Chapter Three
Day One
Tom anxiously locked his bicycle to the “No Parking” sign outside the Jefferson Street entrance to the Hotel. Mr. Beauchamp had told him to come in Thursday at three to speak more definitely about working at the Hotel for the summer. The prospect of working every single Friday and Saturday night from eleven until seven in the morning all summer long did not exactly thrill Tom; such a schedule would greatly dilute the time he could dedicate to amorous pursuits, and hunting was always better on weekend nights. But then again, having a job, earning his own money and not having to ask Daddy for a cent, well that was nothing to be scoffed at if you valued your independence as much as Tom did. Tom had yet to learn that the price of his independence was directly proportional to the amount of trouble he procured for himself, since he was still fervently attempting to see how much trouble he could get himself into. The fact remained that Tom's premature concept of freedom, not having to answer to anyone for anything, and coming and going as he pleased overruled the logic and undesirable consequences that might mope around his conscious and subconscious. Plus, the whole situation was tempered by the idea of becoming part of a childhood legend: the Hotel Jefferson.
For a city with the hushed traditions of Richmond, the Jefferson had always been an incongruously grand design with its marble columns and plush draperies and statue of Thomas Jefferson, the only true demigod ever to spring from Virginia's soil. At the top of its Gone With the Wind staircase, the Hotel housed one of the few shrines hallowed to the native deity: the renowned Valentine statue of Thomas Jefferson. Once alligators had frolicked in votive dance at the idol's feet, cooled by sacrosanct libationary pools. The well-bred palm trees bathed in a rain of colored light, the rustling of skirts against parasols of organdy, and the cold fragrance of white marble whistled through Tom's uncollective consciousness like the light June breeze wafting its way down to the river. He hoped he could live up to his heritage.
He straightened up over his bicycle and entered the side door, walking under the bronze side staircase which carried the shy or undesirable from the Lobby to the Mezzanine. The side stair was the only way people could gain access to all the floors of the Hotel without being seen in the Lobby. Otherwise it was mandatory to go round the corner and walk the whole length of the front desk, as Tom was now doing.
The front desk of the Hotel had originally been divided into three functional sectors defined by dusty pink marble counters bulging out toward the Lobby. The counters were in turn separated and bounded by four of the faux marble columns that ran from the floor up to the roof, supporting both the ceiling and Mezzanine. The counter nearest the doors, originally intended for reservations, was protected from wintry blasts by a leaded glass booth in which an ocean liner, a train, and a Phoenician galleon were outlined in black metal and beveled crystal. The next or middle area of the front desk proffered the registration forms on the counter, while a pine structure badly stained to resemble walnut with apothecary cubbyholes for keys and letters, hid the offices of the Hotel from sight. The last area, nearest the staircase, contained the NCR machine, the cash drawer, the folio sheets and various decrepit steel stools. Whoever stood behind these counters surveyed everything that took place in the Lobby, save for activity on that section of Mezzanine remaining directly overhead.
Tom walked past one wave after another of the worn marble counter, past the front desk clerk Dudley who was simple but friendly, and past the mahogany phone booths to the burgundy doors. And then, through these doors with their dingy sheers.
“Go on back to Beauchamp's office, hon.”
Marilyn smiled and continued to blabber at the switchboard. Once back in the heart of the Hotel's offices, Tom knocked on the formica paneled door.
“Who is it? Oh come on in, son.”
Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Birdsong were hunched over Beauchamp's desk, sorting nickels from pennies and dimes into neat piles. Tom sat and waited. Glancing around the office, his eyes rested on a large bronze bust of the idealized young Jefferson behind Mr. Beauchamp’s bald head, another statue of a nude lady from the Belle Époque languishing on a bronze slice of the moon, and a blue and white ceramic oriental urn large enough to hide a fairly fat child in. These however, were the only intriguing things in the room because the rest of the office was badly remodeled 1960's, replete with absolutely the worst pecan-like paneling. The high narrow window on the left was at foot level for the street.
“Son, have you filled out your forms?”
“Why nossir, you didn’t…”
“Glen, go get the employment forms if you would please sir.”
“Another new front desk clerk? Oh Lord child, you don't know what you're getting yourself into.”
“Glen, will you just go and get those forms?”
“Follow me.”
Glen Birdsong had met some unconfessed major disappointment in his life, leaving him scarred, sarcastic, and sorry. He had passed up the chance to be one of the top womenswear designers on the East Coast shortly after finishing college fifteen years previous, with a first-class portfolio and awards from major garment manufacturers. But instead of leaving Richmond, Glen stayed on at the Hotel where he had worked during school as a front desk clerk. He slowly rose in position to head of parties and catering, and he gave the most elegant society soirées that Richmond had known in the past ten years. He always dressed in high Sixties style and was devoted to fortune telling: reading cards, palms, coffee grounds, and the future in general.
Outside of Beauchamp's office, Glen Birdsong opened up the locker for the personnel files and handed one to Tom.
“You sure you wouldn't rather work here as a maid? The pay's the same and you don’t...”
“That's all right thank you. I have my own pen.”
Tom filled out the forms and returned to Beauchamp's office. They were now separating the dimes from the pennies.
“Ya durn fool, thay ain't no more silver dimes in circulation, stop wasting time.”
“Now Daddy B, you never can tell. The victim has returned.”
“Jest hush up. Let's see son. How much money do you want?”
“Well, I uh ...”
“It don't make any difference chile, 'cause all they'll give you is minimum wage here. I hope you haven't got an ailing mother or illegitimate...”
“Glen take this money to the bank and keep your fool trap shut. I am interviewing.”
Glen walked out the door putting on his square sunglasses, his green gabardine bell bottoms flapping in the air-conditioned breeze.
“Well son, I’ve thought your case over and I think we can use you. Can you start this evening?”
Tom hadn't really planned on it, but it was the only serious job offer he'd come across, he did want the job, and could stay if he wanted to.
“Yessir.”
“That's fine. We'll have you on three afternoons a week, and you'll be doing the audit Friday and Saturday nights for the summer.” (Oh Christ. There go my weekends).
“Let's go on out to the front desk.”
Beauchamp stood up and hobbled out the door. He was old, bald, fat, and looked like he had built fallout shelters in the Fifties. He carried Tom out to the front desk and introduced him to Dudley. Dudley grinned.
“Now son, the evening shift is from three to eleven. I don't have to tell you it's highly preferable for you to arrive at five minutes afore three to five minutes after. This is a good shift for you to start on.”
“Yeah Bub, almost nothing happens.”
“Now will you be quiet Dudley, or am I goin'ta haveta whup you for the second time this week? Don't pay him no mind; he don't know what to do wid himself, 'less he can make some weak joke or say somethin' stupid. The only real busy time you're likely to have is from about four to seven when there'll be people checking in.”
“You're not serious are you Daddy B.? Someone's goin' to check in? The only thing I seem to do around here is hand out the Reader's Digest once a month.”
“And ya don't even do that well, ya durn fool. Now Dudley, I'm entrusting you to train Tom here about what to do. No funnystuff, d'ya hear? You'll be all right son, and I'll come down to check on you after dinner.”
“Thanks, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“Welcome aboard pal. Here, the first thing for you to do is go have a looksee at the rooms. Let's see what's clear.”
Dudley rested his chubby elbows on a wooden plank nailed into the column between the cashier and registration counters, under the room board. He compiled a sheet and handed it to Tom:
ROOMS underlined twice with a wavy curve. Fourteen dollars, seventeen dollars, thirty-four dollars, fifty dollars, single and double beds, bath and shower.
“Do they still rent rooms for fourteen dollars a night here?”
“You'll understand why when you see them. Here's the pass-key. Go take a good look around so you can tell people what they're in for when they check in.”
The rooms were not to be believed. 206 next to the elevator. It looked like an historic reconstruction of the first room in the first Quality Court that had ever been rented to a traveling salesman, and which out of respect to its commemorative significance, had not since been dusted. Room 286. God, it was incredible. The shower in the bathroom must have been picked up for a song from the Dachau rummage sale. Room 331. A double bed and not much more. Room 380. The bed wasn't made up and an empty bottle of Vodka poked out from under the bed. Room 306. Next to the elevator again, but this time Tom could hear the elevator pulleys screeching as the elevator went up and down. Room 386. Badly faded fake Audubon prints on the wall above the beds. Room 382. Bright turquoize walls and a black and pink tiled bathroom. Room 403. An absolutely dreadful chipped Spanish Regency mirror. Room 405. Oops. Someone was in there. Room 434. Filthy, greasy, grimy windows. The brasses on the Chippendale coffee table were falling off. Room 530. Spacious, but you could have sown radish seeds in the carpet. Room 532. Scratched chinoiserie.
Tom carefully inspected each room, looking at the bathrooms, the beds, the chipping paint, and the hodgepodge of furniture.
Then it was up to the sixth floor where no one was registered. The sixth floor was opened only in case of a big convention. There were so many perennially empty rooms in the Hotel that there wasn't any call for having a ruckus on the sixth floor as well. Tom correlated all the rooms which were superimposed one on top of each other in the same order and position as they descended to the Lobby. The sixth floor had room numbers in the mid thirties, forties, and fifties; locked doors at the north end of the corridors protected a dilapidated roof garden that hadn't seen use since the nineteen-thirties. Room 642. Burned and blackened. Room 634. The first room with passable furniture. A black leather glove lay on the night stand.
Tom had seen enough. Down to look at the suites. 250. Each suite had a different period of dust-dulled furniture, which was nonetheless in fair repair and of above mediocre quality. And there were the beautiful beautiful sculpted marble fireplaces with carved and inlaid mirrors reflecting above them. The beds were not made up in 252. Room 148 had early 20th century reproduction Sheraton furniture and was almost quite nice. The large French doors gave onto the balcony, a granite Italianate loggia with high round Renaissance windows and crumbling balustrade overlooking Franklin Street. Decidedly lovely, possibly magical and completely encrusted in pigeon shit. Tom loitered for a moment and smoked a cigarette.
“This is where I'll have my wedding dinner served. Candles, champagne, and a white tablecloth. Violins, hearts, flowers. And the dusk descending among the treetops. Even the heedless birds can't ruin the great truths, the designs that humankind made.”
Tom ended his reverie with a long glance up and down Franklin Street. He watched the winos teetering toward the blood bank on Broad Street to make deposits and withdraw meager sums for the weekend. Back to the front desk.
Dudley was standing behind the door jamb to the switchboard room, squirting Marilyn with a water pistol. Marilyn was not amused.
“You idiot, leave me alone!”
Tom was coming to realize that the Jefferson was not the incongruously grand design he had pictured, neither in terms of the professionalism of the staff, nor the physical condition of the Hotel. He did not blink, he did not bat any eye, nor raise an eyebrow. This was going to be his source of money, and his meal ticket too.
“What do you want for dinner, buddy-o?”
In contrast, the dinner menu proved sumptuous and varied and Tom selected flounder stuffed with crab meat. Dudley wrote up the meal tickets while Marilyn scuffled to the bathroom for the fourth time that evening. As soon as she came back, Dudley and Tom ascended the staircase to the kitchen in order to retrieve dinner. Since it was a slow night, the cook was in a fair mood.
“Sometimes they don't even send it down. You just have to pray and wait.”
Dinner was duly consumed with proper china and flatware, and the pink napkins. Dudley was picky about his food; Tom wasn't.
After dinner, Dudley took Tom out to introduce him to the small group of permanent residents seated on the yellow velour couches at the foot of the stairs. It was conversation hour. Their courtesy and gentle demeanor relieved some of Tom's apprehensions.
“Mr. Gwathmey, I'd like you to meet the new front desk, clerk, Tom Wharton.”
“How d'ye do, son?”
“And this is Mrs. Blunt and that's Mr. Bass.”
“Well, it's nice to meet you. I certainly hope that you'll be as happy here at the big 'J' as everyone else is.”
The permanents were all dressed in quiet, comfortable, and entirely genteel clothing. Mrs. Blunt fingered her Monet chains as she smiled and nodded her head; Mr. Bass stealthily glared at anyone Mrs. Blunt bestowed her attention upon. Mr. Gwathmey moved with great deliberation, blinking and folding his arms as his dinosaur jaw rose and fell, occasionally making comments in the process.
“Dudley, here are the dining room receipts and the cash. You had better get back behind the front desk where you belong.”
“Oh, Mae, here's the new front desk clerk. Tom Wharton.”
“Pleased to meet you, hon. Dudley, now put that money in the cash drawer. And do it now!”
Mae whisked away up the staircase in her pink uniform taking the red carpeted steps two at a time. Dudley took Tom back behind the front desk and showed him how to add up and charge the receipts. Most of the bills didn't run over three dollars.
“Gosh, don't these people eat anything?”
“No, not really. Vanilla ice cream and sliced tomatoes mainly.”
With the restaurant take registered and the various transits checked in, Tom and Dudley sat down to watch the better part of M.A.S.H. on television, while Marilyn went to the bathroom for the seventh time complaining of a terrible headache. MacFlecknoe strolled up to the front desk smoking a very cheap cigar, and started to tell Dudley and Tom all about a wealthy veterinarian in Charlottesville with stables and insufficient insurance to cover them in case of loss.
Soon, a stubby little country jack joined MacFlecknoe and they both invited the front desk clerks up to their rooms for a drink after the shift was over.
“Ah’ve got a leetle tad of bourbon.”
MacFlecknoe magnanimously offered to provide the glasses and ice.
“We'll have an old fashioned bullshit session.”
Dudley accepted right off the bat but Tom hesitated. He knew that the last thing he should be doing was going into a client's room, but Dudley whined for him to come too, and Tom finally acceded.
As the remainder of the night wore on, Tom was introduced to the rest of the permanents. Saunders, a stout woman in brown replete with cane, a slight stench, and badly tinted hair. Mrs. Lassiter, elegantly dressed in a white pants suit, white sandals, white turban and well tinted hair. The obvious scent of vodka lingered about her pores. Mrs. Tate came down in her housecoat, and just loved to gossip so much that she could never remember all of the names at once. But that wasn't important. What people did was so much more interesting than who they were, and then don't you know what they say about names and tales?
In the midst of mature to elderly voices and smiles, Tom was presented to one woman who was nothing less than striking: Miss Tolliver. Tom had rarely seen a woman so refined or composed and yet so meek. A graceful Coco Chanel stoop to her petite curved shoulders, lustrous Marcel waves in her white hair, a simple black silk dress, and the faintest trace of tame red lipstick. For the first time in his life, Tom understood why women clamor for pearls. Miss Tolliver’s slight frame was enchanted by a small but shining, even radiant strand of modestly correct pearls, which she stroked as she spoke. Her birdlike tone, the humble flutter of her demurely sage eyes, and her quiet understated style, timelessly dated to the past effected a loveliness and true elegance that Tom had rarely been exposed to.
“You ought to see her room. It's stacked from floor to ceiling with the most incredible collection of God knows what. She's been here for twenty years, retired school teacher, no bucks, and she's got the hots for Old Man Gwathmey.”
“Dudley could you watch the phone for a minute while I go to the ladies room? Thanks, hon.”
Marilyn grabbed her purse and rushed out the door.
“Let's call up Scruggs. Room 529.”
“Who's in there?”
“An old pal. Smells like piss. Carries toilet paper around with him, stickin' out his pants 'cause he can't control it any more. Now we'll have some fun.”
Imitating a Negress of the lower social orders, Dudley started to regale Scruggs, his falsetto wavering from time to time.
“Hey Scruggie! Whachoo doin' up there all by yo' lonesome? Why don't you come down and buy me a drink? Wha' I wone? Why I be ready foh a pink lady, uh, huhn. I knowse I'se black. OH Scruggie. We's all pink on de inside. What? And do what, may I ask? What? You am naked as de day you wur boan? Uhm, hmm. What you want from me shugah lumps? All I want is a little drink, doncha know? What? You am one vile thing, you nasty old man. And what?”
The performance tended to the grotesque but Dudley continued to prance about the switchboard and laugh at himself, providing vulgar comebacks to the lewd suggestions of the old geezer who probably hasn't seen anything more feminine than a vacuum cleaner in the past three months. Scruggs was also bound to realize that he was talking to some weirdo who lived in the hotel with nothing better to do and no one more interesting to talk to. Every once in a while Tom could hear a low gravelly voice snicker across the line as Scruggs made another suggestive comment to this bizarre front desk clerk. The vignette embarrassed Tom so much he made it clear he preferred to watch the TV.
Marilyn returned from the bathroom perspiring under the load of her purse (Lord only knew what she had in it) and a few people checked in, with Tom doing the honors this time. The cordial smile, the courteous personal questions, the officialdom of it all succored Tom at the beginning of an experience that was proving more than he had bargained for. He had only just begun and knew it. Better to start off right from the start.
“Come on buddy, let's add up the take, but first try this.”
Dudley handed Tom a small cotton pad impregnated with alcohol from a compact circular bottle. Two adolescents were frolicking on the beach pictured on the label.
“That's to help clear up your zits pal, and it's right refreshing after a long hot night like tonight.”
Albeit an unusual offer, Tom accepted and accordingly wiped his face.
It isn't that bad and it does freshen you up a little bit. Dudley isn't such an awful person at all; he's just goofy. And there's something else about him which is equally strange; he is jam packed with good intentions and he's just as ashamed of them. Much fuller than I am, at any rate, but he wants to laugh at them and they're not funny. This hooting chortle of his is little more than ill-timed nervousness. He's real. The genuine artifact, in the flesh. Dudley is just so fucking earnest that it's not to be believed, and he won't accept it because even Dudley knows that it's not cool.
“Let's add up the subtotals again.”
“Dudley, if the cash count is off 392 dollars, it must be in the folio sheets. We only took in 65 dollars tonight and there's no way you can have misplaced three hundred odd dollars since we didn't even see anything close to that.”
“Wait a minute, Bub. I'm doing the count here.”
“All right, you keep adding it all up, and I'll look through the folio sheets.”
Dudley all but blindly added up the money in the drawer four times while Tom hunted through the accounts for the mistake he knew was there. Some of the bills were more than outrageous, running into thousands of dollars while the majority was less than three dollars.
After checking out the restaurant receipts, it was discovered that the Swatters had only consumed two iced teas and two ice creams on the Mezzanine for dinner and someone entered the amount multiplied by a hundred.
“Here it is. Room 392. MR/MRS SWITZER. You added $ 396.00 to their account. And you rang it up credit instead of debit.”
After the labors of correction, which Dudley didn't really fathom all that well, the balance was certified and the deposit made. Marilyn's Austrian boyfriend came by to pick her up and the night auditor Grasso descended to the Lobby in greasy black, stuttering and upbraiding Dudley for his ignominious service at the front desk.
“You play too much. You need 'tink about your work.”
“Ah, take it easy Grasso; we all like to have a good time, now don't we? Let's go Tom, they're waiting for us upstairs.”
“Good night, Mr. Grasso.”
“Good night, sir.”
Back in the doorman's closet, Dudley and Tom punched out.
“Grasso sleeps off most of the night, and then goes to early mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. He's always grumpy, so just forget him. He's always like this when his wife's not around.”
“He's married?”
“Yeah, he's got a wife in Italy somewhere, who he says is young and beautiful. 'De prettiest woman in world,' he says. Only she won't come to the States to live. She usually comes over every two or three years, or that's the story, and he goes back every summer for a visit and a little piece of action. If you ask me, she just plain doesn't want to come back because she couldn't put up with an old sourpuss like him, all those black clothes and early mass and stuff like that. I wouldn't, that's for sure.”
Once inside the elevator Dudley started to pummel Tom on the shoulder in a display of questionable affection.
“You're going to be all right brother, you know? You're going to get along just fine here.”
Up in room 428 MacFlecknoe and Earl were already at it, drinking and bullshitting each other to the point that they themselves didn't know what the truth about anything was anymore. Drinks were accordingly passed out to Tom and Dudley as the redneck took off his pants and covered the shame of his Mamma's nut hugger briefs with an ill-tuned guitar. Earl laughed out loud like a donkey and split a grin from ear to ear of teeth that looked like large kernel white corn.
“Why don't we go out and get us some pussy, men?”
“I have to go home and get some sleep, I'm exhausted.”
But Dudley answers,
“I’ve already got my woman, I mean lady. I have my lady. The Hotel. I love her. and I know her like a lover. She's just what I want and what I need. And I don't need to go looking any farther. I'm only really happy when I'm here. I love the Hotel Jefferson as a lover does.”
His smudged glasses glinted in the light of the frayed silk lampshade as everyone sat and stared at the rug in a moment of uncomfortable silence, because someone had revealed too intimate a glimpse of our maudlin nature.
Earl strummed a meaningless chord on his guitar.
MacFlecknoe put out his cigar.
Tom crunched his ice.
