Hotel fire
April 30, 2009
And then the panic's back. How long have I been sitting here? That edgy feeling is bubbling in my stomach all of the sudden, and I have to check the curtains again.
Hotel curtains are all the same. Purple and gold and burgundy and amber all twisted into something floral and placating. I pull them apart just a fraction of an inch, and the sun comes prickling in, bright and needly. There's the catwalk right outside the door, a sidewalk just four or five feet wide, then that slim metal rail painted turquoise cheap, and two stories down a family of fatties splashing around in the treated pool. The dad's wearing red trunks and sitting on the edge there with just his legs in. He looks down solemn and paternal at his boys, maybe eight and ten years old, both little chubbers and one with a cast on his arm wrapped in a plastic bag.
The light feels stinging and crisp coming in off the water like that, and then I realize I've been staring and there's that spiking panic and I draw the curtain back quick.
And now it feels dark in here.
I look at the TV, quiet and blank with that black gray screen and a certain depth, and the whole room's reflection swimming in its one huge eye all warped at the edges to fit in there just right. Like it's staring at me. At us.
I should have closed her eyes, but I sure as shit can't know. Hell, I can't even look at her. Between her and the TV everything in this goddamn room is staring at me. I look up at the ceiling, press my hands against my temples and listen to the dampened screech of the kids playing in the pool.
That panic again. Like a bullet in my chest. And so I walk over and pick up the phone just to hear that tone all steady and droning, just to hear it. I stare at the wall for a second and then at my feet, then hang it back up. Deep breath.
And then the phone's ringing louder than loud and that red light is blinking and that damned phone is just shining there tan and plastic and suddenly, instinctively I look right at her there on the bed. Oh Jesus. The blood's pooled thick and dark around her eyes, with her black wiry hair stuck right to her face, and she's lying there on her back with her arms flopped to her sides and the sheets all tangled in her legs.
A second ring, loud and screaming and long, and my scalp is tingling and then the receiver's in my hand and I'm staring at the wall again.
"Hello?"
"Tony?"
"Yeah, yeah. When are they coming?" I spit it out fast and mumbly, then put my forehead in my hand and feel the sweat there slippery.
"Tony nobody's coming, they're not coming. Ron says you're gonna have to take this one."
"Take this one?! What the fuck does that mean?! You fucking tell him to send somebody! You fucking tell him! Christ! What the fuck does that mean?!" And now the receiver is wet and warm and sliding out of my grip.
"Sorry, Tony. I'm sorry, but I can't do nothing. You know that."
"No, no, no Frank come on, don't let 'em do this Frank, come on." I'm smiling all tooth and pleading with that gleam, that sparkle in my eye that's twinkling and wet from the sweat.
"How long have you known me? Frank? Frank?" Then the smile's drying up and I'm talking stern but voice breaking, right into the phone.
"The room's in my fucking name Frank, come on."
And then a click and the line's dead and I go on listening to it for what seems like a minute with that empty in my head that I just can't clear.
Now the sweat's coming down hot and sticky under my arms and on my back, and my mouth is dry as a bone and the receiver's still tan and shining there in my hand. And she's not really looking at me 'cause she can't and I know that, so I just have to keep my head on straight, that's all.
And then I realize I'm listening to that screeching again, that wild kid laughter, rising up slow from the pool downstairs. And so I'm back at the curtain pulled aside just a crack and I'm staring at that whale of a dad down there, sitting on the edge of the pool with his ballooning red trunks.
Tags for this piece: story strange domestic hotel fire