The Dystopian Diaries

by K. W. Callahan

  I’m currently writing by the light of a dingy 60-watt bulb in my own secret and somewhat dusty lair on the fourth floor. It’s a spot I found many moons ago. I stumbled across the space one night while stripping and re-waxing the men’s employee locker room on this floor. Even after all these years, I’m not sure exactly what the space is here for. I guess you could call it some sort of ventilation shaft or fire buffer that runs between the Seville and the adjoining building. The space is noisy and breezy (thus my ventilation shaft theory) with a ceiling a good 30 feet or more above. It’s a sort of narrow hallway that runs for about 50 feet, the brick exterior of the adjoining building forming one wall, and five, closet-size rooms lining the other. The closets are all empty except for mine. I outfitted mine – the last in the row – with a folding chair to rest in, a small lamp, and an alarm clock.

  Few people have access to the space even if they knew about it. I’m one of the few. But that’s a story for another day.

  Not much new to report on the flu front other than things seem to be getting worse, not better. New cases are popping up all over the place, both nation and worldwide.

  Oh well, not my problem…unless I catch the damn thing.

  Our hotel manager, Rick Wyatt, wants to have another all-staff meeting tomorrow afternoon. Sure, interrupt my sleep again right in the middle of my night.

  I haven’t seen much of Rick around the hotel over the past few weeks. I think he’s been hiding out, either at home or in his office since the flu started. I used to see him at night quite regularly in the lobby or down on the street level checking the place out after he’d hit nearby bars. It was the best time to see him since he was usually drunk and in a good mood.

  I wonder what Rick wants to tell us. Probably that he’s throwing us all out on our asses until this flu thing dies down so that he can keep hiding out at home. Right now, most of the remaining staff is keeping busy mothballing the empty portions of the hotel. The front desk is doing its best to keep guests on just a few floors. This allows the empty rooms to be cleaned and shuttered in the eventuality that the flu sticks around for a while and occupancy remains low.

  Someone unfamiliar with hotels might wonder why we’d bother trying to keep guests clustered together when we have so many rooms to choose from. Really, it’s just a matter of simplicity. It keeps departments such as housekeeping and room service from having to run all over the place to assist guests. Travel time in a hotel the Seville’s size can increase guest wait time, thereby decreasing guest satisfaction and service scores. People don’t want to have to wait ten minutes for fresh towels or have their food cold when it’s delivered. Having to bounce from the eighteenth floor to the sixth floor, then to the tenth floor, and then to the fourteenth floor takes time. And waiting guests are unhappy guests. Plus, as odd as it might sound, guests like to see other guests. It makes them feel safe, secure. Who wants to be the only person on a floor of 50 or 60 rooms? It also makes the hotel look busier than it is which is better for the marketing aspect.

  I just wonder what happens to the remaining employees once all the guests are gone, if it comes to that. Guess we’ll be out on our duffs as well.

  So anyway, back to the Floor Murders that I was writing about yesterday. They’d probably make the best part of my story were I going to use this for a book or a movie. Once things get back to normal, I’ll have to do some additional research to tighten up my tale. We have a hotel historian who gives tours. I should try to glean some information from him without letting him in on my little plan. Otherwise, he might steal my idea.

  I was at the point in the Floor Murder story at which the police were expecting a fourth murder but weren’t getting it. They had put undercover officers in several rooms on the ninth floor in preparation for the killer to strike again, but they were batting zero. With things looking bleak for another attack, and budget constraints pulling on the Chicago Police Department purse strings, all but one of the undercover officers were eventually pulled from the hotel.

  Three days later, Hotel Seville security answered a call from housekeeping to check a room in which the guest had been non-responsive for several days. And yep, you guessed it; the guest had been staying on the ninth floor. But this time, things had changed compared to prior murders. It was as if the killer was taking out his frustrations on his victim for the delay the police had imposed on his next killing.

  The victim, a middle-aged woman, had been eviscerated. The hotel had been doing its best not to put younger woman who fit the description of the killer’s previous victims on the floor. This was yet another reason why the killer may have taken his frustrations out on his victim’s body in such a grizzly way. The woman had been stabbed dozens of time and partially disemboweled in a scene reminiscent of a Jack the Ripper style killing.

  This time, there was no keeping the killing out of the newspapers. Yet the police managed to maintain that this was an isolated incident. They feared the repercussions not just to the hotel but to citywide tourism as a whole were it made known that a serial killer was on the loose in area hotels.

  The terrible nature of the killing was enough to get the police department to rekindle surveillance at the hotel. The police had requested that the Seville shut down the entire tenth floor for fear of another killing, but the hotel flatly refused to consider the request. Management feared that such a move could derail what was already a shaky financial situation.

  Thus, the police lay in wait. They waited…and they waited…and they waited – but nothing. Nearly a year, and tens of thousands of Chicago taxpayer dollars later, there was still nothing.

  With no real suspects (although rumor had it that the police believed the murderer to be a hotel staff member to have had the ability to select victims, gain access to rooms, and avoid detection) the investigation went cold.

  It was believed that things just got too hot for the killer and he had to move on to easier pickings. Similar murders in other hotels could never be pegged as actual “Floor Murders”. Many assumed they were copycat killings or just random murders that happened to take place in hotels.

  The Floor Murders have lived on however as a lurid chapter in Hotel Seville history, mostly among the staff, some of whom were working at the hotel during the time of the killings. It’s something whispered about among employees – often more around Halloween or on slow nights when the hotel is quiet – but not openly discussed for fear of rattling the guests.

  And now it’s time for me to try to catch a few winks. No better time than 3 a.m., with a full belly in my dingy hovel of a closet. I’ll doze lightly for an hour or so, get up, and finish off the shift mopping the hotel’s main entry marble. Usually I’d get that done earlier in the night to stay out of the way of early-morning guests, but considering we don’t HAVE any early arriving guests, I don’t have to worry.

  2:13 p.m.

  Just got back to my room from the all-staff meeting. With the way this flu seems to be going, it might turn out to be a better story than any unsolved serial killings.

  So the hotel is down to 58 occupied rooms. If we keep dropping rooms at this rate, we’ll be empty within days.

  Rick says we’re just to maintain the status quo for the time being. He’s waiting on corporate to tell him whether to shutter the place or stay open. Our parent company owns several dozen upscale hotels around the country. It sounds like they’re preparing to close the ones in New York and Los Angeles. I guessing that means we likely won’t be far behind, but only time will tell.

  For now, we just keep mothballing rooms, maintaining the public spaces (my line of work), and spraying down everything with as much disinfectant as we can get our hands on. Rick has handed out white surgical masks for us to wear (should we choose to wear them). Really inspires confidence in them getting a handle on this flu strain.

  All the hotel eateries, except for the small café on the street level, have already closed. No sense in keeping them open just to feed a few dozen people. Plus, it keeps guests fr
om congregating in larger numbers; something the news says is a bad idea if you’re looking to avoid the flu.

  From what the news has been saying lately, since I’ve had plenty of time on my hands for watching television and reading the paper, hospitals are seeing a huge influx of those suffering from the flu. Don’t know exactly why. Not like they’re going to be able to do anything for these people since there’s no cure and no vaccine. Guess people just don’t know what else to do. It’s a conditioned response – feel sick, go to the doctor, doctor fixes.

  But apparently not this time.

  I’m wondering what’s in store for me and my co-workers when the last guest calls it quits and checks out. I don’t really want to have to return to my apartment. And from the way things are going with public transportation – which sounds spotty at best – I may not be able to get home anyway.

  Alright, time for bed…again.

  September 4th

  4:23 a.m.

  No time for a nap tonight. That’s okay. I don’t always get one. Don’t get the wrong impression. I’m a hard worker. That’s why I have time for the occasional break. I get my assignments done, I self-manage, I’m largely self-sufficient, and I do a good job – if I DO say so myself.

  Tonight I had a pretty good chunk of work to do. Rick wanted the hotel’s marble entry foyer polished one last time, just in case the place has to be closed. Sure, we want the place looking spotless for the ghosts who will roam the Seville’s empty halls. But that’s okay. I didn’t have to re-cut the marble, which can be a lengthy process. Instead, I simply used a diamond slurry mix to bring back the luster. The powers that be don’t know the difference. They just want it “shiny”. It saves me a heck of a lot of time, but you can only use the slurry so many times before it stops having the intended effect, then you have to hone the marble again.

  Manny (my manager) also wanted me to help him relocate some of our equipment to a more secure location since we aren’t using it. And then I had to go clean the street level café’s carpet. It’s small and didn’t take me long, but I wanted to make sure it had time to dry before the place re-opens in a few hours.

  And now (finally!) for a bit about myself – Mr. Raymond Castillo.

  I have faithfully served the Seville for almost a decade, working as a lowly floor tech. People probably look at me and say, “Oh, a floor cleaner, how nice. We need people like that.” And that’s the end of it.

  And that’s just fine with me. In fact, that’s exactly what I want them to say. Then they don’t bother me. They think that being a floor tech is menial, largely unskilled labor. It doesn’t matter that it actually DOES take some skill to care for floors, at least PROPERLY care for them.

  Personally, I enjoy the work. It allows me plenty of freedom and provides me with ample physical exercise. And the overall lack of responsibility that accompanies it is great. I mean, who goes to a floor tech to solve their problems? Who brings guest service complaints to a floor tech? Who complains about a floor tech’s work? No guest ever says, “There’s a scratch on this marble tile! There’s a scuff on that floor wax! I want to speak with a manager right away! I demand a full refund!” That’s right, no one. And that’s exactly how I like it. I enjoy my position here. I have it made. People hardly spend the time to notice me. But they don’t know me. Well, SOME of the employees know me, but they don’t TRULY know me.

  You see, after college (yes, I went to college, and I even majored in management), I began my career in hotels. I started as a front desk agent. Then I worked several years in housekeeping as a floor supervisor. Eventually, I made it all the way up to director of operations at a mid-size hotel in St. Louis where my career began to plateau.

  It was in that position that it began to dawn on me – I hated my job. This revelation didn’t hit me all at once, it happened more gradually. I began to realize that I dreaded the long hours, all the late-night calls, all the complaining by staff and guests alike, all the problems brought to me, again, from staff and guests alike. Sure, the money was decent, but the older I got, the more I realized that it wasn’t all about the money. Even then, it wasn’t enough to force me out of the work I was doing. It was an event that occurred during the ninth year of my management career that really shook me to the core.

  One early Sunday morning when I was director of operations, I received a telephone call. It was our general manager calling to tell me to get to the hotel immediately. He didn’t say much and was very cryptic. I ask him what it was all about, but he said he couldn’t discuss it over the phone.

  I arrived at the hotel to find it swarming with emergency vehicles and personnel. Come to find out, a young girl had been discovered floating face down in the hotel’s pool that morning by a lobby attendant there to restock the towels. The girl was just 15 years old. Her name was Jessica. While I never met Jessica other than when I saw her wheeled out of the hotel on a stretcher, covered with a white sheet, I felt that I got to know her well over the ensuing weeks. You see, our general manager, seeking to absolve himself from as much responsibility for Jessica’s death as he could, assigned me to act as a liaison between the hotel and Jessica’s parents during the investigation into her death.

  Eventually, after a lengthy process in which I was heavily involved supplying the police, as well as Jessica’s parents (Bob and Jane), with as much information as I could gather regarding the night of the drowning, the incident was ruled an accident. It turned out that Jessica had been staying with her family and the families of several of her friends for a weekend get-together. During the evening in question, Jessica had slipped from her room once her parents were asleep to meet up with her friends. They had gotten drunk on a bottle of booze one of her friends had smuggled from home, and they had managed to break into the pool area after it had closed for the night.

  Being a mid-size hotel, we didn’t have a full time security staff, and the pool was not actively monitored once it was locked down for the evening. After some swimming, and then more drinking in the hot tub, Jessica’s friends decided to retire for the evening. Jessica decided to stay in the hot tub, the bottle of alcohol still in her possession. No one knows for sure exactly what happened after that point. Investigators theorized that Jessica continued to drink in the hot tub, eventually growing too hot. They guessed that she went for a dip in the pool to cool off. If she had jumped in, the shock of the cold water on her overheated body, paired with the alcohol in her bloodstream, may have caused Jessica to pass out and subsequently drown.

  Dealing with that situation, and the back and forth between detectives, our general manager, our corporate office, and Jessica’s parents, took something out of me. I guess you could say it was the nail in the coffin that sapped that last bit of joy from my work.

  After the investigation was finished and the hotel was exonerated of responsibility regarding the incident, I made a decision. I didn’t quit, but I knew it was time for a well-planned exit. Therefore, I came up with a strategy. I began to save hard, putting away a tidy little nest egg. And after two more years, I submitted my resignation.

  That’s when I came to Chicago. I wanted a new start. I figured that a big hotel like the Seville would be the perfect place for my rebirth. But this rebirth wasn’t to come by way of another management position. Instead, I applied as a floor technician on the hotel’s nightshift. And when I did so, I changed much of my prior work experience and left out my previous college education. I also decreased my prior salary significantly. As I said, it was a “rebirth”, and I wasn’t messing around. I wanted good, steady work, decent pay (nothing stunning mind you, but decent), with set hours, and no real responsibility. I was tired of taking my job home with me each day. I just wanted to blend in with the crowd, do my work, and go home unburdened by managerial responsibility. And that’s exactly what I got here at the Seville – an 18-floor, 800+ room, luxury hotel in downtown Chicago.

  So what exactly does a floor technician do each day? Well, the title is really just a fancy way o
f saying that I clean floors. There’s a little more to it than just sweeping and mopping, but being skilled in the cleaning and maintaining of different flooring surfaces is the general gist. From wood floors to linoleum, from carpets to marble, I’m the go-to guy for floor care. I was even sent to school to learn stone maintenance. I can polish marble, granite, even concrete, not that the Seville has any concrete floors that need polishing. But if they did, I’m the man to see!

  Honestly, my situation is kind of fun. I feel like a sort of superhero. It’s like I have a secret identity from behind which I see the world as different from what it really is. I know when a manager is making a poor decision, but it’s up to me whether I intervene to save the day or not. The hard part (or maybe “fun” part depending on one’s outlook) is doing it without the manager knowing that I’m doing it, finding ways to influence their decision or the ultimate outcome but still making them think that they were the one who made the call. It at least keeps things interesting.

  Okay, it’s almost five. I’ve got to put the rest of my equipment away before shift end. Then I’m going to breakfast down in the employee cafeteria before I hit the sack.

  1:57 p.m.

  Just got back to my room from another all-staff meeting. I guess these meetings are going to be a constant interruption to my sleep from here on out as long as I’m staying at the hotel. I should just skip them. But that’s the bad thing about being in the hotel, they know where I live!

  So we’re down to just 28 rooms now – a HUGE drop off overnight. I guess people are really trying to get out of Chicago.

  Rick says we don’t have anymore arrivals set to come in, and all of our remaining guests are due out in the next day or so. The cancellations for future stays have been pouring in non-stop. Makes me wonder about the future of the hotel. Will we be able to come back from this? It’s a huge financial hit, but it’s one that every other business around the city has to be enduring as well.