Hotel George, a short story I wrote in 1999

I think I tried to get this published, but didn't. hotel george My first summer job was in Videodrome, which was apparently Ireland's first video rental, but had singularly failed to capitalise on this advantage and had let first Xtravision and now Chartbuster corner the market. The staff consisted entirely of other students and occasionally the boss, a haunted woman with an infinite sadness in her manner. This was only a few months before Videodrome went bust. Generally there were two working the evening shift, two too many considering the usual business. Mostly I worked with a guy called Dermot, a couple of years older than me. One evening we got talking about our boss and Dermot started talking about his various part time jobs over the years and the bosses he had there. And Dermot told me about "the nicest boss I ever had", his boss when he worked in a grocers in Sligo town, where he was from. "He was called George, and the people called him Hotel George. He worked from 5 in the am to 10 in the p.m., and he lived above the shop, where he had a bed and a bathroom and a radio and some books, all second-hand - no TV or video or anything more elaborate. On Sundays he would go to Mass in the morning and go visiting in the afternoon. He was in his middle fifties, and wasn't married - all the young ones coming in would tease him like, so when are we getting married Mr. George and the like. No one knew his surname. He would just smile at all this - he was so quiet, so laid back, but you knew he enjoyed his life." "His thing was this: to save up his money for a year or more even, and then travel to a really really expensive hotel, for no more than a week, sometimes less, sometimes just a night. He usually went to a hotel in Ireland, in the North sometimes. We all used to slag him about the orgies he must be getting up to, but all he said was that it was nice to be treated like royalty every once in a while." The story of Hotel George became one of those memories not quite forgotten, but lying dormant under our consciousness. Sometimes passing a fancy hotel, whatever chain of thought I was following would come round to a frugal grocer in Sligo Town, possibly living the high life just in there. Generally I never thought about him. Until I came to Boston. It was just coming to the end of August, which in the J1 routine is the time you quit your tedious, menial job and see America. So I left Chicago and spent a few days hanging around Boston being a tourist, lounging about on the couch in my friends' apartment. They were still working as furniture movers, and hinted that if I wanted a wee bit of extra money there was always a need for an extra pair of hands. Then one morning I awoke on the couch to find myself confronted by an unfamiliar figure with something of a lean and hungry look. "Will you work, will you young fella?" he asked in a high West Cork accent "Ah, good man yourself," he said without giving me time to answer or indeed form a coherent thought. In the truck my friends explained the situation - there was something of a crisis in the moving company. It was the busiest time of year, with students moving into new accommodation, and with leases expiring on September 1st, so it was all hands on deck. And they also had a big job - a mansion in a place called Quincy, which was a good distance away. I would go to Quincy in one truck with Mick, as my waker was called, trying to round up more workers en route, while the rest of the moving firm did the student jobs in the other truck, and if possible come out to Quincy to help. I would be well rewarded for my labour - indeed the boss said if I abandoned my plan to travel on to New York two days later, I could make upwards of $600 - well in excess of what I made in a week in Chicago. Barely awake, I assented, and the other truck motored merrily away. Mick had parked the truck at something of an awkward angle, and my first job would be to back it up. So off I went, waving away frantically and then making a stop sign even more frantically, for the truck was headed straight for a streetside sign. The very middles of back of the truck hit the sign, sending it flying. The truck stopped and Mick ran out. He regarded the stray sign with rather more nonchalance than I felt the situation deserved. The sign was neatly cut off just above the base. Back in the truck Mick began to introduce himself. He had been in Boston for three weeks, before which he had never driven a truck before. The conversation drifted around the Cork hurling team and football and America and the physical characteristics of young women passing by and somehow turned to prison. "Have you ever been in prison?" asked Mick "I'm afraid I never had the pleasure." "I remember the Legion threw me in prison once" "What legion?" "The French Foreign Legion. I turned up five minutes late after leave. Then they threw me in solitary. Only a hole in the ground and a canvas sack. Here, young fella, " and now he threw me a map "find the way to Quincy." I was more curious about what exactly he had done that got him thrown in solitary by the French Foreign Legion, but this new task threw me. After all, I was only familiar with the nice, touristy, historic parts of Boston, and the New England aquarium. Much consulting of indexes later, I deduced we had headed exactly the wrong way out of Boston, and then when we were on the right way, I worked out the right exit to take only after we passed it two miles before. As well as asking for directions, we also shouted at any passers-by who looked Irish passing by "Do you want a few hours work there at all?" Surprisingly enough, we received no takers on that front. Finally we reached our destination and my furniture moving career began in earnest. As work it was actually quite enjoyable. I enjoyed physical work, probably because I never had to do it usual. The problem was time. With only two of us, and a seemingly infinite amount of tables, chairs, couches and other paraphernalia, it took three hours to load the truck, and even then we had twice as much again left to move. Thus we had to take our first load to its destination, an equally salubrious suburb not all that far away it turned out, after we had managed to drive back into Boston again. Twice. Another four hours to unload, which was far harder since it involved going up steps. It was now eleven hours since I had received my unusual wake up call, ten and a half since I had eaten anything. I started to plead imminent departure to New York, but Mick's response was "Ah no, young fella, sure just a couple more hours and the lads will be out to help me, and then you can go." Fifteen hours of continuous moving, driving and sweating later, the lads arrived. The boss gave me two hundred dollars for my 18 hours of actual work (we weren't paid for driving) and, to encourage me to stay a while longer, 60 dollars in advance for a few hours more work, and told me what a good worker I was, and how much money I could make in those few days. This charm offensive was doomed to failure, since at this stage I felt like I had been kidnapped by a strange ex-Legionnaire with a definite tendency for road rage - and who, indeed, had been driving his truck without sleeping for at least twenty-six hours - and only lack of willpower and lack of assertiveness and greed was now preventing me from just walking away. I rehearsed assertive, angry voices in my head, imagined myself saying "No money and no plamás will stop me getting on that bus for New York.", standing up to the men who had subjugated my will. Six more hours later, after completing a student move, I was let go at last, with none of my speeches ever spoken. Mick shook my hand, and wished me luck with genuine emotion. I was sorry for some of the less charitable things I had though about him while he had sped around in no particular direction, shouting obscenities at motorists and various passers-by. I was free and naturally had a certain nostalgia for my captivity. Now it was too late for me to go to New York, and in the tumult of the thirty plus that had just passed, my friends had also moved, as their sublet had expired overnight, and I didn't know where they had gone. Thus I had to trudge around Boston, with my worldly possessions on my back, sweaty, unshaven, and alone. The first place I passed was the Boston Meridien Hotel, with the Stars and Stripes and the French Tricolour and the Union Jack waving above the entrance. Why not just see how much a single room is, can't be much more than a hundred bucks. 245 dollars before tax for a Queen size bed, 265 dollars before taxes for a King size bed. I asked the receptionist (more than a hint of a French accent and an expansive, beatific beauty) to factor in the taxes. 300 plus for the king, 280 odd for the queen. Oh well. I picked up my bags, a chunky sports bag and a black garbage bag that carried all the assorted material goods I'd acquired in the states, and walked out. I passed a corporate type at the entrance, made eye contact (doubtless he was looking at my bloodstained T-shirt and general air of dishevelled grandeur), and cracked 'Well, I'm off to the Holiday Inn." A pretty lame witticism, but the guy looked at me as if I'd confessed to some dreadful, sociopathic crime. A block or so away, I realised that I could certainly afford a Queen Size room. But wouldn't it be an awful waste of money, since I could surely find a fabulous hotel for under a hundred? Then all of a sudden I wanted to show the suit at the hotel entrance and I wanted to show the boss and I wanted to show Mick that here was a man for who money wasn't everything or even anything and I wanted one magnificent stupid extravagant gesture. And hadn't I made enough money to do me in Chicago? And hadn't I enough books and CDs and clothes and God knows what else to do me, all too many bundled into that black garbage bag which I had lugged around Chicago and Boston on buses and subways and who knows what streets. It would mean that financially I would be just where I was 48 hours before, except with experience of both slave labour and luxury. I turned back to the Meridien. For my money I got a little credit card key and a key to the minibar full use of the swimming pool and gym, and a complimentary shoe shine service. The receptionist asked if I wanted someone to take my luggage up. I knew what this meant - a tip, and in a place like this a rather hefty one. So I carried the old kit bag and the old black plastic sac up the elevator myself. The room was paltrier than I expected, but right now my ambitions centred on the bathroom. The bath was filled and the complimentary toiletries ransacked in a trice. After about half an hour, I suddenly realised I hadn't slept in about forty something hours, and I'd spent most of that time "straight picking" and "twisting" and various other activities in the not especially obscure arcana of the furniture moving trade. But I wanted to get full value for my money. Thus I had to balance the bliss of sleep with the joys I assumed lay elsewhere in the hotel. Out of the bath I perused the cost of the minibar. Three dollars (before taxes) for a Nantucket Nectar, which would be no more than $1.25 a few hundred metres away! Eight dollars (before taxes) for a beer! Then the breakfast options - a wide choice of exotic French names and prices which seemed to be in Francs. The movies in the hotel room would cost, laundry would cost something laughable, room service would cost big time. So this is how the rich live. It was alright for expense account freeloaders, but my money had only bought me entrance to the outer limits of paradise. I accidentally selected a film from the pay per view list messing around with the remote. Go - I wanted to see it anyway. As I watched the movie I fought off fatigue and vague regret. Think how many CDs I could have bought with that money. After the film I forced myself to explore, and remembering the swimming pool, took a pair of shorts. The fitness centre/swimming pool was an hour away from closure, and a lone Chinese woman manned the desk. Chinese massage was offered at a typically prohibitive rate. The Hotel was an "affiliate" of Air France, and I had seen various not exactly unattractive air hostesses around the lobby, which had been more than vaguely in my mind as I had come down here. But I had the facilities all to myself. A jacuzzi. Never been in one of those before. I fiddled with the switch and went in. At first the water was too warm, the motion too vigorous, yet after I while I saw the appeal. And after another while failed to see the appeal. It was boring, just sitting here, at least without the benefit of employees of Air France or any other airline. To the pool then, which seemed cold after the jacuzzi. Only 4 foot deep all over, so no danger of being out of my depth. The time passed pleasantly enough, practising my ungainly strokes, letting the water take the strain off my back, which had suffered all too much. And then a shower and wandering around the hotel, through the corridors and bars, one drink here would make quite a dent in my Chicago money, looking at the expense account people and thinking, if only they knew what I was doing last night. If only they could see the floors I've slept on, if only I had moved furniture from their house, if only they could then see me here, washed and shaved, perhaps not part of the social scene of the Hotel, a Gatsby maybe, mysterious, inscrutable, walking with kings yet keeping the common touch. As I walked through another corridor this delusion fell away. Who was I trying to kid? It was just an expensive mistake, leaving me a lost soul in the paradise of riches. I wandered aimlessly through the hotel corridors, identical deserted floor after identical deserted floor, locked conference suite after locked conference suite. As you can imagine, I tired of this and decide to head to bed; one last wander to the lobby would do me. A few businesspeople were hanging around the lobby, sleek as seals in the New England Aquarium. And there I saw him, wearing a rumpled shirt, talking to the concierge in a soft Southern States accent. It was Hotel George - perhaps not the man himself, but nevertheless him. What difference do a few proper names and four thousand miles make? Here was the humble shopkeeper, hard-working, God-fearing, gentlemanly. With unhurried kindness he cast his eyes over all he surveyed. No one had ever earned the right more. And I too had earned a little slice of this place. Even if only for a night and part of a day, it was still mine. There was no question of a waste of money. And as I went back to my room to finally get some sleep I was overwhelmed by the sheer magic of geography, countless cities and towns and neighbourhoods and boroughs and villages scattered across the globe, each perhaps with a Hotel George or some other character. From Green Bay to Sligo town to Chattanooga to Heath Row to Strasbourg to Corpus Christi to Cordoba to the Bronx to Stillorgan to Haifa to Yokohama, all over the world shy, diligent men and women, working dutifully and dreaming of hotels.