Mark Wagstaff
Burning the Chairs
One of the cheap hotels. Three stars, on someone’s rating. What she saw was a man ill at ease in tight space. Who pushed the door on the glass, not the wood. Who stared at the modest Christmas tree five seconds before looking at her.
What he saw was a nicely broad young woman, round face, big glasses. Who pleasingly didn’t rush to pay him attention. Whose striped shirt stressed all the right motions. Whose badge, bigger than need be, said Jackza.
He wondered how people landed in these backstreet places.
She wondered if he needed direction.
“I don’t have a reservation.” He made it a positive statement, like a thing to avoid from the get-go. “I know it’s late.”
Jackza checked the screen. But that was for show. “We have a single available.”
“I use a double.” Another glance at the tinseled foliage. “You assume I’m alone?”
“We don’t have parking. I see no one outside. How many nights?”
“One night.” He answered her eyes. “No luggage.”
“Spontaneous?”
“Business.”
What she saw, he seemed deep with detail.
“Is it not still November?”
“Our guests like a festive greeting.” She had an interesting voice. Those East European shapes of harsh light against frosted concrete. The cadence of mildewed spires in tourist towns. Fluent enough to survive the last shake out. That inflection, though, the knotty flavor of home that put everything in quote marks.
“They like festive early?”
“We provide the comforts of home. On a budget.” The set up was old, she still had to print the sheet of tight-bundled data. “This is the rate. These are the taxes. Fill your name, address, contact number. You have identification?”
“Identification?”
“We are required. For walk-ups.”
“Because I might be wanted someplace? Because men in sweat stains and baffled expressions might have done mileage to find me?” He was satisfied with her smile.
“We stay the right side of the rules. That is good for us all.” What she saw, he took time filling the form, like its questions were a surprise. He made physical business clutching the pen, compressing his moves to feed ink to lines and boxes. Rabid tension across his shoulders barely contained by that coat. From a cold climate, she knew the measure of warm material. “You pay digitally?”
“There another way? Is cash possible?”
“We are not equipped.”
With a show of cramp he signed the line. “Well, that’s a pity. I could pay cash.”
“We have no facilities for it.”
“I pay cash in your hand.” He saw eyes green as the sea.
She saw weariness and caution. “What would I do with that?” When she woke the keycard it gave a small shiver, as though dismayed at this late hour.
For a fraction of time, they shared a touch through its plastic. “If I want something to eat?”
“We have no facilities for it. There’s a bar down the block.”
“I saw. It’s a dump.”
“It’s only one night, Mr. Richards.”
“Jerry. Says Jerry right there.”
“Third floor. Left from the elevator and keep going.”
“I’ll be back presently.”
“There’s no rush.”
What he saw, a room that hadn’t been painted a while. Perhaps cleaned, the carpet bore vacuum scars. But fittings so old, so grimed with wear, cleaning could make no difference. The door to the safe was loose. It rattled as he walked by. Took ten minutes of spit and wadding to chew a paste from the vanity tissues, for makeshift cement to hold the door steady. Once he shut the window and smelled the damp he knew why it was left open. But the night was cold and with machine noise from neighbor yards, the smell was a lesser inconvenience. He cranked the heat and the old pipes seethed and whistled. The shower stall floor was yellow and it pleased him, like always, to see stray hairs by the drain. A sense of connection to those before. A legacy to those after.
By malevolence or stupidity the toilet seat was set skew, bolted to the ceramic at a comical angle, so to sit on it squeezed one leg to the wall. No sense to it, the bathroom had space enough, the pipes weren’t intruding. The seat could have been fitted normally from the start or adjusted later. The task poorly-finished, no doubt with a trail of complaints about it unactioned. He wondered how anyone could think they achieved a good job with it. Or maybe, in all sincerity, they didn’t care. That would be better. The TV’s glowing standby light watched him. Maybe a camera, easy to hide, picking up smut from these casual sleeping arrangements. “Is that right?” he asked the red beam. “Is that factual?”
Heading back to the lobby, the elevator smell more apparent. An accident of polish and grease and spilled sugar drink: a child’s, or adult that drank like a child. Sickly, becoming synthetic.
She was still there. Still busy with not much. “Jackza?”
“Jerry?”
That was familiar, that rise, that spit of light on her chin. “I’ll be at that bar. Two drinks, if that. Do you arrange connection?” Whenever he said it, it tasted like dirt he ate as a kid. Dumb and curious. Wanting to taste the whole world. His mom, with her hair down over her shoulders, leaving flesh wounds of love and despair.
Jackza had options in this situation. Play the foreigner, that was a strike. Not knowing the language, not knowing where to begin. But she couldn’t deny what cost her so much to acquire. “I think the bar may be better for that.”
Her solidity brought him, unexpected and unasked, a hopelessness, a cold mist through his skin. “These bars, they’re not always clean, you know.”
What to tell him? His discomfort annoyed her. Sympathy was for mothers. “We have no facilities for it.”
“But you know people.” He wasn’t used to his voice landing so dead. Irreligious, almost, spitting chewed dirt on his aesthetic. He deserved that shrug of her wide shoulders. That look she gave him.
“We are a small establishment. For one night. Two nights. For business sleep. Convenience. Not this.”
If he said, ‘How is this not convenience?’ he’d complete her picture of him as an apparition of night, desperate for substance to fill his frame. That he asked at all was already listed among the failings his mom – her shoulders bare, with intimate light in her hollows – told him would stalk his life if he didn’t fix up. Circles of glass cased Jackza’s face, her hair gabled across thin plastic. “I understand,” he said. Though understanding fixed nothing.
In meager, dead end November, the bar’s few takers were tenants of one night hotels. They drank and talked, unwillingly, with strangers. The women were all civilians.
Again, stunted festivity – in hanging chains, in fiery scenes of hoodwinked hospitality – dutiful and painted-on, not eager but premature. Too quiet for staff, the older man working bar most likely the owner. Jerry Richards recognized and hated the man’s despondency. “I’ll take a draft. Whatever’s strong.”
Suds bellied over the glass. “You starting a tab?” Roughly, the landlord tried a friendly maneuver.
“It’s late.” Cold sweetness, empty carbon, riled him. “In fact, I’m looking more for professional input.” He frowned at the landlord’s blank face. “Connection.”
Gesturing round the bar, plain the man disliked all he saw. “I can’t tell you what we got here. You see this? It’s not your requirements.”
This moment came too soon. With too little endeavor. Jerry slid cash across the stains. “That do to make things happen?”
“You can’t land it yourself?”
“It’s late. I’ll take that second beer.” Waiting, he skimmed his phone. He had business, genuine reasons. The morning would come, he’d dress and go. No luggage, no onward itinerary. But this moment, this would stay. Set in the walls, seeped with dregs in the cellar. These opportunities, stark and resistant, sank as each day diminished. Where once was grandeur, now was routine.
“Where shall I say?” The bar owner stomped out to find him, a heavy tread as though gaining weight with each step. The phone patterned his face with uplight.
“The hotel by here. How long am I waiting?”
“Long enough to spend money.”
Jerry would have been satisfied with a shift change. But Jackza was the all-night welcome, keeping sharp with zombie movies. If anyone asked why she watched that stuff, she said to remember home. Nearly, she asked if he had his two drinks, if that. But this man wouldn’t play. Just a cordial greeting, the receptionist standard. He hesitated at the counter. She paused a bloody wound ripped wide. It refreshed her.
“Someone may call for me soon.” He didn’t want to sound certain of it. These guys in bars worked grifts. “If they get here, call my number.”
“Your number?”
“On that piece of paper. My number. It’s important I see them.”
“Connection?
“You know it.”
Just past the point where the hero takes vengeance for the death of a friend, the survivors still in peril, a middle-aged woman, dressed young, tired-looking, twitchily jangled the door. She glared at the Christmas tree.
Jackza paused a scene of flight, blurred figures slicking the screen. The warmth she felt for this woman held her voice low. Back home she sang contralto in the church choir, appreciated for her tender, masculine sound. She hadn’t sung in anger for years.
The woman approached the counter with reluctant fervor, eager for something important she didn’t want to share. “I have a meeting,” she spoke jagged. “Mr. Richards. I think he stays here?”
“Jerry Richards?” Jackza, thinking how she looked, the light of screens on her pale skin. “He just got back. He said to expect an associate.”
The woman seemed knee-deep in nettles. Her mouth chewed air. “Yes, I have an appointment with Mr. Richards. Business, you see that.”
“Always be closing.”
“Pardon?”
“I saw that in a film. Always be closing. I learn much English from films.”
“Your English is very good.” The woman slapped stinging bugs from her arms. “Where do I find Mr. Richards?”
“Yes, it would be best to tell him you’re here.” Needlessly, Jackza shuffled papers. “I have his number. I’ll call.”
“I’ll call.”
“It’s no trouble. Who shall I tell him?”
Robotic, the woman’s head pivoted, her neck racking tongues of flesh. “The decorations, they some corporate thing? It seems early.”
“We get into the spirit. Our guests appreciate the season.”
Red nails, chewed and sharpened, tapped the laminate. “You work Christmas Day? Here, with whoever’s staying? Who stays here on Christmas?”
“Many people.” Jackza shifted up. “People can’t be home. They need to travel. We make festive, everyone welcome. I will be here. Who shall I tell Mr. Richards?”
“Tell him Misty.”
Pleased she held her mouth on that, as system noise told Jackza Jerry Richards stalled on taking that call. Wary not to seem keen. When he answered, his voice was steamed, like he filled with air too fast. “I have your business here.” Jackza made it pretty. “It is Misty. Shall I send her up?”
“Misty?”
“It is.”
“Please ask her to my room.”
He’d rush. Jackza could see it. Tidy his clothes, brush the thin blanket smooth. Sweeten his beer breath. Make the toilet bowl clean as it could be. He might make a joke of the off-kilter seat. They all noticed, who stayed in that room. No matter how experienced the man, they suffered doubts. Jackza felt sorry for them. What would Jerry do, what would any of them do, among zombies?
That embarrassing wait for the elevator. She watched Misty on camera. A woman old as Jackza’s mother, that pained, striving female. Jackza had seen things in the rooms, but always the hotel was hers. Not this nomadic life: new places, new voices and hands, all the same. What would Misty remember, except the carpet was tired and headboard came loose? Jackza unfroze the movie. Zombies never learned.
Jerry wedged the door, so she’d not have to knock. His courtesy pleased him. And it meant she could find him arranged to some advantage, in the sagging armchair, checking reports. Casualness spoke of affluence, that unconcern for discovery that said a man was paid in full. Not true. Not yet. But should be.
She gauged the room like a supplicant at the wrong church, trying to see it all at once, despairing of the familiar. She kept one thigh, one leg and foot, out the door. Someone just mildly curious.
He waved her in and kept her on the end of those fingers, maneuvering her without touch. She found the edge of the bed with the back of her knees. It jolted when she sat. Long ago in another city, Jerry Richards, one Ash Wednesday morning, swam in a crowd replete with ritual. Women with crosses of ash on their skin, mouths babbling redemption. Fervid ill-ease, and so this woman. Her pattern keen as religion. “The lobby girl said Misty.”
From habit, maybe, of doing this well, Misty lifted corkscrew hair back over one ear. The intention seductive, her skin geographic. “It expresses me. Mysterious. But revealing close-to. The magic you half-perceive.”
“It’s pretty. The bar guy said you work rate.”
“You want to close now?”
He felt no reason why she should look puzzled.
“I mean, we could talk some. It’s girlfriend experience.”
“You give in the end.”
She pinched her knees something dainty. “Some guys like call-and-response.”
“I don’t.” He stood, then realized he had nowhere to move to. Absurdly taller than her, his arms hung dead, real zombie. “I don’t want your whole night.”
“I’m on call. You want the rate?”
He backed to the inadequate desk, rearranged stuff, to give reasons for motion. “I want to know what I’m in for.” Not that he cared for the money and her price points were a fair median of the market. For that city. That time of night. On call. “You need cash with this?”
She scowled, like he suggested her shoes were a season late. “It’s all through the connected worker app. I got nowhere for bills in this blouse.”
A few swipes the transaction was done. “Let’s get started.”
“You want lip-locking first? Close holding?”
“I’m okay if we just get on.” An hour went too fast. A new day spawned through the digits. That crank on the desk would still be streaming her blood shows. Sweet shift, paid to watch movies all night. Morning would bring things to do. Already, he was late.
“Some guys like a mood.”
“Some guys like coleslaw.”
They got started and worked her options for two solid hours. Strong, with surprising agility, Misty could pull a head of steam, more than her light frame and distracted manner suggested. She got respectable mileage out of him and didn’t complain at anything.
Long ago, when he started nights like these, they’d share a cigarette after. Now people only smoked fruit pipes the scope of chivalry was diminished. He made coffee on the little machine. But the water was gritty and not hot enough and the blend in the pack was sour. He could order in coffee. But silence against the window drew the night off-limits. Who knew what tedious dangers might waylay the delivery boy.
He got dressed and told her she couldn’t, playing at power. It had less endurance than stains round the sink. “What you do with your Christmas?”
She rotated the cup, pulling noise from the saucer. “I’m on call. It’s a busy time. Men get cooped with family. Stacks blow if they’re not vented.”
“You understand that.”
“Men need an outlet. You don’t lock a dog in the house. Does the heat in here work any better?”
The radiator’s failing warmth no challenge to his skin. “Maybe they switch it down at the main.”
“Just when you need it.” Light from her phone trawled blue veins through her chest. “I have a three a.m. Close by here. Maybe they have heat.”
“I can speak to the desk.”
“I doubt she’s concerned. See? My skin puckers all here. These bumps. I always had this.”
He stewed more coffee. “It’s vile but it’s warm.”
“I grew with cold. You have sugar for this? It’s nearly okay with sugar. When I was a kid we were always cold. We had a big house. Big and cold. There never was heat.”
Not what he wanted, this talk about stuff. They should do their job, drink their coffee and leave, not talk about stuff. “Your parents say it was good for you? Some kind of strict observance?” Next time he’d specify one with no stories.
“They should have had money. There was some, before.” She folded empty sugar packs in a neat shape. Soon as she set them down they unraveled. “Alcoholics. That’s the start and end of it. Nobody cared, there’d been drunks in the family forever. It went with money and a big, cold house. Hard working, hard drinking. Till work faded out. Each drunk year they made a new baby they couldn’t pay for. I only had summer clothes because girls look pretty in summer. I’d go grifting coins in the park. That was my start in this business. One day I got home, they were burning the chairs.”
Grotesque, that stillness, the hiss of cold pipes, her voice on and on. Her body perked but off-rate. She should get dressed. It was too late to give her permission. He should dump her outside, sling her down the hall. This was madness. “They did what?”
“The gas was off. The bill not paid. Always someone chasing for money. And dad was drunk and invincible. So he cleared the grate and got burning the chairs. Mom broke them up. She could swing an ax. These chairs that her mother and grandmother oiled and polished and flattered with lace. Best parlor chairs, grandma once said. Chairs to make visitors royal. Twenty minutes they were chopped to bits. They didn’t burn well. The rot was in. There was no heat.”
“When did you start working rate?”
“When I realized there’d never be heat.” Frowning, she picked at the phone screen. “I have a three a.m.”
“You getting dressed before you leave?”
“You want that I don’t?”
“You do that?”
“It’s all on the rate card.” But she hitched her lingerie.
This floored him, this waiting for them to go. Misty went better than most. A quick dresser, she fixed her makeup and hair without fuss. She didn’t say, ‘When you’re next in town’, none of that crap. But she used the bathroom and that kept him waiting. And there was nowhere to move in the poky room and nothing to hear but darkness.
“You should complain, with that seat in there.”
“It was put in wrong.”
“It’s ridiculous. I nearly peed the floor with that stupid angle.”
Making game of their dying seconds, he said, “I should ask if that’s on the rate card.”
Her bag slung neat from her shoulder. “Everything’s on the rate card.”
Hallway light painted her with tense, spiny glamour. He’d not seen her walk, not properly. She moved like distance was nothing. “What happened to them? Your parents.”
The elevator was right there waiting. “Me.”
Under a lamp that was only off or on, Jerry Richards saw the future. Each day, each year stretching to cemetery road. He’d continue in this fashion as long as money and health allowed. He’d settle only when a reason to settle became compelling. If he had to buy furniture, chairs and such, he’d get steel.
No one believed how many zombie movies. Hundreds, thousands maybe. She never minded watching a movie again. Always something refreshing, some gore, some necessary humiliation of the dumb humans. Without checking the security feed, Jackza knew that woman was in the elevator. Who else would it be? Nothing was open and guests had early calls. “You have a satisfactory meeting?” She liked how she knew English so well, she could mess with the verbs to sound artless.
This Misty – why such names? – saw no need to conceal her resentment. “We made progress. You have a good evening watching cartoons?”
“I am in charge here.”
“Nice for you.”
“Can I get you a cab? There are dangers at night.”
Misty gripped the counter, staring at the over-big name badge. “Jackza? That it? What you think those dangers are? Some crowd of rabid sub-humans might pull me apart and eat my brains? You think that’s the risk?”
Those glasses came off nearly never. A sacrament, unhitching them from her ears. Her eyes stained with nights awake. With awful attention. “I think that is exactly the risk.”
“Then I’ll walk.”
Mark Wagstaff’s work has appeared in The New Guard, Open Doors Review, Abraxas Review and Shorts Magazine. He won the 39th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest with off-kilter romcom Attack of the Lonely Heart' published by Anvil Press. Mark’s latest novel On the Level was published in 2022 through Leaf by Leaf, an imprint of Cinnamon Press. www.markwagstaff.com
