Читать книгу Waylaid - Ed Lin - Страница 7

Renting out rooms to johns was just one part of the business. It was reliable income throughout the year, especially in the winter when there weren’t many real customers. It paid for the groceries. I knew because it was me who went to the supermarket.

Business peaked from Memorial Day through Labor Day, when the Bennys would come down and party. The johns hated it when the Bennys came in because the room prices went up to $50 a night, with no special fuckonly rates.

The Bennys liked our hotel because it was near the beach. Rooms at that time of year were in pretty high demand, even with the increased rate. The Bennys made sure they got their money’s worth. They’d pack in all their friends and have maybe eight people staying in a room: two on each bed; one on the floor between the beds; two in the closet; and one in the bathroom.

High-school girls really went for Benny men. The girls would be out of school for the summer and looking for something more exciting than fast food and surfing. Cheese fries and Space Invaders had nothing on drinking and screwing under the boardwalk after hours.

Benny women were on the prowl for potential long-term boyfriend/husband material, but they were lucky if they had the same guy two nights in a row. I had to call taxis to take girls to the train stop after they got ditched at our hotel.

Business was fast and furious in the summer, and when it got to be two or three in the morning and there were no rooms left, people would get really desperate. The last thing they wanted was a drive back to the city without even getting a chance to score. They would beg for a room, a dirty room, or even a room with other people in it. People wanted to sleep in the office. Others were willing to pay twice the room rate and sometimes offered more than just cash.

Because of the Bennys, summers were no vacation for me. I had more work to do than when I was in school. More rooms to clean. More cigarettes, crushed cans, and broken glass to pick up around the hotel while avoiding the bees that had been attracted by the smell of alcohol. More drunk assholes to step around. I’d find used condoms and hotel blankets under the picnic tables all the time. Sometimes people would still be asleep, wrapped in the blankets.

They’d also mess up the pool, which was surrounded by an unraveling stretch of green plastic-coated chain link fence that had buckled and warped from Bennys pushing each other against it or running their car fenders into it. If a supporting rod popped out of its joint, the fence would pucker and come apart. Sharp, rusted tips of cross-hatched wire stuck out from the plastic coating, looking like tire-shredders embedded in asphalt behind a “DO NOT ENTER” sign. One of my duties was to go around with a pair of pliers and thick wire and try to mend the fence, pulling it taut and tying it up.

Cracked concrete framed the swimming pool, which was close to the highway, between the tips of the U. You had to put your towel over the weather-beaten wooden pool furniture before you sat down, otherwise you’d get splinters. Most people used the bath towels from the hotel, and in the mornings, I would take the pole hook and pull out towels that had sunk to the bottom of the deep end and clogged up the drain. Sometimes I pulled out shorts and bikinis, too.

Bennys would often hop the fence and fuck in the shallow end at night. It was like joining the mile-high club or something. The Jacques Cousteau club, I guess. The water would still be warm because it retains heat in the evening better than the land. I learned that from my soft-cover science workbook. Water also made sex more buoyant and fluid. I learned that from letters to Club International.

In the hot sun, I got hard watching women lying on their chests, bikini tops untied and straps hanging off the sides like bright, multicolored shoelaces. Would their tits be pressed flat permanently if they stayed like that too long? Would there be lines across their nipples from the wood planks?

I went around the pool deck, sweeping up cigarette butts and thin pieces of broken brown and green glass from Budweiser and Heineken bottles. I saw a crushed, empty box of Marlboros under the recliner of a woman asleep with her top untied. I got down on my knees and reached for the box, turning my head up to try to peek at her tits.

“Hey, what are you doing, kid?” someone yelled. I stuck my head up. It was Vincent, smiling and standing by the garden hose that was coiled up near the shallow end. The hose was for people to wash sand off their feet and only carried cold water. Very cold water. The nozzle was in Vincent’s hand.

“This is how you do it!” he yelled, turning the faucet on full blast and pointing it at the woman. The nozzle wasn’t focused, so he sprayed about 10 people with freezing pellets that smacked against the skin and hurt because they were so cold. Everyone screamed and jumped up, including two women who forgot that their tops were untied. They scampered for cover on the deck near the deep end, hands cupping their tits.

“You fucking asshole sonovabitch! Motherfucker! Cocksucker! ’Talian faggot piece of shit!” they screeched. One was a blonde, the other was a redhead. Vincent was doubled over with laughter, but he didn’t turn the hose off. He held the nozzle between his legs and jerked it around, like he was pissing on everyone.

I searched for the two missing bikini tops but only found one, tangled up with a pair of sunglasses. Looking at the pattern, I was glad to see it was the blonde’s. I stretched it out and felt at the insides of each cup, as if I could squeeze the nipples that were once there. I went up to her and handed it back. If it were a Penthouse letter, she would have given me a deep French kiss and led me back to her room for a blow job and a hard fuck.

Instead, she snatched her bikini top away and slapped me hard as she yelled, “Fucking little chink pervert!” She had rings on her fingers. I ran my tongue through my mouth to make sure all my teeth were still there. The mark on my face stung and my cheek was slick with a suntan lotion smear.

Afterwards, I was looking forward to sitting back on the office couch and playing Atari, but when I went into the office, I found my father already lying there. He was wearing jeans, a thin t-shirt, and socks. His eyes were closed.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“Back hurt,” he said, not opening his eyes. His arms were folded across his stomach.

“Shouldn’t you go see a doctor? This keeps happening.”

“No, don’t need doctor. No big deal.”

“Do you want more aspirin?”

“No, doesn’t do anything. Just have to lie down more.”

“Why don’t you lie down on the living-room couch?”

“That couch broken and hurt my back. And too hot there. Nicer here.”

“You’re too cheap to turn on our air conditioner.”

“You spend most of your time in office. I’m downstair in the basement with cool air. Mommy is out cleaning rooms. Why should I turn on air conditioner?”

I heaved a sigh and set up the Atari. In about a minute, I was sitting on the office floor, playing

Superman.

“Is that video game?” asked my father from the couch.

“Yeah,” I said without turning around to look at him.

“What game is that?”

“Superman.”

I heard him shift on the couch and clear his throat.

“Can you get me some water?” he asked.

After dinner, when most of the Bennys had left the pool for the bars, I jumped in and held myself underwater just to see what drowning was like.

It was dark, quiet, and nice for about 15 seconds. Then the urge to breathe began to pound in my head and chest like knocks against Death’s chamber. Drowning had to be the worst way to go because you couldn’t scream and your thoughts bounced around as your head was being squeezed by water pressure. I could imagine the ache you would feel tearing away at your insides until you died.

I came up for a breath and went down again.