“The last time I called him was Friday,” I told Malcolm.
“I know,” he said.
“Do you still think your idea is the right one? Maybe I could email and just check in. Just something casual.”
“I don’t think you could do that without sounding very, very desperate.”
“Maybe you could write it for me and I could just edit it.”
“We’re not there yet, Sam,” he said.
I hadn’t told him about the arcade yet. Not because I was hiding it, but because our time was limited, and I only wanted to talk about one thing.
22
WALKING TO MY CAR AFTER MY SHIFT ONE NIGHT, I REALIZED that the motel was laid out almost exactly like an over-scaled version of the arcade. The parking lot was where the brightly lit store would be, and the motel rooms were the booths. At night, you could see which rooms were occupied by the light leaking out between the faux-wood blinds. They were frequently lit only by the TVs inside, just like the booths with their blue glow. You wouldn’t even have to press against the door to see who was open to having visitors and who wasn’t. You’d just look for Do Not Disturb signs hanging from the doorknobs.
Naturally, I had occasion to mess around with a couple of guests in my time at the motel. Even the girls from housekeeping got lucky once in a while.
Once, it happened that when I was fooling around with a guest just after my shift I got a call from the security guard. He had noticed that, though I had clocked out twenty minutes earlier, my car was still on the lot. He was worried that something had happened to me, that I had been kidnapped or assaulted. I told him I was still around the property, and that I was okay.
“Oh,” he said. “In that case, I’m sorry to disturb you.”
The next night, when he came on duty, he entered the lobby as usual to say hello before beginning his rounds.
“I figured out whose room you were in last night,” he said. “It really surprised me. After you left, he came out to smoke a cigarette wearing a silk, paisley robe. A big guy like that wearing a silk, paisley robe. It was really funny. Whatever you did, it seemed like he must’ve had the time of his life. He was out there smoking and looking up at the moon like he’d just about fallen in love.”
“I doubt that,” I said.
“No, really. It’s funny,” he said. “Of all the guys in the place.”
I had seen the robe myself when I was in the room. It was almost a kimono, but short, above his knees. It looked like something from the 1970s. He had called down to ask for a few extra hangers at around eight o’clock, not long after he checked in. I told him I’d bring them up to his room, and he had said, “There’s no rush. You can bring them when you get off your shift.”
“That’s not until eleven o’clock,” I told him. “Surely you’ll want them before then.”
“No, eleven is fine. You can just drop them off then. Thanks.”
I spent the rest of my shift wondering what would happen when I got to his room. When he checked in he told me he was a construction bidder who had come to town to bid on big concrete jobs, to see if he could win them for his crew. If he was successful, he said, he’d be around a lot more.
When I dropped by his room with the hangers on the way to my car, I knocked on the door and he called out, “Come in!” exactly as I had suspected he might.
I opened the door as he was exiting the bathroom, pretending to be caught off guard, cinching shut the robe too late for me to miss that he wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. I quickly entered the room and shut the door behind me as if guarding his privacy.
“I’ll just put these hangers here on the dresser,” I said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No, no, just let me find my wallet,” he said. “I at least want to tip you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. Then, nodding toward his midsection, I said, “Nice robe.”
He laughed and said, “You like it? My wife got it for me as a joke, but then I started wearing it for real. Now she hates it. It’s nice though. It feels nice against your skin. You know?”
“I’ve never worn robes,” I told him.
“Oh, you should try it,” he said. “It’s real different. Not being dressed, not being undressed. It’s like this in-between feeling. You know that feeling? In between two things?”
“Sure,” I said.
“You could try it on if you want.”
“The robe?”
“Why not? You’re off work, right? It’s just us guys.”
It was a game some men liked. This was what guys had done in locker rooms since the dawn of time. When it ended you didn’t know what had just happened.
“Right,” I said. “I’m off work.”
“So, why not then?”
“What the hell? I’ll try it on.”
I unbuttoned my shirt and put it on the bed. I took off my undershirt and put it on top of my other shirt. Then I hesitated to see if he might think that removing that much would suffice, but he didn’t give any sign that he thought I was done, so I sat on the foot of one of the two queen-size beds and untied my shoes. I took them off. Then I undid my pants and slid them to the floor.
I stood there in a pair of white boxer shorts and socks and looked at him.
“All of it, or you won’t get the full effect,” he said.
I made an expression of reluctance, and he said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed around me, buddy. I was in the army for almost twenty years.”
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and slid them down over my thighs, kicking them off onto the puddle of fabric made by my pants.
Then I was in front of him naked except for my socks. He looked me up and down.
“Boy,” he said, “you take care of yourself, huh? Work out and all?”
“Not really,” I said. “Just a lucky metabolism, I guess.”
He spread the robe and showed me his gut and everything else. He patted his stomach, and said, “I thought I’d never have one of these, but you get older and it’s not as easy.”
“Well, at least you wear it well,” I said.
“Feel it,” he said. “It’s pretty solid, actually. Not all flabby like some guys.”
I reached across and touched his stomach with my palm.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m clean. Fresh out of the shower.”
Then he slipped off the robe and held it so I could put my arms through the armholes. I put it on.
“It’s too big for you,” he said. “It doesn’t land where it’s supposed to, up here.” He touched my thighs to show where the robe should have stopped. Then he rubbed my arms through the robe. “See how good it feels? That silk?”
I said that it did feel good. And when I made to cinch the robe closed he spread it with his big hands and said, “Leave it open. It looks better on you that way.”
He was just my type, but I was embarrassed that the guard saw him. He brought it up a few more times, always saying how surprised he was to see the man, and how he just couldn’t picture the two of us together.
23
OF COURSE I RELATED TO CLERKS AT THE ARCADE, WHOSE jobs weren’t unlike my own. Except theirs wasn’t like the usual service industry gig where one could make small talk with the customers. The clientele didn’t wish to be distracted from their pursuits, and the clerks didn’t want to give the appearance of hitting on them anyway.
A moviegoer’s relationship with the clerks at the arcade was a strained one. I felt I could see myself through their eyes each time I bought tokens. It was easy to understand why they might have thought of me as a disgusting, skulking, filthy, infected piece of human garbage. It was easy to see why they might hate me and want to make my life difficult. There were a few times they actually gave off that impression, but not very often, actually. Usually the clerks were relaxed and even fairly polite.