Part III: The Police Investigation (Part I, Part II)
To save money, I rented a room without a bathroom. Since I was drinking beer I had to piss frequently, and since the bathroom was at the end of the hall, I had to walk past the woman several times during the night. The first few times I didn't say anything to her and she didn't seem to recognize me. But one time, on the way back from the bathroom--I made sure it was on the way back--I just couldn't help myself: "Sure is smoky in here," I said. Predictably, the woman screamed at me and ran after me again, but this time I had my key out and ready.
The woman continued to yell about the conspiracy--off and on--until about three in the morning. Then she finally wore herself out, closed her door, and was silent for the rest of the night.
But she was up at the crack of dawn. “Jesus Christ!” I said as I thrashed around in my bed. “This shit’s gonna drive me to drink!” Since I had been up the night before writing--and drinking--her raving hadn’t completely unhinged me then, but it was a different story when I was trying to sleep. I pictured myself strangling her, shaking her by the neck until her body swung limp and her teeth rattled in her skull.
"You may kill me," the woman raved, as if she’d read my thoughts, "but you'd better dispose of my body good, because there'll be a police investigation!"
Well, I thought, at least she seems to have resigned herself to her fate. I only hoped that somebody would hurry up and gas her to death so I could go back to sleep. With any luck, the police wouldn't wake me up for questioning.
And then she started singing God Bless America, over and over again. She was being ironic, of course, and so it was kind of funny, but I would have much rather slept. The woman sang poorly, in a hoarse, throaty cackle, and the joke soon wore thin. Once in a while she would switch to Glory, Glory Hallelujah, and that came as a welcome relief--even though she didn't know all the words.
But then something occurred to me. In her blindness, through the haze of the dimly lit halls, what the old woman glimpsed may not have been the past, but rather the future of the Chelsea. The hotel, like the city itself, was on the verge of a transformation. In a year or two the florescent tubes would be gone, shining new globes in their place, as would the linoleum, replaced by inlaid wood. Soon there wouldn’t be any room for her kind here. Even now, the old bohemians were dying off, or drifting on. Rents were going up. The Chelsea was gradually being gentrified.
The woman seemed determined to sing all day. A jackhammer would have been preferable. A bullet to the head, and then a blissful oblivion.
Giving up on the notion of sleep, I put on my clothes and went out to get a cup of coffee. The woman was leaning against the wall, singing boisterously, but also coughing and sniffling between her verses--probably the result of sleeping with the window open in February.
Along with the coffee, I picked up some beer and cigarettes and a sandwich so I wouldn’t have to go out again.
Back on my floor, the old woman was still in the hallway. I took a better look at her this time. Her hair had come out of its curl and was dangling limply, its gray roots having worked their way up during the night. Her clothes, the same as the day before, were rumpled. Her make-up was smeared, as if she had slept in it. She had quit singing for the moment. She was looking into a small mirror and smearing some kind of black stuff under her eyes. I didn't speak to her, and she showed no signs of recognizing me from the night before. (Next Week: Part IV Another Sort of Hotel) Ed Hamilton, 2006.
Recent Comments