by Ed Lin
“Jerk kid!”
“Frank’s going to Los Angeles,” my mother said.
“Hope you die on the way,” I muttered as Frank limped out the door.
“Why did you kiss him!” I shouted as soon as he’d gone. My mother looked stunned, taken aback by her son yelling at her.
“He has cancer!” she said. “He lift his neck and show me all tumors on his throat. It look disgusting!”
“But why did you kiss him!” I yelled again. My anger surprised me. This time, she frowned and waved her hand at me.
“Don’t bother me! I work hard all day! Who buys clothes for you? Who buys food for you? You owe me everything! You stupid!” At that moment, I thought about my father. Where was he? In the workshop? Under the hotel?
I found him sitting on the steps at the entrance to the crawlspace. His left hand was wrapped in a wet towel.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“I thought pipe was cooled down, but it wasn’t.” He unwrapped the towel and showed me an angry red slash across his palm.
He shook his head and wrapped his hand up again.
“You know, ah, I just saw mom kiss a customer. In the office.”
“That’s part of business. Doesn’t matter to me. Down here is where man’s job is. I have to replace plumbing circuit. I have to replace all electrical wires. Then all floors have to be replaced.”
“All of them?”
“All.” He thought for a minute. “When you get older and help fix more things, it will be better.”
For homework that night, I had to write a creative essay on how spring was coming in, like a lamb or like a lion. I said it was coming in like a lion because people were getting meaner.
At about 10 p.m., Lee Anderson called the hotel to talk to me. We only had that one phone line, and my parents were concerned about potential business lost, so they listened in on all my conversations with extreme scrutiny. There was no privacy in the living quarters and the phone cord only stretched from the end of the couch to behind the office desk.
“Tell me you love me,” Lee said. She was talking on the extension in her own room. My parents would never understand paying for more than one phone per family.
“I love you,” I mumbled quickly.
“You’re only saying that because I told you to.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Do you always have to work on the weekend?”
“I have to work here every day. Weekends are the worst.”
“I can come over there. My brother can drop me off.”
“Hey, I gave you a chance. My parents are almost always here.”
“So what?”
“We can’t do anything.”
“We can just hang out or something.”
“There’s nothing to do here.”
“We could go see a movie. I want to see ‘Psycho 2.’”
“I can’t go anywhere. I have to help out here.”
“Just for a few hours.”
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Are you ashamed of me or something? Am I not good enough for you?” she asked.
“It’s my parents,” I said, curling my entire body around the receiver to muffle as much sound as possible. “They’re weird about some things…”
“They want you to have a Chinese girlfriend, right?”
“They don’t want me to have any girlfriend at all. Not until college.”
“That’s weird.”
“I know, they’re really weird people.”
“So you should tell them you love me.”
“I don’t even love them.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. That sound funny to you?”
“Yeah, it does. But I’m sure they love you.”
“Lee, Chinese people don’t care about anybody else.”
“You only want to fuck me.”
“That’s not true.”
“All these older boys try to pick me up after school, but I tell them I have a boyfriend.”
“Well, if I’m your boyfriend, shouldn’t you fuck me?”
“You’re not being very romantic,” she said and hung up.
When I got into school the next day, I ripped out a piece of paper from my spiral notebook and wrote “LEE I LOVE YOU” on it inside a lopsided heart. I folded it twice and slipped it into the upper vent of her locker. The note was ugly and stupid, but it worked. Later that day, we hugged in a stairwell and I squeezed her ass. I wondered how long it would be before I got her in bed. Thinking about the hand job from Anne-Marie didn’t even get me hard anymore. I had to go to the next level.
I was getting off the bus at the hotel one day when some kid leaned out the window and yelled, “Have a Happy Easter!”
I yelled back, “Shut up, faggot!”
I got about halfway up the driveway when a big Fairlaine pulled up next to me. Roy leaned out of the driver’s window and waved me over. I went over to him, but he said, “No, get in the car!”
I went around to the passenger’s side and got in.
“What was that you yelled at the boy on the bus?” asked Roy, after I closed the door.
“I called him a faggot.”
“Why did you call him a faggot?”
“Because he told me Happy Easter.”
“Easter’s about a month away.”
“He was making a joke, because Chinese people have teeth like Easter bunnies.”
“They do, don’t they?” he said, smiling. “So anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye. I’m going.”
“Yeah, sorry the room rates went back up.”
“Oh, no, it’s a good thing. This will get me on my way again. I don’t want to get too comfortable anywhere.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“Anywhere I want.”
“Where’s that?”
“You know, you got a speech problem. You always end everything with a question mark.”
“Just asking.”
“I packed everything into the car and checked out with your mother this morning. And then I waited in this car all afternoon just so I could say goodbye to you.”
I was stunned. No one ever went out of their way to do anything for me, let alone say goodbye.
“How come?”
“Because I worry about you, little man. You can’t stand up for yourself in a snowball fight. You going around calling people faggots and talking about getting laid and everything. Just remember, if you have sex, wear a condom. I’m warning you.”
“I thought you said sex complicates everything.”
Roy heaved a heavy sigh. “You know, I left a son in Vietnam. His mother is a really wonderful woman. He’s a few years younger than you. But I think about him when I see you.”
“Does he look like me?”
“I haven’t seen him in a while. His mother, too.”
“Maybe you should bring them here.”
“I’ve got a wife here.”
“You’re married?”
“In the process of getting unmarried. This is what I meant about things getting complicated…” He trailed off.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you later, Roy,” I said, putting a hand on the door latch.
“Wait, let me give you a ride down to the office.”
“It’s like a hundred feet away.”
“Please, let me. Least I can do.”
He drove me down to the office and watched me get out. Then his car turned slowly and he was gone.
With the spring thaw, the flow of johns came back to the hotel in full force. Ten to 15 pulled in and out a night.
“How much for a couple of hours?” asked one john.
“Twenty.”
“It’s worth it to get laid, isn’t it?” he asked. Not getting a reply from me, he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Isn’t it worth it?” he asked again.
“Yeah, sure it is,” I said. When I cleaned out his room later. The bed hadn’t been touched. It must have been o
ne of those quickies on the floor. He left an unopened bottle of St. Pauli Girl in the bathtub, though. The label was wrinkled and peeling off. I wondered if getting drunk was like having sex.
I sat on the unmade bed and took my rubber gloves off, then opened the bottle and took a swig. It was warm and tasted lousy, like the bitter barley tea I once drank by accident when I found it in the fridge. Still, I drank the whole thing. I felt my face flush up. A rushing sound blocked out my hearing. I lay back on the dirty bed, waiting to feel something good, but it didn’t even feel as good as jerking off. I fell asleep for about an hour on that hotel bed.
“Hey, you!” It was the head Benny on the phone.
“Hey, Vincent!”
“What’s up there, you horny little bastard?”
“What’s going on?”
“Yeah, well, I was wondering if you had, uh, if you could let me stay down there for a few days. I gotta get out of town, you know?”
“What?”
“Some guy’s after me because I fucked his sister. I didn’t force her, or nothing. She was drunk, I was drunk.
You understand, my man?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“I knew you would, that’s why I’m glad I got you on the phone and not your parents. We got that between us. You’re my best friend down there. You can just slip me a room key and not charge me, right? I’m a little short on the moolah right now.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. My mother and father would blast through the roof like a two-stage space rocket if they knew I was giving a room away. “How long are you going to stay?”
“Just a couple of weeks. Gimme a room near the end so people don’t see me coming in and out. I’m gonna be down there late on Friday night. The car’s in the shop, so I’m gonna take the train down.”
“Okay,” I said, just then realizing that he’d talked his way into getting a free room.
But Vincent never showed up that Friday night. I was sitting behind the desk, reading “A Modest Proposal” in my school literature book, when the police came in. There were two of them. One was tall and gaunt and kept his hands in his pockets. The other had a broken nose and a wide frame. They both looked sleepy and shuffled around the office like they were looking for a place to lie down.
“Hey kid, you got a Vincent Bruno staying here?” asked the gaunt cop.
“No,” I said quickly, feeling my heart race. I was having flashbacks to the other cop who’d stopped by.
“Can I get a look at the registration cards?” I handed them over, even though I knew the police were supposed to have a search warrant to see them. Gaunt Cop flipped through the cards, holding them at an angle so Broken Nose could see them, too. Broken Nose shook his head at each card.
“Okay, thanks,” said Gaunt Cop, handing the cards back. “He stays here in the summer, right?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling like I’d just betrayed Vincent, the only person who would play Atari with me. “What did he do?” The cops looked at each other.
“Scumbag’s a rapist,” Broken Nose said, ending his sentence with a loud yawn.
“Oh,” I said.
“Kid like you shouldn’t be working here,” Broken Nose said, looking around at the far corners of the office ceiling.
“My parents own this place.”
“That’s real good,” Broken Nose said, smirking and glancing at Gaunt Cop. “That’s real good,” he said again.
“If this guy shows up, give us a call. We’ll be back,” Gaunt Cop said, ignoring Broken Nose’s comments.
“I’m not fucking around,” said Broken Nose. “You pick up that phone and call when you see him.” The office door closed with a sharp click behind them. I watched their car pull out to see if they would flash their red and blue lights, but they didn’t.
Half an hour later, I was renting out another room to a john.
It wasn’t until the end of April that Lee Anderson touched my hard-on with her hands. She would let me push it against her pussy or her hip, but then I got behind her in the teacher’s lounge. I pushed it between her ass cheeks, which were well-defined in those tight Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.
“Oh!” she yelped, turning and kissing me. She put her arms around my waist, but I grabbed her left hand and put it on my cock. “Gee, that’s pretty hard,” she said.
“Rub it,” I said. She giggled and withdrew. “I wish you could blow me here.”
“What!”
“I’ve never had a blow job,” I said.
“I’ve never given one,” she said.
“Always a first time.”
“Maybe we should go to college together, then we could live in the same apartment. My sister does that with her boyfriend.” Then her voice faltered. “You know, I’m moving in the summer.”
“To where?” I asked, shocked.
“California.” In a soft voice she added, “My dad lost his job. We’re going to move in with my uncle.”
“God…California…”
“We could meet again in college. We’ll go to the same place. We could cook together, too. Wouldn’t that be fun? I love cooking.”
“What about…you know?”
“I know…” she said.
“Well, how about before you leave?” I asked.
“I don’t want to…I need to watch my reputation.” She sighed. “I think you’re the cutest thing and of course I love you. You know, I just need some more time.” I placed a hand on each of her breasts.
“I think you’re the perfect girl,” I told her. She blushed.
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said, squeezing her tits. “Really.” Two more months and she’d be in California. I only had two more months.
Memorial Day weekend was a few weeks away, which meant it was time to tidy up the doorstep and shake out the rugs for the return of the Bennys.
I was killing time between errands at the hardware store and buying groceries, and as I walked down to the end of the boardwalk and back, I inhaled deeply. It smelled like salt and booze.
Tractors on the beach dragged what looked like huge rakes across the sands, clearing away planks of driftwood, garbage, and dead horseshoe crabs that had washed up during the stormy spring months. Crews hammered new planks onto the boardwalk. Watching them work made me think of Mitchell Cone’s father.
The boardwalk stands had reopened, and newly hired barkers would practice the patter that would lure Benny men into their stalls to buy softballs and break plates. Two-foot high stuffed Smurfs formed a first line of defense around the stands. Smaller Smurfs and fake animals covered the back walls. They tricked you into thinking you could win the big Smurfs with one fifty-cent try, but you had to win five times — break 15 plates — to get one. With only one win, you’d never get more than a keychain. All the stands had their sucker angle. The water gun relays, the go-fish pond, the rubber frog leap, and the no-frills quarter toss. You could never get the best prize with only one shot, no matter how good you were.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” screeched the seagulls.
When I got to the supermarket, I saw that they’d already stacked Styrofoam coolers to the ceiling. They loomed like monoliths from a primitive culture. Bags of ice pushed the popsicles and ice cream down into a lone shelf in the freezer. It was going to be another big summer, a real scorcher. Even the gas stations were stocking suntan lotion. Another season to make money.
The big three-day Memorial Day weekend was getting closer. “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend,” by Loverboy was getting heavy airplay. We reopened the entire hotel. Rooms that had been shut all winter and spring had to be aired out.
I walked from room to room with an ice bucket filled with keys and a clipboard. I checked the keys to each room, marking down if there were one or two beds in it and making sure the television worked. If a room smelled funny, I would close the toilet lid, stand on it, and crack open the bathroom window.
Then it was here. You could feel the buzz of leased
Pontiacs driving south from the city. All the rooms were gone by 8 p.m. on Friday, even at our inflated prices. Friday and Saturday night were $50 each, but if you took Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, you only had to pay $40 per night.
Two women signing in for a room asked me if there were a lot of singles in town.
I said I didn’t know. They were both nearly blind drunk and had stumbled into the office out of their car, leaving the doors open and the headlights on. One had a flabby face that she tried to diminish with mounds of teased brown hair. The other was a cute blonde with black eyebrows. That meant her pussy hair was black, too.
“Are you single?” asked the flabby one while the blonde giggled. “I was thinking maybe we could we do something about the price? Maybe we could find some way to lower it.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t go any lower,” I said.
“I mean I could go lower. You know? I mean all the way down,” said the flabby one. “Both of us would,” she said, her pointed finger spinning in the air. She looked anxious.
This was Love Letters material. It wasn’t the first time I’d been offered sex, but it was the first time it had happened with girls I’d take the offer up with. Two drunk women giving me head at the same time, passing it back and forth between them.
But something was wrong. The blonde was shaking her head.
“I don’t wanna…Chinaman! They got small dicks. Jesus, small dicks!” she whined. A look of alarm washed over the flabby woman’s face.
“She’s drunk, already, she won’t even care! She doesn’t care!” she said. But it killed the moment for me. The blonde was the one I really wanted.
“That’s $127.20 for the three days, with the tax,” I said. Their American Express card didn’t go through, but the flabby girl handed me a Visa card that was approved. I scrawled the acceptance number on the form. I got the signature from the flabby girl while the blonde frowned.
“You can’t sign for my card,” she said.
“I just did,” said the flabby girl. The signature was close enough, and I gave her the receipt and the carbons.
My mother had tried to call Nancy to ask if she could come back to clean rooms, but the number didn’t work anymore. My mother ended up hiring two high-school girls. On Monday, she started training the girls how to clean rooms. By then, most of the rooms had checked out already, though some Bennys were still hanging out in the parking lot, sitting on their car bumpers and trying to finish the rest of their beer before hitting the road.