The Hotel New Hampshire

by John Irving

  Sabrina and I startled Frank, who was pissing on the trash barrels at the delivery entrance. In a gesture of Frank-like awkwardness, Frank pretended to be pointing out the beer to us. 'Got an opener, Frank?' I asked, but he had vanished into the mist of Elliot Park -- the ever-dreary fog, which in the winter was our dominant weather.

  Sabrina and I opened our beers at the reception desk in the lobby, where Frank had permanently hung a bottle opener from a nail on a length of twine; it was for opening his Pepsi-Colas when he was on phone duty at the desk. In a clumsy effort to sit beside Sabrina, on the trunk of Junior's winter clothes, I spilled some beer on Bitty Tuck's luggage.

  'You could introduce yourself to her affections,' Sabrina was saying, 'by offering to take all those bags to her room.'

  'Where are your bags?' I asked Sabrina.

  'For one night,' Sabrina said, 'I don't pack a bag. And you don't have to offer to show me to my room. I can find it.'

  'I could show it to you, anyway,' I said.

  'Well, do it,' she said. 'I got a book to read. This is one party I don't need,' she added. 'I might as well get ready for a long drive back to Philadelphia.'

  I walked with her to her room on the second floor. I had no illusions of making a move on her, as she would say; I wouldn't have had the courage, anyway. 'Good night,' I mumbled at her door, and let her slip away. She was not gone long.

  'Hey,' she said, opening her door before I had left the hall. 'You'll never get anywhere not trying. You didn't even try to kiss me,' she added.

  'I'm sorry,' I said.

  'Never apologize!' Sabrina said. She stood close to me in the hallway and let me kiss her. 'First things first,' she said. 'Your breath smells nice -- that's a start. But stop shaking, and you shouldn't make tooth contact at the beginning; and don't try to ram me with your tongue.' We tried again. 'Keep your hands in your pockets,' she told me. 'Watch the tooth contact. Better,' she said. 'Hands in the pockets at all times; two feet on the floor.' I stumbled toward her. We made tooth contact quite violently; she snapped her head back, away from me, and when I looked at her, incredibly, I saw that she held a row of her front upper teeth in her hand. 'Shit!' she cried. 'Watch the tooth contact!' For a horrible moment I thought I had knocked her teeth out, but she turned her back to me and said, 'Don't look at me. False teeth. Turn out the light.' I did, and it was dark in her room.

  'I'm sorry,' I said, hopelessly.

  'Never apologize,' she murmured. 'I was raped.'

  'Yes,' I said, knowing all along that this would surface. 'So was Franny.'

  'So I heard,' said Sabrina Jones. 'But they didn't knock her teeth out with a pipe. Am I right?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'It's the kissing that gets me, every fucking time,' Sabrina said. 'Just when it gets good, my uppers loosen up -- or some clod makes too much tooth contact.'

  I didn't apologize; I reached to touch her but she said, 'Keep your hands in your pockets.' Then she came up close to me and said, I'm going to help you if you help me. I'll teach you all about kissing,' she said, 'but you've got to tell me something I always wanted to know. I was never with anyone I dared to ask. I try to keep it a secret.'

  'Yes,' I agreed, terrified -- not knowing to what I was agreeing.

  'I want to know if it's better with my damn teeth out,' she said, 'or if it's gross. I always thought it would be gross, so I never tried it.' She went into the bathroom and I waited for her, in the dark, watching the line of light framing the bathroom door -- until the light went out and Sabrina was back beside me.

  Warm and mobile, her mouth was a cave in the world's heart. Her tongue was long and round and her gums were hard but never painful in the nips she took. 'A little less lip,' she mumbled, 'a little more tongue. No, not that much. That's disgusting! Yes, a little biting is fine. That's nice. Hands back in the pockets -- I mean it. Do you like this?'

  'Oh yes,' I said.

  'Really?' she asked. 'Is it really better?'

  'It's deeper!' I said.

  She laughed. 'But better, too?' she asked.

  'Wonderful,' I confessed.

  'Hands back in the pockets,' Sabrina said. 'Don't get out of control. Don't be sloppy. Ouch!'

  'Sorry.'

  'Don't apologize. Just don't bite so hard. Hands in the pockets. I mean it. Don't get fresh. In the pockets!'

  And so forth, until I was pronounced initiated, and ready for Bitty Tuck, and the world, and sent on my way from Sabrina Jones's room; hands still in my pockets, I collided with the door to 2B. Thank you!' I called to Sabrina. In the hall light, without her teeth, she dared to smile at me -- a rose-brown, rose-blue smile, so much nicer than the odd, pearly cast of her false teeth.

  She had sucked on my lips to make them swell, she had told me, and I walked pouting into the restaurant of the Hotel New Hampshire, aware of the powers of my mouth, ready to make kissing history with Bitty Tuck. But Hurricane Doris was groaning its way through 'I Forgot to Remember to Forget'; Ronda Ray slumped at the bar in a stupor, Mother's new dress slipped up to the knot of muscle at Ronda's hip, on which a bruise, in the shape of a thumbprint, stared at me. Merton, the lumberyard foreman, was swapping stories with my father -- I knew the stories would be about Iowa Bob.

  ' "I forgot to remember to forget," ' moaned Doris Wales.

  Poor Lilly, who would always be too small to feel comfortable at a party -- although she would continue to anticipate parties, with pleasure -- had gone to bed. Egg, wearing ordinary clothes, sat sulking in one of the screwed-down chairs; his little face was grey, as if he had eaten something that had disagreed with him, as if he was willing himself to stay awake till midnight -- as if he had lost Sorrow.

  Frank, I imagined, was out drinking the cold beer in the snow stacked by the delivery entrance, or sucking Pepsi-Colas at the reception desk in the lobby, or perhaps at the intercom -- listening to Sabrina Jones reading a book and humming with her marvellous mouth.

  Mother, and the Matsons, were watching Doris Wales without reserve. Only Franny was free for dancing -Bitty Tuck was out on the floor, with Junior Jones.

  'Dance with me,' I said to Franny, grabbing her.

  'You can't dance,' Franny said, but she allowed me to drag her out on the floor.

  'I can kiss,' I whispered to Franny, and tried to kiss her, but she pushed me away.

  'Switch!' she cried to Junior and Bitty Tuck, and Bitty was in my arms and instantly bored.

  'Just be dancing with her when it's midnight,' Sabrina Jones had advised. 'At midnight you get to kiss who you're with. Once you kiss her, she'll be hooked. Just don't blow the first one.'

  'Have you been drinking, John-John?' Bitty asked me. 'Your lips are all puffy.'

  And Doris Wales, hoarse and sweating, gave us 'Tryin' to Get to You,' one of those clumsy numbers, not slow and not fast, forcing Bitty Tuck to decide whether or not to dance close. Before she'd made her choice, Max Urick leaped out of the kitchen in his sailor's cap with a referee's whistle clenched in his teeth; he blew the whistle so shrilly that even Ronda Ray moved, a little, at the bar. 'Happy New Year!' shrieked Max, and Franny stood on her toes and gave Junior Jones the sweetest kiss, and Mother ran to find Father. Merton, the lumberyard foreman, looked once at the dozing Ronda Ray; he then thought better of it. And Bitty Tuck, with a bored shrug, gave me her superior smile, again, and I remembered every lustiness of the cavernous mouth of Sabrina Jones; I made, as they say, my move. A little tooth contact, but nothing offensive; the penetration of the tongue past the teeth, but only a flicker of ramming it farther; and the teeth skating under the upper lip. There were Bitty Tuck's wondrous, much-discussed breasts, like soft fists pushing my chest away, but I kept my hands in my pockets, forcing nothing; she was always free to pull away, but she didn't choose to break contact.

  'Holy cow,' observed Junior Jones, momentarily breaking Bitty Tuck's concentration.

  'Titsie!' Franny said. 'What are you doing to my brother?' But I held Titsie Tuck in touch a little longer, li
ngering over her lower lip, and nipping her tongue, which she'd given me, suddenly, too much of. There was a slight awkwardness, as I removed my hands from my pockets, because Bitty had decided that Tryin' to Get to You' was suitable for close dancing.

  'Where'd you learn how to do that?' she whispered, her breasts like two warm kittens curled against my chest. We left the dance floor before Hurricane Doris could change the tempo.

  There was a draught in the lobby, where Frank had left the door to the delivery entrance open; we could hear him outside in the dark slush, urinating -- with great force -- against a trash barrel. The floor beneath the bottle opener on the braid of twine was littered with beer-bottle caps. As I lifted Bitty Tuck's luggage in my arms, she said, 'Aren't you going to make two trips?' I heard Frank's sharp belch, a primitive gong announcing that the turn of the year was past, and I seized the luggage tighter and started climbing -- four storeys up, Bitty following.

  'Geez,' she said. 'I knew you were strong, John-John, but you could get a job on television -- kissing like that.' And I wondered what she imagined: my mouth as an advertisement, smooching a camera, point-blank?

  I thus distracted myself from my lower-back pain, was grateful I had skipped this morning's bench presses and one-arm curls, and bore Bitty Tuck's luggage to 4A. The windows were open, but I couldn't hear the rushing-of-air sound I had heard over the intercom hours before; I guessed that the wind had dropped. The luggage seemed to explode from my arms, which felt pounds lighter, and Bitty Tuck angled me toward her bed.

  'Do it again,' she said. 'I bet you can't. I bet it was beginner's luck.' So I kissed her again, encouraging a little more tooth contact, and more mischief with the tongue.

  'Jesus,' mumbled Bitty Tuck, touching me. 'Get your hands out of your pockets!' she said. 'Oh, wait, I have to use the bathroom.' And when she flicked on the bathroom light, she said, 'Oh, it was nice of Franny to leave me her hair dryer!' And I, for the first time, smelled the room -- an odor more distinctive than a swamp: it was a burnt smell, yet strangely wet, as if fire and water had joined unpleasantly. I knew that the rushing-of-air sound I had heard on the intercom had been the hair dryer, but before I could get to the bathroom to prevent Bitty Tuck from looking farther, she said, 'What's that wrapped up in the shower curtain? Gaaaaaaaaa!' Her scream froze me in motion between her bed and the bathroom door. Even Doris Wales, four floors below and wailing her way through 'You're a Heartbreaker,' must have heard it. Sabrina Jones told me later that her book flew from her hands. Ronda Ray jerked bolt upright on the barstool, for at least a passing second; Sleazy Wales, Junior Jones told me, thought the source of the scream was his amplifier, but nobody else was fooled.

  'Titsie!' Franny cried.

  'Jesus God!' said Father.

  'Holy cow!' said Junior Jones.

  I was the first to get Bitty out of the bathroom. She had fainted sideways against the child-sized toilet and had wedged herself under the child-sized sink. The grown-up-sized bathtub, half-full of water, had caught her eye as she was inserting her diaphragm -- which, in those days, was very sophisticated. Floating in the tub of water was the shower curtain, and Bitty had leaned forward and raised the curtain just enough to sue the grizzly, submerged head of Sorrow -- looking like a murder victim: a drowned dog, the ghastly fierceness of his last snarling fight with death slipping from his face under the water.

  The discoverer of the body is rarely spared. It was fortunate Bitty's heart was young and strong; I could feel it pounding through her bosom when I put her on the bed. Thinking it a plausible way to revive her, I kissed her, and although it roused her eyes open for a bright moment, she only screamed again -- even louder.

  'It's just Sorrow,' I told her, as if this would explain everything.

  Sabrina Jones was the first to get to 4A, since she was only travelling from the second floor. She glared at me, as if I'd been clearly a part of a rape case, and she said to me, 'You must have done something I never showed you!' She no doubt thought Bitty was the victim of bad kissing.

  It had been Egg who'd done the wrong, of course. He had turned the hair dryer on Sorrow in Bitty's bathroom, and the terrible dog had caught fire. In a panic, Egg had thrown the burning beast in the bathtub and covered it with water. The fire thus extinguished, Egg had opened the windows to clear the scorched smell from the room, and at the peak of his tiredness, just before midnight -- and fearing capture from the ever-prowling Frank -- Egg had covered the carcass with the shower curtain, for the sodden dog was now too heavy with water for Egg to be able to lift him; Egg had gone to our room and changed into ordinary clothes to await his eventual punishment.

  'My God,' Frank said, morosely, when he saw Sorrow, 'I think he's really ruined; I think he's beyond repair.'

  Even the boys from Hurricane Doris trooped into Bitty's bathroom to pay their respects to the dreadful Sorrow.

  'I wanted to make him nice again!' Egg cried. 'He was nice once,' Egg insisted, 'and I wanted him to be nice again.'

  Frank, with a sudden wealth of pity, seemed to understand something about taxidermy for the first time.

  'Egg, Egg,' Frank reasoned with the sobbing child. 'I can make him nice again. You should have let me. I can make him anything,' Frank claimed. 'I still can,' he said. 'You want him nice, Egg? I'll make him nice.' But Franny and I stared into the bathtub and felt great doubt. That Frank had taken a harmless, farting Labrador retriever and made him a killer was one thing; but to reassemble this truly disgusting body, matted and burned and bloated in the bathtub, was a miracle of perversion that we doubted even Frank was capable of.

  Father, on the other hand, was ever the optimist; he seemed to think all of this would be excellent 'therapy' for Frank -- and, no doubt, a further maturing influence on Egg.

  'If you can restore the dog, and make him nice, son,' Father told Frank, with inappropriate solemnity, 'that would make us all very happy.'

  'I think we should throw it away,' Mother said.

  'Ditto,' said Franny.

  'I tried,' Max Urick complained.

  But Egg and Frank began to whoop and cry. Perhaps Father saw that in the restoration of Sorrow lay Frank's forgiveness; salvaging Sorrow could possibly restore Frank's self-esteem; and perhaps by refashioning Sorrow, for Egg -- by making Sorrow 'nice' -- Father thought that a bit of Iowa Bob would be returned to us all. But as Franny would say, years later, there was never any such thing as 'nice sorrow'; by definition, sorrow would never be nice.

  Could I blame my father for trying? Or Frank for being the agent of such depressing optimism? And there was no blaming Egg, of course; we would, none of us, ever blame Egg.

  Only Lilly had slept through it all, perhaps already inhabiting a world not quite like ours. Doris Wales and Ronda Ray had not climbed four flights of stairs to see the body, but when we found them in the restaurant, they seemed almost sobered by the experience -- even secondhand. Whatever hopes for even a mini-seduction that might have been on Junior Jones's mind were dashed by the interruption to the music; Franny kissed Junior good night and went to her own room. And Bitty Tuck, although she loved my kisses, could not forgive the intrusion upon her privacy in the bathroom -- both Sorrow's and mine. I suppose she resented, most of all, the ungainly position I'd discovered her in -- 'Fainted while diaphragming herself!' as Franny would later characterize the scene.

  I found myself alone with Junior Jones at the delivery entrance, drinking up the cold beer and watching out into Elliot Park for any other New Year's Eve survivors. Sleazy Wales and the boys in the band had gone home; Doris and Ronda were draped upon the bar -- a kind of camaraderie had suddenly risen, in a blurry fashion, between them. And Junior Jones said, 'No offence to your sister, man, but I am very horny.'

  'Ditto,' I said, 'and no offence to yours.'

  The laughter of the women in the restaurant reached us, and Junior said, 'Want to try to hustle them ladies at the bar?' I didn't dare tell Junior the repugnance of that idea, to me -- having already been hustled by one o
f them -- but I felt badly later at how quickly I was willing to betray Ronda Ray. I told Junior that she could be hustled very easily, and it would only cost him money.

  Later, I drank another beer and listened to Junior carrying Ronda to the stairwell at the hall's far end, away from me. And after another beer, or two, I heard Doris Wales, all alone, start to sing 'Heartbreak Hotel,' without the music, and occasionally forgetting the words of her religion -- and occasionally slurring the rest. Lastly came the unmistakable sound of her throwing up in the bar sink.

  After a while she found me in the lobby, at the open door to the delivery entrance, and I offered the last cold beer. 'Sure, why not?' she said. 'It helps to cut the phlegm. That damn "Heartbreak Hotel," ' she added. 'It always moves me too much.'

  Doris Wales was wearing her knee-high cowboy boots and carrying her thin-strapped green high heels in her hand; in her other hand she dallied her coat, a sad-flecked tweed with a skimpy fur collar. 'It's just muskrat,' she said, rubbing it against my cheek. She gripped the throat of her beer bottle in the hand with her high-heeled shoes and drank nearly all of it down. The hickey on her tilted throat appeared to have been made by a red-hot fifty-cent piece. She dropped the beer bottle at her feet and kicked it out the door, where it rolled toward the trash barrels at the delivery entrance. She stepped closer to me and thrust her thigh between my legs; she kissed me on the mouth, a kiss like nothing Sabrina Jones had shown me; it was a kiss like a wedge of soft fruit being mashed past my teeth and tongue until I gagged; her kiss tasted, lingeringly, of vomit and beer.

  'I'm picking Sleazy up at this party,' she said. 'Wanna come?'

  It reminded me of when Sleazy offered to force-feed me the ball of bread or poke out my eyes with the nail in the movies. 'No thanks,' I said.

  'Chicken shit,' she said, and belched sharply. 'Kids today have no spunk.' Then she slammed me to her chest and hugged me to her body, hard as a man's but with her breasts sliding between us like two fresh-caught fish in loose bags; her tongue lolled along my jawline before skidding into my ear. 'You squirrel dink,' she whispered, then pushed me from her.