintery sky out the window. I finished the whiskey.
“I’m off to bed.”
“Want some rubbing?”
“Always.”
The bedroom was plastered and dark blue. Rachel and I painted the bedroom when we moved into the place. The color was labeled moon blue. After we painted, after the paint dried, I carried Rachel to bed. Three windows in the left wall were covered by a pair of blackout curtains. The curtains hung by a filament wire. There was a single window in the wall opposite the doors covered in a dark grey roman blind. The head of the bed was below the roman blind. A large rectangular rug covered the bare floor. Two low night stands flanked the head of the bed, and two low chests of drawers were on the opposite wall. I undressed and crawled under the covers. Rachel sat on my back and rubbed my shoulders.
Rachel sang me a song called ‘Sho Heen.’
Sleep my friend now I'll watch o'er you
The moon is here and the stars adore you
Close your eyes and you'll sleep just fine
Said my guardian angel once upon a time