by Peter Besson
It was as if the room were waiting. For the next step. For what was to come.
Huntley stood at the open door, knob in hand, his gaze sweeping across the room.
It was as it should be.
An empty room.
Unchanged.
He closed the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
O LOVE
Nikki went back one last time to Hotel Terminus. She’d wanted to thank Huntley, tell him about how life was now that Ansel had, in a way, rebooted, but she was told by the new concierge that Huntley had left not long after he’d come back from Port City. No one knew where he’d gone. They’d tried to reach him, but messages went unanswered. Morton had made the trek out to where Huntley lived, hoping to bring him back to the hotel and restore some semblance of what it had been before, but he found Huntley’s house empty, the mailbox overflowing. It was as if he’d packed up everything and simply vanished, from one day to the next.
When she’d stepped inside, Nikki almost hadn’t recognized the hotel. It had transformed from the steadily crumbling shadow of itself into a bustling center of activity. The entrance hall was a confusion of people coming and going. There was scaffolding everywhere. The walls gleamed with a new coat of paint. Workers in overalls were patching up holes in the walls and ceilings. Electricians ran cables to and fro. When she’d checked Ansel’s room, it had been open, and workers were hanging a new chandelier into the ceiling.
The whole hotel was in the process of renovation, and it sparkled and shone with new pride.
On the way out, Nikki stopped in the lobby to take one last look at the place she’d come to end it all, which now, like herself, seemed to have found new life, and she saw a familiar face. He was sitting at the bar, or rather, slumped over, holding on with one hand, the other clutching a drink.
Henry.
Drunk.
“Hello, Henry.”
His head swung around, overshot, then wobbled back into place. His eyes tried to focus, but since they were drowning in alcohol, they settled on blurry double vision. “I know you,” he slurred.
“Nikki. Nikki Forlan.”
“Mmmmmhhhh.” He took another sip as if that would jog his memory. “Did we do it?”
“Take care, Henry.” She was about to turn around when he grabbed her elbow.
“Hang on. Didn’t mean it. I’m…” His hand gestured vaguely in the air, describing absolutely nothing.
“Drunk?” she asked helpfully.
“As a fucking skunk.”
“Glad to see you haven’t changed. Not like this place here.”
“This?” Again, the useless flapping of hands. “It’s a fucking circus is what it is. Ever since that Ansel… whaddwas his name? Grayson left. Did he leave? I don’t remember.”
“He’s gone, Henry.”
“That’s what I said. Ever since he’s gone, things’ve been different. They tell me I can leave now. They tell me I can have a say.” He burped. “Fuck if I care. Do what you want’n let me be. S’long as you fill’er up, I’m good.” He shook his empty glass at the bartender and got a prompt refill. “One thing though…” He snorted with suppressed laughter. “I’s glad to see that sidewinder Morton almost cry. We’d had ’nother one of those meetings that popped up out of nowhere. I’s meeting with a bottle at the same time so I didn’t mind all that much. Someone decided… who I don’t remember—I think it was a girl. No, a man. Whatever. Thought it’d be a good idea to clean up this shithole, and Morton, he’s sitting there, in the back, sweating, crying. Tried to tell us it’ll all be too expensive—‘who’s gonna pay for this and that?’ he said. I don’t know, ’n I don’t care. I jus’ liked seeing Morton blabbering that way, so I voted, or at least I think I did, for renovations. We all did. There’s panic in his eyes when he knew it’d take all the money he used to pocket. Oh, I know he got rich off everybody. Had his grubby fingers in everything. But I heard he’s in it deep now. On the hook for all kinds of debt.”
Nikki had been smiling through Henry’s recollection. Served Morton right. She could picture him, sitting in his office, watching the money that used to be his drain from his bank account. Whatever dream he’d had, whatever shiny future he’d foreseen, it had all turned to ash. Well, if he didn’t like it, he could always check out. The thought made her smile even wider.
“Makes me happy too,” Henry slurred. “Never liked the smug bastard.”
“What about the others?”
“What others?”
“The last of the perms. Olga. Leah.”
“Mmmhhh….” He was racking his brain, or what little remained of it. “It’s all a bit… hazy. Hang on.” He downed his drink. “There was something. Olga. The cut-up chick. One day, all them Russians showed up and took what was left of her with them. Was a fuss. All that chattering and huggin’ and kissin’ and whoop-de-doo. Never seen so many rich people speaking so much gobbledygook in one spot in my life. Don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing there now, if they tried to put her back together, stuff her in a circus, ppfff…” He shrugged his shoulders. “The other one…”
“Leah.”
“Leah. That one I remember. Not only because we did… well, she did everybody. But I remember she came to me. Guess I was the last one who’d been here more’n a week by then. She said she’s thinking about going out there.” He nodded in the direction of the entrance, the wider world beyond. “She looked scared. Don’t think she’s been past them doors for years. She asked me if I wanted to go with her. See what the world’d turned to. I could tell she was afraid, but she was excited too, like she couldn’t wait to take another look. I told her I didn’t need to go nowhere, I know it’s shit, like it’s been shit all those years ago, and like it’ll be shit when I’m dead and gone, so there was nothing worth looking for out there. Got everything I need right here.” He finished his drink. “She went though. Haven’t heard from her since.”
“I used to think that too.”
“Mmhhh?” Henry had already lost track of what he’d been talking about.
“I used to think there’s nothing.” She gave him a wistful smile. “Now I’m not so sure.”
***
There were good days and bad. There were days when the mansion contained all the happiness in the world, a sun-drenched paradise where time never moved but was a single point at the center of all of creation. But there were other days—much, much darker days when all Ansel could do was hold her. Days when he had to find the hidden razor blades. Days he flushed pills down the toilet. Days when the sun, even though it shone, never rose. Those days were getting fewer and fewer, almost without them noticing, but Ansel was aware storm clouds could gather at any moment, with lightning speed, and he could never let his guard down. She was who she was. Be it her genetics, her brain, her nervous system, her upbringing, her experiences, her body chemistry, or one or two or all or none of them, but there was something within her that wouldn’t let her go, that turned the light out inside of her and smothered her in gray hopelessness. So he searched the house, he watched her, he made love to her, and he held her when she trembled with despair.
But it was getting better.
***
Ansel lay in bed. He knew he should stop smoking, and he had for the most part, but they’d just had sex—lazy, unhurried afternoon sex—and he remembered he’d hidden a pack of unfiltereds behind a tile in the bathroom where he’d found some of her pills the other day, and it would be easy to get up, pretending to have to go pee, shut the door and light one up. Only for a couple of drags. He’d promised her he’d stop, and he knew he should, since now he actually had something to live for—wouldn’t it be a riot, he thought, if he died from lung cancer now, after he’d tried unsuccessfully to kill himself for over a decade?
He glanced over at Nikki, who reclined in the window seat in their bedroom, naked, as she was wont to be most days. She was reading a book, the garden a glimmering green blur outs
ide the window, the morning sun embracing her, wrapping her in a golden sheet of light.
He grimaced as he got out of bed. He’d have to live with his leg always feeling like a stump of wood, but Nikki had assured him a limp was sexy.
Ansel was also naked, except the chain with the little ‘V’ around his neck. Nikki had given it back to him their first night at the mansion. Grateful, he’d slid it over his head without much thought, like slipping on old, comfortable clothes, but he’d been startled by how much weight the delicate necklace had carried when it landed on his chest.
As he crossed the room, he realized he wasn’t going to the bathroom to sneak a smoke. He didn’t need a cigarette.
Come to think of it, he didn’t need much of anything.
He slowed, surprised at the turn his thoughts took. At the simplicity with which everything seemed to fall away. Maybe brushes with death shook something loose inside a person, he mused. Perhaps he really had been dead on that freight train, and another Ansel Grayson had woken up with shit and blood all over him.
Perhaps…
Perhaps the time had come.
He slipped the necklace over his head and weighed the chain in his hand. So light, but so heavy to carry.
The V blinked in the early light.
He went over to the dresser shoved against the wall and slid open a drawer. He lifted up the few clothes he had put in there, placed the necklace on the bottom of the drawer, and gently replaced the clothes on top of it.
He paused and listened on the inside, to see what his heart would do, whether the pain would stir, but all he perceived was a peaceful stillness.
He slid the drawer shut.
When he turned, he felt weightless, almost insubstantial. He looked at Nikki again, seated by the window, and he remembered when he’d seen her clearly for the first time, in the bar at the Hotel Terminus. It felt like years and a lifetime ago when he’d noticed her reading the same book she was reading now, and his heart, moments before in repose, beat, strained against its scars, and he felt dizzy with a swell of unchecked emotion that sprang, like a terrible tsunami, uninvited, from immeasurable depths—a storm surge threatening to wash over him. In order not to drown he needed to relent, to let himself be swept away, and so words poured from him, words said a thousand times over, but now as if for the first time.
“Set ope the doors O soul. Tenderly—be not impatient.”
She glanced up, bemused. Remembering. A different life, the one before; before death. She saw Ansel, drawing closer to her. His gaze in the past, in the future, and right here, all at the same time. Everything seemed to collapse around this one moment, the eternal recognition of one another, and more.
Other thoughts intruded, tried to pull Ansel back, to keep perspective, to hold him back so he wouldn’t get lost.
It was still all shit, Ansel thought.
The planet was still dying, roiling with high fever because this intrusive organism called humanity ran rampant across it. Earth shook itself like a dog trying to get rid of fleas. It boiled some places, froze others, sent storms and wildfires and earthquakes and floods, but humans carried on. There still wasn’t any sort of freedom in society; everybody was still controlled by the government, by corporations, or just your friendly neighborhood committee. People still told themselves they were in a competition with each other, they still played the game of win and lose, and still no one ever looked up but everyone kept their gaze frozen on their feet, afraid to see what was around them.
Who was around them.
“Strong is your hold O mortal flesh…”
We still fight and kill and maim and torture and oppress and rape and steal and lie and cheat, Ansel thought.
We still are who we are.
Changeless.
But maybe that’s it. Maybe this is where salvation lies.
Deep, deep inside. Past the selfish murderous savage.
Down where we are. Where we’ve always been.
One.
She closed the book. Leaves of Grass. Smiled at Ansel.
There’s not a more beautiful sight in the world than your love. Your heart. In the morning sun.
Breathing.
“O love…”
Ansel smiled back at Nikki. Open. Tender.
And full of wonder.
<<<<>>>>
Biography
By day, Peter is a Film Trailer Editor for Universal Pictures in Los Angeles as well as an award-winning Filmmaker. His films have played on Television and in festivals all over the world, garnering more than 70 awards. Since that’s not enough, he’s also a writer, and his last three screenplays have placed in the Quarter- and Semi-finals of the Academy Nicholl Fellowships, the most prestigious screenplay competition in the world. “The Last Checkout” is Peter’s first novel, marking his debut in the world of prose fiction.
By night, Peter sleeps.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Biography