She doesn’t answer at first, just stares at me, and I’m waiting for her to tell me to go fuck myself for not taking her question seriously. But then she smiles, showing me her braces again.
“You know, I would have never even thought about that. Wow. That’s a really good idea, Isaac.”
“Uh, thank you.”
I’ve never met anybody so sincere about petting an owl before. Although, come to think about it, I’ve never met anybody who’s ever shown even the tiniest interest in any kind of bird, so hell, what do I know?
“You really think that would work?” she asks.
I shrug and tell her I don’t see why not. It sounds logical enough. She thanks me again, finishing the last of her cashier paperwork as I count the register to make sure it balances out. It doesn’t. It’s short two dollars. I don’t bring it up. I doubt she would know the reason for the shortage. Plus she’s kind of cute, and I want her to believe she’s doing a good job. This probably makes me a sexist asshole. Would I be as lenient with a male coworker? Shit. Probably not. Yeah. Sexist pig. That’s me.
“So,” I say, “how are you liking the hotel so far?”
“Oh, it’s not too bad. It’s more complicated than I imagined.”
“How so?”
She pauses, thinking. “I guess I didn’t realize how much work goes into checking somebody in.”
I want to laugh, but this time I’m able to restrain myself. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
Her braces respond with another shine, and I’m half in love with this strange owl girl. I feel like I’m betraying my other pretend-girlfriend: the homeless girl who sneaks into the hotel once in a while to steal breakfast food and puke it up in the bathroom down the hallway. I’ve been in love with the bulimic girl a lot longer, yet I’ve never said a word to her. With Owl Girl, at least we’ve shared a conversation.
She thanks me again for my advice. As I watch her walk out, slightly hypnotized by the way her butt bounces, a man clears his nicotine-rotten throat to the side of me and I turn to find a platinum member named Mr. Yates who frequently stays here. He’s wearing long johns and a plain white T-shirt so clean I’m convinced he buys them in bulk and disposes of each one after their initial use.
I nod at the guy. “Yo.”
“Don’t you ‘yo’ me, young man.”
“Okay.”
“My toilet is clogged.”
“I see.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I can give you a plunger.”
Mr. Yates bursts out laughing. “I don’t think so. I—” he points to his face with both thumbs “—do not plunge.”
“No shame in plunging once in a while.”
He chuckles again. I’m the funniest night auditor in the world over here. “You see,” he says, “I am the vice president of a very, very important company. You, on the other hand, are paid to clean up the shit of vice presidents of very, very important companies. Therefore, you will go fetch the plunger, and you will operate its wooden, archaic handle. Are we understood?”
A thousand responses plead to escape my thoughts. I could tell him to go fuck himself. I could tell him I’d be happy to plunge the toilet with his face. I could just shove the plunger up his ass. I could leap over the front desk and tackle him and beat him senseless. Hell, I could even throw him off the roof. But all of these reactions would most likely end with my termination from the hotel. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, but where else would I go? Every other possible job I could get will end the same way: with a noose wrapped firmly around my neck while I flip the universe the bird.
Upstairs, plunger-in-hand, I stare at the brown, turd-infested water one soft breeze away from spilling over the bowl. The smell is death. I debate kneeling down and sticking my face in and gently floating away in its mystic depths. What awaits me below? Heaven or Hell? Freedom or imprisonment? Another hotel? An infinite layer of hotels, one after the other, each one more foul than the last.
Yates sighs. His breath hits the back of my neck and suddenly the toilet’s stench is preferable. “Well, what are you waiting on? I’d like to go to sleep sometime tonight.”
I bite my tongue until it bleeds then slide the plunger into the water, holding my breath and praying it doesn’t overflow. It doesn’t matter how deep I push it in, the rubber cup seems incapable of reaching the bottom. The water’s now halfway up the plunger’s stick and there’s more room to go. I crouch, slowly lowering it, convinced it’s sucking me in, eating me. The toilet’s a bottomless pit and I’m its main course. Devour me. Fuck me. Use me.
The cup smacks against the bottom of the bowl. For a moment, I’m relieved, but as soon as I get some suction and jerk it up, a wave of shit-water splatters against my pants and I want to die, I want to deteriorate from view and never return.
Yates hovers over me as I plunge and shouts, “I want to know what kind of compensation’s coming my way.”
I stop moving and cock my head to him. “What?”
“What, you got shit in your ears, too? What kind of compensation am I getting?”
I look down at the shit-water leaking down the toilet, then back at him, at a loss for words. “Nothing. You’re not getting anything.”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“I…I don’t—look, you made this mess, man.”
“Your poorly designed toilets made this mess, young man!”
“No, your disgusting asshole did.”
Yates gasps. “I will not have you talk to me that way.”
I open my mouth, fully intending on telling him where he can stick this plunger, when the toilet empties into the bowl and regurgitates clean water. Without another word, I walk around Yates and exit his room, leaving the plunger in the toilet in case he ruins it again. He knows damn well not to bother me again. Downstairs, there’s a line of guests in the lobby waiting to talk to me about Jesus Christ or their toilets or loud noises or whatever the fuck, I don’t care. I am not their god. I am not their father. I am not their savior. Let them figure out their issues by themselves. Just please leave me alone—now, forever, always.
I brush past them and go into the laundry room and take off my pants and throw them in the washing machine, then clean my arms and face and hands for a solid five minutes with scathing hot water. The line in the lobby undoubtedly grows, so to continue killing time I bust out a disposable toothbrush and give my mouth a thorough scrubbing.
When I return to the front desk, sans pants, the lobby is empty. Perhaps the guests had been a hallucination. Or maybe they’d gotten the hint and leapt off the roof together in a beautiful mass suicide. Outside, the parking lot might be littered with corpses. Just as it should be.
I approach the front desk computer and discover, like the majority of my other coworkers, Owl Girl also does not understand the concept of closing out of Internet browsers after she is finished searching for something. The screen is littered with dozens of Internet Explorer windows. The browser is outdated, since my manager forgot the admin password and we can no longer perform simple system updates.
All the opened windows contain various searches inquiring about how to pet an owl.
“where can i go to pet an owl”
“i want to pet an owl how can i do this”
“please where can i pet the owls”
I click through them until my finger’s aching, then finally come across the last window. I stare at the words in the search bar, mesmerized.
It says, simply:
“where are the owls”
* * *
The bulimic homeless girl I’m in love with but have never spoken to eats four waffles, two plates of scrambled eggs, and a cup of fruit. Then she throws her trash away and hides in the bathroom to regurgitate. She’s been coming in for a few weeks now, performing the same routine every other morning or so. When we had chorizo and eggs, she skipped the chorizo altogether and opted for ten waffles. I didn’t know it was possible for a human be
ing to eat ten waffles in one sitting. But that was before I met my pretend-girlfriend-hopefully-one-day-real-girlfriend.
No, I do not know her name.
I watch from behind the front desk, pretending to file paperwork. She is an eating machine, yet she remains the size of a twig. The sound of her vomiting is audible if I stand close enough to the restroom door. Revolting enough to make my own stomach churn, and I have to step back before I begin gagging. Once I’ve safely returned behind the front desk, I stare across the lobby at the restroom, wondering why she’s putting herself through such hell. Is it a mental disorder? She can’t possibly be enjoying herself. Or maybe she is. Hell. I don’t know. A person doesn’t know anything until he tries it, but this isn’t something I intend on trying. Sticking my fingers down my throat and emptying my stomach sounds about as appetizing as tying my testicles to a tree branch and leaping off. Of course, maybe I could benefit from it. One look at my stomach and it’s a miracle I haven’t died from a heart attack already. Or, at the very least, tripped over my sagging gut.
The bulimic girl isn’t the first non-guest to steal breakfast in the mornings. We usually get one or two every couple months. Homeless people stumbling through the lobby, dragging in the stench of shit like a reaper herding souls. They tend not to last long. They get too greedy and start making mistakes, like coming in on more than two consecutive days in a row. They wear the same dirty clothes that reek of paranoia and guilt. I never have to say anything. Either one of the breakfast ladies catches on or Kevin, the maintenance man, notices. If it were up to me, I’d just let them eat. The hotel isn’t going bankrupt over bagels. I try telling this to Kevin, who has shared with me his suspicions toward the bulimic girl, but he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care.
“She’s stealing from the hotel. She must be dealt with.”
“Is she taking your money, though? Your own personal money?” I wish he never noticed her.
“It’s our jobs to protect the hotel.”
“What? Your job is to fix shit when it breaks. If this place was so concerned about security, they’d hire a security guard. Or, hell, at least install cameras.”
I fight off the urge to continue criticizing his clearly bullshit motives. All this coming from a man who routinely smokes joints out by the dumpster when he’s supposed to be taking out the trash. I may not be around when the sun’s present, but if the day shift loves anything, it’s to gossip. News travels. Besides, protecting the hotel has absolutely nothing to do with his desire to confront the bulimic girl. Kevin is an asshole by nature. Kicking this girl out of the hotel is his idea of a fun time. Ruining people’s lives and watching them break down are the kinds of things that get him hard. Back in school, he was probably the kind of kid who shoved dirt clumps into the faces of those weaker than him. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover a dozen nerds had, at one point in their lives, placed Kevin’s name at the top of their to-kill lists.
“Someone needs to stop her,” he says, gumming his chewing tobacco. “Yesterday I followed her after she left. She got on this bike and rode over to the Other Goddamn Hotel and did the exact same thing she’s been doing here.”
“All the more reason not to send her running for the hills. She’s clearly unwell. Maybe this is the only thing keeping her from robbing a grocery store or committing suicide. Who knows? We kick her out, she ends up in prison stealing from someplace less reasonable.”
Kevin laughs and spits tobacco in his empty coffee cup. “I don’t give a shit what happens to that disgusting bitch. I know you’re desperate for pussy, Isaac, but come on. Her snatch is practically dripping STDs.”
I rub my eyes, exhausted and sick of the words leaving his mouth. Maybe the bulimic girl has already left, and me keeping him in the back office was enough of a distraction. It’s almost seven, anyway. My time here is coming to an end.
“Oh, hey,” I say, “I just remembered something. A guest turned in a comment card earlier.”
“Okay. And?”
“It was about you.”
His eyes brighten, full of promise. “Yeah? What’d it say?”
“That you’re an asshole.”
She rolls up on her bike just as I’m unlocking my car, and I don’t understand, just an hour ago she had been inside the kitchen. Had she already left and returned for another round?
My body tenses, thumb frozen on the “unlock” button attached to my keys. She doesn’t seem to notice me staring at her as she props her rusted bike against the front of the building. She’s wearing a stained jacket on top of a black Social Distortion T-shirt and dirty jeans with wide, wet holes cut out at both kneecaps. I don’t doubt that she’s homeless, and an idea forms to tell her about the rumors I’ve heard of the abandoned shack behind the hotel. Facing the front of the hotel, there is a highway, but on the backend of the building, there is nothing but woods. I’ve never explored them myself, because a forest is scary as fuck in the middle of the night, and if someone ever tries saying differently they’re obviously the slasher in a horror film, but I’ve heard from various employees from both my hotel and the hotel next door that there’s this old shack a mile or so into those woods, mostly disintegrated from rain and age. Maybe the girl might like to live there until she’s back up on her feet. Maybe she might like me to accompany her on the search for it. Or, if not the shack, maybe she might consider staying a few nights in my studio apartment. Sometimes it gets awfully cold in my apartment at night, and she might be tempted to snuggle up against my bear-like body for warmth. I’ve watched enough low-budget pornos to know what would happen then.
She focuses on the front doors, determined. But when I shout, “Hey, excuse me!” all confidence drains like the shit-water from Yates’s toilet and she spins around toward her bike. She mumbles out a series of apologies and hops on the seat. I leap in front of her before she can take off and realize far too late I’m doing more to frighten her than comfort her. “No, no, it’s okay,” I say, “please, I want to help you.”
She responds by smashing her fist into my nose.
I stumble back and trip over a bush. By the time I’ve sat up, she’s already halfway across the parking lot.
Well, shit.
Part 3
The next time I relieve Mandy 2, I tell myself over and over on the drive to work not to mention our previous encounter. Don’t say owls. Don’t say owls.
Don’t. Say. Owls.
The first thing I say upon entering the lobby is, “Owls.”
Mandy 2 stops typing at the front desk. “What?”
I choke and spit out gibberish. “How are? Uh. How are…you?”
“I’m…fine. Thanks. And you?”
I come around the front desk and tell her that I’m all right, all things considering, and I immediately regret my words because I have no idea what they mean, and I pray she doesn’t ask me to clarify, but of course she does, so I shrug and tell her I don’t know, and she smiles.
“So who punched you in the face?” She nods at my bruised nose.
“Oh, just some guest.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Well, I hope he broke his hand.”
“She.”
“What?”
I clear my throat and begin counting the drawer. “So, how was tonight?”
“You’re going to have fun tonight.”
“What now?” Based off our last conversation, I can’t quite predict her definition of fun. Perhaps her stalker owl has discovered where she works, and is now outside the hotel, waiting to hoot all the guests to sleep.
I’ve already looked it up, and yes, in Amsterdam there’s an establishment called The Owl Hotel, and here’s a two-star review on TripAdvisor written by someone named BiznessGangBang:
“At first this ‘never in a good mood’ chinese dude gave us a room so tiny that we couldn’t properly undress or even copulate. My wife complained and he gave us a room in a higher floor that despite being bigger s
till obligated us to move in strategic movements around the room. We’d already prepaid so could not stay elsewhere. Plus I was already erect. The room as I said is too little. The bathroom is for kids and dwarves but I did not see a single dwarf during our stay which was to say the least misleading. There was this tiny tub, good for bathing a pet, but we did not have a pet, although sometimes my wife tries to make me defecate in our front yard, but I don’t think that’s relevant. No fridge, no water, no coffee, no complimentary prophylactics. During the second night there was this drunk guy making noises at his door and we could hear everything. I think he was trying to devour the wood. It was 1 a.m. and I had to open the door of my room and yell at him and he spat in my face. And during the second night we had to bang on the walls so the drunk man would stop talking to god knows who, perhaps god, perhaps our lord lucifer. Not good at all. In summary, if you don’t have quality standards and you just need a place to sleep then you’re good. If, however, you need minimum comfort, run like hell before hell runs after you. Oh, they have decent coffee.”
Seems like a nice place.
“You remember that lady in five-oh-four?” Mandy 2 asks.
I sigh and stare at her, closing the cash register. Fuck counting. Half the time my mind drifts off as I count and I forget what I’m even doing. “The hot chocolate lady?”
Mandy 2 nods, rolling her eyes.
This woman and her kids have been staying in room 504 for over a week now, and every morning she goes a little crazy over the fact that we’re out of hot chocolate. I had brought this up with my manager one morning, and his only response was, “Fuck that bitch.” He is not the best manager in the world, but he is probably not the worst.
“Bitch has been at me all night about this and that,” Mandy 2 says. “She just screamed at me maybe ten minutes ago. I want to chop her head off and roll it down the street for cars to run over.”
“That’s…that’s kind of graphic.” I picture an owl swooping down and picking up the decapitated head, but decide against sharing the imagery with her.
The Nightly Disease (Serial Novel) Page 2
