Candy felt a great weight settle on her shoulders, imagining that horrendous prospect.
"I hope not," she said. "I want to do something more with my life."
"But you don't know what?"
Candy shook her head.
"Don't worry, it'll come to you," Norma said. "I hope it does, because you don't want to get stuck here."
"No, I don't. I really don't."
"So you've got a project about Chickentown—"
"Yes. And Mom said there were some things that went on in the hotel I should find out about. She said you'd know what she was talking about."
"Did she indeed?" said Norma, with a teasing little smile.
"She said to ask you about Henry—"
"— Murkitt."
"Yes. Henry Murkitt."
"Poor old Henry. What else did she say? Did she tell you about Room Nineteen?"
"No. She didn't mention anything about a room. She just gave me the name."
"Well, I can tell you the tale," Norma said. "But I don't know if Murkitt's story is the kind of thing your Miss Schwartz will be looking for.
"Why not?"
"Well, because it's rather dark ," Norma said. "Tragic, in fact."
Candy smiled. "Well, Mom says I'm morbid, so I'll probably like it."
"Morbid, huh? All right," said Norma. "I guess I should tell you the whole darn thing. You see, Chickentown used to be called Murkitt."
"Really? That wasn't in any of the books about Minnesota."
"You know how it is. There's the history that finds its way into the books and there's the history that doesn't."
"And Henry Murkitt?"
"—is part of the history that doesn't."
"Huh."
Candy was fascinated. Remembering what her mother had said about doing some detective work, she took out her notebook and began to write in it. Murkitt. History we don't know .
"So the town was named after Henry Murkitt?"
"No," said Norma. "It was named after his grandfather Wallace Murkitt."
"Why did they change it?"
"I guess Chickentown fits, doesn't it? This place has got more damn chickens in it than it has people. And sometimes I think folks care more about the chickens than they do about each other. My husband works over at the factory, so that's all I ever hear from him and his friends—"
"Chicken talk?"
"Chickens, chickens and more darn chickens." Norma glanced at her watch. "You know I don't have much time to show you Room Nineteen today. I've got a big party of folks coming in. Can we do this another day?"
"I've got to have the report in by tomorrow morning."
"You kids, always leaving things to the last minute," Norma said. "Well, okay. We'll do this quickly. But you be sure to jot it all down, because I won't have time to say anything twice."
"I'm ready," said Candy.
Norma took her passkey from her pocket. "Linda?" she said to the woman working at the front desk, "I'm just going up to Room Nineteen."
The woman frowned. "Really? What for?"
The question went unanswered.
"I won't be more than ten minutes," Norma said.
She led Candy away from the reception area, talking as she went. "This is the new part of the hotel we're in right now," she explained. "It was built in 1964. But once we step through here" —she led Candy through a pair of double doors—"we're in the old hotel. It used to be called the High Seas Hotel. Don't ask me why."
Even if Candy hadn't been told that there was a difference between the portion of the hotel she'd been in and the part that Norma had brought her into, she would have known it. The passageways were narrower here and less well lit. There was a sour smell of age in the air, as if somebody had left the gas on.
"We only put people up in the old part of the hotel if all the other rooms are full. And that only happens when there's a Chicken Buyer's Conference. Even then, we try never to put people in Room Nineteen."
"Why's that?"
"Well, it's not that it's haunted , exactly. Though there have been stories. Personally, I think all that stuff about the afterlife is nonsense. You get one life and you'd better make the best of it. My sister got religion last year and she's shaping up for a sainthood, I swear."
Norma had led Candy to the end of a passageway where there was a narrow staircase, illuminated by a single lamp. It cast a yellowish light that did nothing to flatter the charmless wallpaper and the cracking paintwork.
Candy almost remarked that it was no wonder the management kept this part of the hotel out of the sight of guests, but she bit her tongue, remembering what her mother had said about keeping less courteous thoughts to herself.
Up the creaking stairs they went. They were steep.
"I should stop smoking," Norma remarked. "It'll be the death of me."
There were two doors at the top. One was Room Seventeen. The other was Room Nineteen.
Norma handed the passkey to Candy.
"You want to open it?" Norma said.
"Sure."
Candy took the key and put it in the lock. "You have to jiggle it around a little."
Candy jiggled. And after a little work, the key turned, and Candy opened the ill-oiled door of Room Nineteen.
2. WHAT HENRY MURKITT LEFT BEHIND
It was dark inside the room; the air still and stale.
"Why don't you go ahead and open the drapes, honey?" Norma said, taking the key back from Candy.
Candy waited a moment for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, then she tentatively made her way across the room to the window. The thick fabric of the drapes felt greasy against her palms, as though they hadn't been cleaned in a very long time. She pulled. The drapes moved reluctantly along dust— and dirt-clogged rails. The glass Candy found herself looking through was as filthy as the fabric.
"How long is it since anybody rented the room?" Candy said.
"Actually I can't remember if there's been anybody in it since I've been at the hotel," Norma said.
Candy looked out of the window. The view was no more inspiring to the senses or the soul than the view out of the kitchen window of 34 Followell Street, her home. Immediately below the window was a small courtyard at the back of the hotel, which contained five or six garbage cans, filled to over-brimming, and the skeletal remains of last year's Christmas tree, still wearing its shabby display of tinsel and artificial snow. Beyond the yard was Lincoln Street (or so Candy guessed; the journey through the hotel had completely disoriented her). She could see the tops of cars above the wall of the yard, and a Discount Drug Store on the opposite side of the street, its doors chained and padlocked, its shelves bare.
"So," said Norma, calling Candy's attention back into Room Nineteen. "This is where Henry Murkitt stayed."
"Did he come to the hotel often?"
"To my knowledge," Norma said, "he came only once. But I'm not really sure about that, so don't quote me."
Candy could understand why Henry would not have been a repeat visitor. The room was tiny. There was a narrow bed against the far wall and a chair in the corner with a small black television perched on it. In front of it was a second chair, on which was perched an over-filled ashtray.
"Some of our employees come up here when they have half an hour to spare to catch up on the soap operas," Norma said, by way of explanation.
"So they don't believe the room's haunted?"
"Put it this way, honey," Norma said. "Whatever they believe it doesn't put them off coming up here."
"What's through there?" Candy said, pointing to a door.
"Look for yourself," Norma said.
Candy opened the door and stepped into a minuscule bathroom that had not been cleaned in a very long time. In the mirror above the filthy sink she met her own reflection. Her eyes looked almost black in the murk of this little cell, and her dark hair needed a cut. But she liked her own face, even in such an unpromising light. She had her mother's smile, open and easy, and her father's frown; the deep, troubled frown that Bill Quackenbush wore in his beer-dreams. And of course her odd eyes: the left dark brown, the right blue; though the mirror reversed them.
"When you've quite finished admiring yourself…" Norma said.
Candy closed the bathroom door and went back to her note-taking to cover her embarrassment. There is no wallpaper on the walls of Room Nineteen , she wrote, just plaster painted a dirty white . One of the four walls had a curious abstract pattern on it, which was faintly pink. All in all, she could not have imagined a grimmer or more uncomfortable place.
"So what can you tell me about Henry Murkitt?" she asked Norma.
"Not that much," the woman replied. "His grandfather was the founding father of the town. In fact, we're all of us here because Wallace Murkitt decided he'd had enough of life on the trail. The story goes that his horse upped and died on him in the middle of the night, so they had no choice but to settle down right here in the middle of nowhere."
Candy smiled. There was something about this little detail which absolutely fit with all she knew about her hometown. "So Chickentown exists because Wallace Murkitt's horse died?" she said.
Norma seemed to get the bitter joke. "Yeah," she said. "I guess that about sums things up, doesn't it? But apparently Henry Murkitt was very proud of having his family's name on the town. It was something he used to boast about."
"Then they changed it—"
"Yes, well, I'll get to that in a moment. Really, poor Henry's life was a series of calamities toward the end. First his wife, Diamanda, left him. Nobody knows where she went. And then sometime in December 1947, the town council decided to change the name of the town. Henry took it very badly. On Christmas Eve he checked into the hotel, and the poor man never checked out again."