Waylaid (10 page)

That's when I realized that despite everything, I loved being behind the front desk. People did what I told them to. The President could come in and he wouldn't get a room until he filled out a card and paid me.

The hotel was a prison, but at least I was the top dog. Nobody came through until I got my bite.

It was December and the birds didn't sing. Lonely old men stayed in their rooms, fiddling with the television reception. The sun never shone through the cloud cover that would roll in from the ocean. You looked at your watch and looked up to the sky, and you couldn't tell if it was a.m. or p.m. The light that did trickle down turned everything a heavy gray. I was sleepy when I went to bed and sleepy when I got up.

The few johns that came in lacked enthusiasm, acting like they were tossing pocket change at a pay-toll basket. They were a far cry from the anxious and sweaty men with shaky hands who practically humped the counter in the warmer months.

I wasn't feeling so hot to get laid now either. I'd read a joke about having to eat smelly pussies in the January issue of Gent, and it sort of churned my stomach when I thought of Lee Anderson finally opening her legs to me.

Then there was December 7th. I used to worry about that. I heard “jap” a lot on television, backed by blackand-white film. I guess that's where the other kids heard it, too. When they started tagging me with it, I took it as them calling me “fag” and took care of them accordingly.

Vincent had taught me how to dish out shit when I had to.

“You ever knock a guy down,” said Vincent, pointing at the soft skin above my nose and between my eyes, “start jumping on him. Jump on his fucking knees and ankles, man. He'll never walk right again.” I was already bigger than most of the other kids, but it never hurt to know how to shove the knobby end of your wrist into the throat or how to bring that knee into the gut. No one called me “jap” or just plain “chink” anymore to my face.

“Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor?” I asked my mother once.

“Japanese, they were so cruel. They kill Chinese, burn some of them alive,” she said. “They fight on same side as Nazis.”

“How come the racists were on the same side as Japan?”

“Because they wanted to help Japan attack China and kill Chinese.”

“Their country is so small, how could they attack China?”

“Chinese fighting with each other.”

“Why were they fighting each other? You told me Chinese people were smart.”

“Chinese are smartest people in whole world.”

“Then why did they turn communist?” My mother sighed and waved the question away like it was a hungry mosquito.

“Don't ask me that now. I have to clean rooms. Go do your homework.”

“I did my homework already. I'm taking care of the office now.”

“Then take care office.”

“I'm already here.”

“I'm going to clean rooms,” she said again, heading for the cleaning cart. “Don't rent Room 6. Smells really bad. I think we have to shampoo rug.”

Christmas vacation found me in a lethargy, fat from overeating and lack of business at the hotel. My mother gave me extra money when I went to the hardware store so I could pick up some stuff from Finemann's Thrift Bakery on the way home. Maybe a cake or pie could add some holiday cheer to the season.

They didn't do any baking at the thrift “bakery,” but it smelled wonderful. Finemann's actual bakeries were located up and down the Jersey shore, and at the end of the day, what each store hadn't been able to sell would be trucked over to the thrift bakery. That was the law, the woman at the counter told me when I asked why the apple pies were only a dollar apiece.

“My darling little Chinese boy,” she said, rubbing my head and tugging my ears like she was peeling fruit. Jesse, as her name tag read, was about 30 years old with a fiery red swirl of hair. “It's so good to see you again. Do you celebrate the holidays?”

“We celebrate Christmas.”

Jesse tilted her head slightly.

“And how did that happen? You're Chinese, aren't you? Don't you have those holidays with the firecrackers and the dragon dances? You know. That rich, oriental

heritage?”

“I'm an American.”

“Well, you really came from somewhere else, now didn't you?” Jesse's questions reminded me of the first day of school of every year of my life. If she were a boy about my age, I would've broken her face. But she was no boy. Jesse's breasts were ample enough to palm like the pointy ends of two Nerf footballs. Her waist was strangely small for where she worked. Her face was flabby, though. It reminded me of a roll of biscuit dough that had expired and oozed through the diagonal seams of the cardboard can. Other than that, she was a pretty damned sexy slut.

“I'm just looking for some Christmas cookies or cakes,” I said.

“Well, we don't have any. This is a Jewish bakery,” she said, blushing, which made her face look a little better.

Jesse tried to push fluffy, fruity things on me, but I really wanted something heavy and chocolate.

I picked up three pounds of brownies, or what looked like brownies, for $1.25. On the way out, Jesse rubbed my ears again, but gently — even sensually — this time.

“No hat or ear muffs in this cold! And you need a new coat! You're gonna freeze out there like a little bald Buddha!” she said.

“I'll be okay,” I said, switching the heavy sack of salt rock from the hardware store to under my left armpit. When I got on my bike, I balanced the sack on the handlebars and put the box of brownies on top.

On my way home, I had to go around some icy puddles that had formed at the side of the highway. Parts of the roads fell apart in the winter. Our town only patched things up for the Bennys.

I put the brownies on the kitchen table. No one was home again. My mother was nowhere to be seen, and the light in my father's workshop was off.

The kitchen walls were sparsely covered with Christmas cards. Most were from our institutional suppliers and had rubber-stamped signatures. The linen company, the detergent and soaps company, and the locksmiths. Three dark red and gold cards were marked with nervous Chinese scribbles, but I had no idea who'd sent them. The only word they had in English was my name at the top.

I went into the office and sat down behind the front desk. I looked at the calendar under the Marlboro clock and counted the days left in my vacation. Ten and a half. Business at the hotel was at its slowest this time of year. Because of the proximity of Jesus' birth, johns were reluctant to come to the hotel. They were probably at home with their wives, kids, and newly bought presents. The odd john or two who would stagger in each day were the ugliest things you'd ever seen. They probably had nobody at home and no one to buy gifts for. Shame rippled in their eyes when they looked up.

Looking at them, I couldn't help but think that maybe I'd be a john someday. I already had no home and no one I really wanted to buy presents for. Maybe I'd get so desperate to just fuck that I really would end up on the other side of the counter. Years and years from now, I'd be staying here at the weekly rate with the other washed-up men.

Living in these hotel rooms was the worst thing I could imagine. Sleeping on old comestains. Looking at myself everyday in a medicine-cabinet mirror that had cracked from being slammed shut too many times. Keeping my clothes in a desk drawer with a Bible at the bottom. Watching TV with one hand on the antenna because it made the reception better. All that was in my future, assuming I couldn't find a way out.

Our living quarters right now weren't great, but they were a hell of a lot better than the hotel rooms. I was already sleeping on old comestains, though.

I stayed in the office for a little bit, rocking back and forth on the barstool. I opened the cash drawer and fingered the change bin, looking for pennies with wheat stalks on the back. I had a peanut-butter pail filled with them. They were minted from 1909 to 1958 and were worth a lot more than coins with the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse. Also, the U.S. mint redesigned the obverse on the later coins, lowering the profile of Lincoln's bust to make it less subject to wear and tear. I'd found this out from a coin magazine with a feature on penny collecting. I'd studied the chart next to the article, and after a while, I'd memorized the years and mint marks of the scarcest pennies. I was constantly looking for them whenever I came across any change. There was no way the 1955 doubled-die error would get by me.

Positive that no one would walk into the office for at least the next 15 minutes, I snuck back to my room. I flipped through Busty Bitches In Heat, a hard-core magazine. It had still been shrink-wrapped with a “3 For $9.99” sticker when Crispy gave it to me. The pages smelled funny, like ripe bananas, and I had to fold them down to keep the magazine open. I looked at the last page and wondered if cocks tasted as bad as pussy. It was all skin, and not wet, so maybe it didn't. How did come taste? I never wanted to taste my own because it smelled like salty bathroom cleaner.

I was stroking hard when I heard BING! BING! BING!

“Shit, motherfucker!” I said, slipping the magazine into the pillowcase. A john was in the office. This one was different from the others, though.

For one thing, he was dressed in a blue button-down shirt and a sports jacket. All the johns I'd seen before had on t-shirts or big coats that covered even their Adam's apple.

“Do I have to fill out a card?” he asked.

“Please,” I said.

“Isn't this enough of an ID?” he said, opening his wallet. There was a police badge inside. The shine was a lot duller than I thought it should be. “How do you like that for a fucking ID?” he asked quietly. He made no motion to fold up the wallet.

I'd been expecting this day for quite a while now. The cops had probably had one or more undercover guys renting out our rooms the previous week to check out the operation. What was going to happen to me? Since I was a minor, they couldn't charge me with anything. Maybe they'd haul off my parents for endangering the welfare of a child, though. The cops were going to ransack our files, then slit our mattresses and empty the pillowcases so that they could look for drugs or counterfeit money.

When they found my magazines, they'd say, “Look at this little pervert! Can't get laid so he wacks off!” They'd have a few rounds of laughter over that.

I looked at the badge again. It looked like the fender of a car that had just hit me. The man finally closed the wallet and put it away.

“I should get this room for free,” he said. “The other guys get better places than this for free. I'm here because it's the closest hotel right now. Why the fuck they got a little kid to run this joint is beyond me.” I swallowed and slipped him the key to Room 4.

“You adopted or something? Were your parents killed in Vietnam?”

“I'm an American,” I said. He was smiling now.

“Was your dad a soldier or something? Knocked up a little mama-san?”

I must have looked like I was ready to cry.

“I'm only going to be about an hour,” he said, dangling the key like a metal lure.

He turned and was walking away when he suddenly stepped back and dropped a bill on the counter. “You people have Christmas, too, don't you?” he said. The bill had been rolled up and then flattened, like a stepped-on cigarette. I didn't know it was a twenty until after he was gone, when I unrolled it.

My parents came in later that night. My father was in a suit again. My mother was wearing a nice dress with light jewelry. I was used to seeing him in a ratty sweater over a wrinkled undershirt. She usually had on wash-worn sweatpants and a sweatjacket.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“We brought back Chinese food,” my mother said, brandishing a bag that bulged with boxy containers.

“You know I can't eat…” I began.

“I get a lot of sweet-and-sour pork for you,” she said. That was the only Chinese food I could take.

“Where did you go?” I asked my father.

“Some business take care,” he grunted.

I opened the box of fried pork chops and sat in front of the television. A “Happy Days” rerun was on. Arnold was going, “Bah hah hah, Richie! Bah hah hah!” His wide, flat face was pulled back as if someone had him by the hair. It reminded me of what I looked like when I stepped out of the shower and squeezed zits from my chin onto the mirror.