Chapter Five
7:03 AM – 2:58 PM
Biking to
work, Tom finds the streets of the city quiet, grey and cool. The avenues are
all but empty for scattered female joggers dutifully puffing away excess
poundage and tightening up their hamstrings. Richmond looks for all the world
like a slumbering little English village the Industrial Revolution has passed
over out of pity. It is an hour of serene vitality.
Entering from
the Jefferson Street door is enough to make Tom forget that there is any such
thing as daylight outside. The neon and incandescent lamps that render the
lobby timeless immediately smudge him with their rays; there is no passage
forward or backward toward afternoon or night with the lobby frozen for
eternity at three o'clock am. The only betrayal to the changing of the hours is
a faint gleam on the richly embossed naugahyde of the high-backed Jacobean
sofas cluttered in front of the Main Street door. It will be small but
reassuring evidence that an outside world exists.
Once inside
the Lobby proper, Tom glances around the grimy gold easy chairs and threadbare
couches, arranged in strictest Cartesian style on four pseudo-oriental rugs. A
squat square coffee table awkwardly holds the center of each of the four
islands of formal English garden rigidity. On the atoll closest to the
staircase, the workers of the night shift have washed ashore, shipwrecked among
the billows of an artificially illuminated night.
The castaways
have flung their arms and legs across the arms and legs of the weary furniture,
feeling gritty and sweaty against the polyester velour soaked in dry rot, a
sensation that is compounded with the cold perspiration they broke out into as
they strained to stay awake at five that morning when the whole world was dead
and the morning paper had yet to arrive. Seven am finds the derelicts of the
graveyard shift in that limbo between sleeping and waking, care and apathy, the
past and the future. The detritus of human existence surrounds them: ashtrays
overflowing with crumpled butts, the morning paper, already mangled since it
has been read an hour and a half ago, soft drink cups, beer cans, wrappers from
Nabs, empty cigarette packs, cellophane, candy, and kicked off shoes scatter
everywhere off the fake carpet onto the real marble lagoon. It looks like the
party that never happened.
They are of
course, glad to see Tom, but the heavy theater drapes of time wronged and the
exhaustion of fighting the urge to sleep normal hours suffocate their
enthusiasm. A limp arm stretches out the key to the cash box.
Winding
through the maze of rose enclustered columns and bending plastic boxwoods, Tom
says “G'mornin” to Mae, tautly smoking a cigarette while she reads the morning
paper by the electric lamp light in a discreet cozy corner. She is biding her
time before she starts to serve breakfast on the Mezzanine. After passing her,
Tom enters the bellman's room, a set of soiled gray screened shelves, cluttered
with mops, broken tables, and florid gold leaf signs for clubs and people
twenty years vanished. Stamping his feet to awaken the smaller inhabitants of
the hotel who scurry to their corners, he punches in his time card and abruptly
leaves. Eight hours to go.
Back through
the boxwoods in high paneled boxes, he glances at the immense mirror wavering
over the display case from the sixties filled with its original eight-by-ten
glossies of recently attempted culinary splendor and society balls. On the
bottom shelf, two large sheaves of rotten tobacco crumble unabashedly over
exemplary displays of the hotel's china, with its elaborate 16th Century Beaux
Arts motif in black and gold and brown. Like the locks on the doors, some of
the plates bear the idealized profile of Thomas Jefferson as a young man.
Through the
swinging burgundy doors with sheers over the rattling glass panels, and into
the switchboard room, and there is Aurora herself: Lucille the switchboard
operator, or Miss Five-by-Five, as she styles herself, and deservedly so. Large
expanses of pink and yellow knit fabric overhang the four sides of an already
ample swivel chair. At the bottom of this symphony in Darnel are dainty little
feet in even daintier white plastic sandals. This morning the toe nails are
painted Jungle Red.
“Hiya kiddo!”
“G'mornin'
Lucille. How're we doing?”
“Sleepy
(Chuckle). Didn't get but two hours of sleep last night. My cat kep' me awake.”
“Did y'all go
out drinkin' last night by any chance?”
“Last night?
Heck, we started with Bloody Mary's at eleven yestiddy morning, drank 'bout
seven pitchers of beer in the afternoon, started cocktail hour with Vodka
tonics, went for more beer around ten, and then washed them down with Brass
Monkeys. Had to get up at four and go home. Didn't get out of bed until
six-twenny and busted Heck to get here by seven. Maggie (her best friend and
roommate, Manageress of the Woolworth Jewelry counter) tole me I had to go do
the laundry this afternoon. She says it's too hot for her to do it now. Heck,
she think it's gonna be any cooler at three? How was your weekend kiddo?”
“Not bad. No
comparison to yours.”
An outside
line lights up and Lucille says her first “GoodmorningHotelJeffersonmayIhe'pyu”
of the day. Work has begun.
“Henry,
where's the key to the cash drawer?”
“I already
gave it to you, you fool!”
Tom fishes
through his pockets.
“Here it is.
I’ve got it.”
“Tolja so.”
Tom counts up
the drawer, which is all twenties, nickels and pennies. It adds up right and he
signs his distinctive but illegible initials on the adding machine tape.
“All right
Henry, you can go.”
“Thankyaverrymuch.”
Down slip
Henry's sunglasses, up flip the sandals and Henry clips his way out the
Jefferson Street door. Tom sets up the board for outgoing guests, pulls the
reservations for today and adds the phone charges to the bills. Lucille is
yakking to three people at once on the switchboard, shifting from one line to the
next as each conversation starts to weary her.
When the
traveling people come down to check out early, Tom keeps his eye on the
Mezzanine starting up for breakfast.
The Mezzanine
forms a gallery overlooking the Lobby, making a complete circuit of the vast
internal space on the level of a high second floor. Above the front desk sit
small copses of furniture destined for rare conversations, while directly
across from the front desk, meals are served on bright mauve tablecloths with
pink napkins, on elaborate place settings of china and flatware. The
Mezzanine's clientele is almost entirely composed of the elderly, both those
who live in the Hotel and those who moved out as soon as the first renovation
was proposed. The Mezzanine remains as separate and integral to the Lobby as
the Hotel is to Richmond.
Mr. Stuart
has been patiently standing at the top of the staircase until 7:30, all greasy
glasses and Veteran's Administration cane until Eldridge and Mae can get the
kitchen and the dining room functional. One by one other shadows dodder up
alongside him, and they are finally seated. The Second Floor Drama ensues in
sonata form between Mae's presto hash slinging style and Eldridge's amiable
andante Uncle Tomisms and stoop of genteel servility. They both like their work
and their regular customers don't want anyone but them to bring in their
breakfast.
The glass
rattles in the switchboard room door and in bursts Daddy Beauchamp, jovial
gentleman in the classic blue and white of a Southern summer.
“Lucille, you
been at it again, I can just tell by lookin' atcha. D'int I tell you not to go
messin' roun' late at night? Iffen' I catch you 'sleep at the board, there's
gonna be some serious reck'nin' 'roun heah.”
Lucille
quickly feigns slumber on one chubby little arm and murmurs, “It 'uz worth it
Daddy B, it 'uz worth it.”
“You ain't
nothin' but a scalawag. Where's my Tommyboy?”
One leg rigid
from “The Big One,” in limps Daddy B beating the morning paper against his leg
as if it were a large palmetto fan. “Where's my Tommyboy?” as he hobbles around
the front desk and gets the night auditor's report out of box 222.
“Over here
Daddy B.”
“I hope
you're awake. Howz my Tommyboy this morning?”
“Can't
complain. I'm always happy when I can work this shift.”
The morning
shift is Tom's preferred time to work at the Jefferson; unfortunately feeble
old Brantley Hall's seniority ensures Brantley first choice, and Brantley of
course has made the day shift his vigil since time immemorial. The day shift is
the only time that anything ever goes at the front desk. The restaurant serves
breakfast and lunch, which means that activity is always evolving within the
visual range of the front desk. Guests check out, on occasion a lot of money is
handled, and the business of the Hotel is conducted primarily during these
hours. Time is no enemy to the day shift.
“Mr.
Beauchamp,” screams Lucille, imitating a precocious four-year-old, “Telephone!”
“Who is it
Lucille?”
“I think it's
Miz Scoville.”
“Well good
Lord, don't you know to tell her I'm upstairs havin’ breakfast? Who in the
world wants to talk to that old biddy aforen nine o'clock in the morning?”
Off trails
Lucille's voice as the bell rings. A young biker couple wants to check out.
“Now
Tommyboy, you goin' to be all right down here?”
“Sure, Daddy
B. You go up and have breakfast. I'll be fine.”
Off he limps
toward the elevator as Tom takes a twenty from the couple and gives them forty
three nickels' change. The man won’t like it, but almost all the guests who
check out before breakfast jingle around town for a few hours since change is
limited to nickels after the night shift.
“Lucille!”
“Uh hunh?”
“Ask Mae if
she's got some ones for me.”
Getting on to
nine and the permanents start to file out of the Lobby. Mac, Walter, Rod, Mr.
and Mrs. Smollett all stroll out for another week of nine to five while the
secretaries for the offices leased out in the Hotel pick up Saturday's mail at
the desk, beaming good morning smiles that come too quickly.
Mae bounds
down the stairs with a fistful of dollars and counts them out rapid fire, not
bothering to count up the roll of nickels, “I trust you, thanks hon’ ” and
scampers back up the Gone With the Wind staircase in her pink and white
waitress uniform.
After nine,
things slow down and it's time for Tom's morning pause. Lucille has managed to
wrangle a pot of coffee and two danishes out of the kitchen replete with pink
cloth napkins, silverware, sugar and cream, and the elaborate china, if Tom
would be so kind as to go up and get it. Up the red steps, “Thanks Mae,” and
down he races, his morning relaxation in hand.
“Here
Lucille.”
“Oh goody!”
(She bites into one of the sticky rolls.)
“Lucille, I'm
going to sit at the Assistant Manager's desk. If anyone calls, put them through
on the reservation line.”
This is Tom
Wharton's idea of civilization: hot fresh java, the morning paper, a cigarette,
and something sickeningly sweet all melding into five minutes of undisturbed
solitude as he takes in the dying chords of the second floor sonata, puff,
finds out who was raped in Southside last night (always a favorite item in the Times Dispatch), a sip of coffee and a
bite of the roll. A sip, a puff, a glance upstairs, a bite, the comics, and the
gentle dab at the mouth. It is his favorite morning ritual.
Today he is
lucky enough to finish his cigarette before Daddy B and Mrs. Chalkley come
behind the front desk to get the night deposit out of the safe and figure out
why the deposit is off for last night and who did what wrong yesterday.
Beauchamp leaves to get the mail and returns a half hour later, dumping a
twenty pound pile onto the back desk. Tom sorts it all out, hands the dead
letters to Lucille, and then carries McDougherty's and Gwathmey's mail out to
them in the Lobby. McDougherty is poking his finger around the sand in the
ashtrays near the grand piano while Gwathmey makes certain that the minute hand
has left the five for another hour.
“Here's your
mail Mr. Gwathmey.”
“Thanks Tom.
Say son, have you heard anything new about them closing down the hotel?”
“Not that I
can say of, Sir. They don't tell me anything.”
“They ain't
gonna do anything about it. I’ve been here for years and they keep
a'threatenin' but nothing ever comes of it. Just a bunch of hoorah over
nothin'.”
“We'll see.”
Old man
Gwathmey has lived at the Jefferson for more years than anyone cares to
remember. A retired haberdasher and unmistakable Southern Jew of the Old Guard,
Nathan Gwathmey comes down to the lobby in tasteful West Palm Beach casual and
drags a high Jacobean armchair up to the late Fifties conversation couch. He
then crosses and uncrosses his legs while he watches the passage of the hours.
He is generally considered the unofficial lobby superintendent to anyone who
has been at the Jefferson more than three weeks. Gwathmey's schedule is fairly
strict: 10 am until 11:30, 1 p.m. until 4, and 7 p.m. until 9, although if a
good conversation is under way, he can be induced to stay until half past nine.
When he leaves each time, he moves the chair back to its original position
beside the staircase. The mauve marble floor of the Lobby has tracks where he
has dragged the chair back and forth over the last half century.
Tom goes back
to the desk and Lucille stops him.
“What's for
lunch, buddyroe?”
“Let's see
Lucille. Sautéed scallops, chicken, or a ratatouille omelet, with peas, corn
and spoonbread. I think I'm going to have the scallops. Who's in the kitchen
this morning?”
“Mae says
it's Larry and he's in a foul mood.”
“Well, I'll
go early and see if I can't catch him before the rush. What are you going to
have?”
“I think I'll
just have a salad and some ice cream. Gotta stick to my diet. Look how much
weight I’ve lost.”
To
demonstrate, Lucille grasps the elastic band at the top of her stretch pants
and pulls it out so that Tom gets a clear view of her girdle down to the creamy
tops of her immense knees.
“Keep at it,
Lucille!”
The bell at
the desk rings and Tom sidles out to see Mr. Randolph: white straw hat,
sunglasses, and continental cut suit. A former ambassador to the Middle East,
this aged gentlemen is perennially anxious for his morning mail, half of which
is trash from the State Department, the other half of which is mysterious brown
parcels from overseas. In a hoarse voice he asks Tom for the morning post.
“There you
are, Mr. Randolph.”
“Say Tom, now
who do you think you are going to vote for?”
“Well sir, I
was thinking about Anderson, but I can't say that I’ve made up my mind yet.
Who're you voting for?”
“Why Jimmy
Carter of course!”
“Really?”
“Yes sir.
When I was nine years old, my father called me into his office and said,
'Pendleton, I want you to promise me one thing right here and now: that you
will always vote the Democratic ticket.' And that day I swore to him I would.”
“And have you
always voted Democrat?”
“What sir!
And break a solemn oath to my father? What do you think I am? Of course I have,
and I might very well add that I find the implication that I have not been true
to my word heinous and offensive.”
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Randolph, I just thought that... “
“A boy's
promise to his father is never broken. I'll kindly thank you to remember that
little fact.”
Off shuffles
Randolph, making his way to the door in baby steps. A lack of exercise and old
age have shortened his Achille's tendons, so his gait is never of a stride
longer than four inches.
Tom sits and
reads Absalom, Absalom until it is
time to go up and collect lunch. He gives Lucille the key to the cash drawer,
admonishing her to call the kitchen if anything comes up.
“Don't worry
Tom, I'm going to run of with all the money so's you don't have to work this
afternoon.”
“Just do it
while I'm in the kitchen, so I can't be held responsible, okay?”
Climbing the
staircase, Tom delights in the ascension from the Lobby to the Mezzanine,
pausing at the top of the stairs to look at the view.
“Hey good
lookin'! What you gonna have for lunch?”
“Oh hi Miz
Saunders. I was thinking about the fish. I'll just bet you're going to get the
chicken.”
“How'd you
know? I think I will get the chicken. I like it, but I want a little toddy
first, if that Mae would ever get around to waiting on me. How's your girl?”
Tom gets
anxious as Saunders rambles on and he finally has to break away or she'd be
talking to him for half an hour. Moving through the sea of pink tablecloths, he
says hello to the permanents placing orders for sliced tomatoes and green beans
and ice cream. They must be hungry today since tomatoes and ice cream is
usually all that they want to eat.
Beyond the
soiled doors in the kitchen, Mae is frantically scurrying around, like a
feverish monkey, shouting orders at the cooks and dishwashers. Tom turns to get
his salads from the lockers and a middle-aged black woman with enormous pointed
breasts encased in a brilliantly white brassiere is standing in his path.
“Whachoo
want?”
“A couple of
salads and desserts.”
“Gimme that
ticket, I'll get them.”
She sends him
away and Tom walks over to the grill, stopping to say hello to the lame
dishwasher named Thomas Jefferson. Chomping on a cigar and up to his arms in
dirty dishes, TJ says “Hahayeufahnfahn,” without waiting for Tom's query about
his health or the reply to his own question.
Sweating
through a stained white undershirt over steaming trays of water and a large
frying grill, two ovens, and Mae ordering him around, is Larry, the big, fat,
young, assistant cook. It's no wonder he's in a foul mood today.
Deploying the
best manners he knows, Tom assures Larry that whenever he gets around to the
food for the front desk will be just fine, just call up and let Tom know so
that he can come and get it. Larry is known for not sending any food down to
the desk at all.
By the time
Tom gets back downstairs after stopping to chat with the permanents, Lucille
tells him that lunch is ready, and so back up he goes. Tom thinks it's too
picturesque to carry all those plates down the staircase on a huge oval tray.
He's never tripped yet, but he expects he will one day.
After lunch,
Tom settles down to read and hand people their mail. Lucille gabs ad infinitum
on the switchboard and Daddy B. comes down to the desk to regale him with
stories of the Philippines. At regular intervals throughout their conversation,
Beauchamp inquires as to the frequency of Tom's masturbation, and with equal
regularity, Tom graciously changes the subject. The afternoon has begun.
At two, Tom
starts to count the minutes before he can leave. He checks out the cash drawer
early and calls his friends to make afternoon plans. The permanents have
settled down for early afternoon conversations and the engineers are replacing
light bulbs in the Lobby. Calm and boredom are setting in. Tom is glad to check
out at 2:58. His relief hasn't come, but Daddy B is willing to watch the desk.
“Bye Lucille,
bye Daddy B. See y'all tomorrow at three.”
The prospect
of going out late tonight and sleeping in tomorrow morning makes the muggy July
air pleasurable.
“It might be
hot,” he thinks, “but at least it's summertime.”
