Part IV: Another Sort Of Hotel (Parts I, II, & III)
The old woman wore herself out early from singing all day, and went into her room and closed the door at about nine o'clock that evening. I was still pissed off about having been deprived of sleep. By this point I was so angry, in fact, that I couldn’t even write once it was quiet. As the night wore on, all I could think of was revenge. At about midnight I threw open my window and stuck my head out to see if I could see into the woman’s room. Her lights were out and there was no sound coming from within. No smell of gas either. If I had had a smoke bomb, I would have heaved it in through the woman’s window. I've got to remember to keep some of those suckers on hand.
I thought about dressing all in black and going over there to perform an exorcism, but I would have needed a suitable text, and I had sold off most of my books before I moved into my closet at the Chelsea.
Anyway, I had a better idea. I drained my beer for courage and headed out into the hall. I got 
the fire extinguisher down off its hook, walked over to the crazy woman's door, and banged on it good and hard. Harder than necessary. It was taking her a while to answer, so I banged some more. She appeared at the door in her bath robe, with her coat over the top of it. A blast of cold air hit me in the face.
"What the hell?!" she screamed, her eyes darting back and forth. "Who are you?!"
I held the fire extinguisher in one hand and the hose in the other. "I'm the exterminator," I said.
For just a moment, her face showed terror. "What?! What do you want?!"
"I'm here to spray your room."
The woman just totally went off: fucking this and fucking that. I thought she was fucking going to attack me for a minute, the way she was thrashing her arms around. I got away from her quick, almost running. The time I took to hang up the fire extinguisher probably would have given her a chance to catch me, but something must have given her pause. She just screamed; she didn't chase.
And really, I don’t know what she had to complain about. You'd think she would have appreciated this independent confirmation for her theory. But maybe she just hated her late husband, the exterminator, so much that she couldn’t bear to be reminded of him. Poor man, at least now he's at rest. For the second night in a row, the woman screamed long into the night.
After riling up the crazy woman, I didn’t get much sleep that night. But I still felt it was worth it. I finally drifted off, chuckling to myself, near dawn.
I was awakened not long after by a sharp rap at my door. It was the manager, Mr. Lovano. I don't think the crazy woman had fingered me, but he had somehow put two and two together. "What did you do to that woman last night?" he asked. "Did you threaten her, or what?"
"Oh, hell no,” I said. “I just said I was the exterminator."
Mr. Lovano didn’t seem angry. If anything, he seemed slightly amused. Still, he shook his head in disbelief, and said, "Thanks a lot. We had just gotten her settled down."
"No problem," I said. And then, standing there in my boxer shorts, still groggy, an idea occurred to me. “You know, maybe we should get an exterminator. The mice don’t bother me so 
much, but the roaches are all over the place.”
“Every building in New York has roaches,” Mr. Lovano said. “Get some of those hotels.”
“What?” I said, not comprehending at all.
“Those hotels. You know, some of those roach hotels.”
They got rid of the old woman when her week ran out. I was surprised: I thought she was going to be one of those who barricade themselves in their rooms and refuse to leave. We get a lot of those cases around here, people who they just keep on gassing, but who never seem to take the hint. Anyway, she went on her way to cause trouble elsewhere: hopefully, to the nuthouse, but most likely just back to the good ol’ Harold Johnson's. (Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton)
Recent Comments