“I asked if he knew he missed a reservation,” she said, “and you know what? He said he did know. He said it slipped his mind after one of his trips got rescheduled. Then he didn’t bother calling because he said you knew he’d be back soon.”
“You didn’t mention the money thing, did you?” I said.
“I hope that’s okay. I just said that it was between the two of you, but that I thought he should know that you had to pay for his room yourself because you had trusted him enough to take his reservation without getting a credit card number.”
“What did he say?”
“He just said that it hardly seems fair. And I said that I thought it was unfair too, because us clerks don’t make that much money that we can afford to pay for other people’s rooms whenever they forget to cancel their reservations.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, just thanks for telling him. I hope it’s alright that I said something. You never said not to.”
I was anxious in advance of his next reservation. I hoped he’d take a money clip from his pocket and insist, insist that I take the money.
“Please!” he could have said. “Are you kidding me? Take the money! It was my mistake!”
I would have taken it. I decided in advance that I would. The truth was that I needed it.
He was polite and affable at check-in. I gave him an iron and miniature ironing board to take to his room like always. But he didn’t say anything about the missed reservation or the money. He didn’t say anything about his pregnant employee or the job either. I called his room later that evening.
“Hey, it’s me at the front desk. Sorry to bother you, but is your TV working okay?”
“Seems fine to me.”
“Okay, good. One of your neighbors is having a problem with the cable, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the whole building.”
“Nope. All clear here. Still wish you got ESPN2 though.”
“Yeah, I mentioned that to the owner. I think they’re working on it.”
“Sounds good.”
Either his guilt would make him want to hire me as compensation, or his guilt would prevent him from hiring me, or he felt no guilt at all.
75
“THIS GUY SOUNDS LIKE AN ASSHOLE,” MALCOLM SAID, WHEN I told him the story of Mr. Grate and Bench. “You should never have paid for the room in the first place, but at least now you know. You definitely don’t want to work for someone like that. Just look for a job like a normal person if you want something else.”
“Like what? It took me months to get this job.”
“Looking for a job is easy. Especially if you already have one. You just have to get used to people turning you down a lot. Then something always works out unexpectedly.”
“God, I feel like I get rejected all the time as it is.”
“Oh, please,” Malcolm said.
But it was true. The longer I went to the arcade, the more it felt like a study in rejection. It certainly wasn’t a place one went to forget one’s shortcomings.
“By the way, we’re set for Saturday night at seven o’clock,” Malcolm said. “I fly in on Wednesday, so we can email, but no phone calls. Saturday night. Don’t forget.”
“How are you managing it with Ronald?”
“He has a dinner and book club thing with some friends. He’ll be out late.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t. I’m worried it might be weird.”
“I think that because you are weird, it might be weird. But we’re still meeting.”
“I just hope you won’t get mad if I get sick or something.”
“Don’t even think about standing me up, Sam. Seriously.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t. I don’t think I would.”
76
I MET AN IRRESISTIBLE HEDGEHOG OF A MAN. IRRESISTIBLE because he found me so attractive. He carried himself as though everyone at the arcade wanted him, and I confess it did make me want him a little, even though every time I saw him, he was wearing a button-up shirt unbuttoned and untucked over an untucked white undershirt. It was exactly the style in which I dressed in the seventh grade. He came in while I was pretend-perusing DVDs, and looked at me and smiled, even as he was purchasing his tokens at the counter. He put the tokens in his pocket and walked directly over to me.
“Would you like to see a movie with me?” he said.
No shopping around. No seeing who else was there. I’d never had anyone ask me that way. I was accustomed to looks and head nods. I’d had guys brush against me, then give me sly grins. But no one had ever walked up to me and asked if I wanted to see a movie with him.
Alone in a booth together, I said, “I have to warn you, I don’t do very much out here.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
He undid my pants and I undid his. We reached in and touched one another. Then he began to lift my shirt. “I don’t want to take my shirt off,” I said.
“Please,” he said. “Do it for me. You’re so sexy.”
I let him take my shirt off and hang it on one of the clothes hooks.
“You smell like pot,” I said.
“I smoked on the way over,” he said. “I’ll smoke you out if you want.”
“That’s okay.”
Once my shirt was off, the hedgehog’s hands were all over me. I didn’t get the sense that he’d hurt me or do anything especially weird, but he was much stronger than I was, and he seemed to be blissing out into some kind of touch-induced trance amplified by the weed he’d smoked. He put one hand on my shoulder and rubbed my chest with the other.
I didn’t like having my shirt off because it meant I couldn’t leave in an instant. When I stopped his hand from making the rounds of my torso again, he knelt on the ground and tried putting my dick in his mouth.
“No,” I said. “Stop.”
“Come on, bud. I want to make you feel good. I want to make you feel so good.”
“I don’t do that out here.”
“That’s okay. You can trust me.”
He opened his mouth and put my dick inside.
Over his head, I grabbed my shirt and put it on. I pulled it over my head and was still putting my dick in my pants as I fled the booth. I went to the sales floor and pretended to look at DVDs. He walked out of the hallway and straight over to me.
“Would you please come back and watch a movie with me?” he said.
“No, thanks.”
“Why?”
“You’re too grabby and you don’t listen when I say no. I told you I don’t do much out here, and then you tried to force me. Forget it. I’m sure you can find someone else.”
“I’d never find someone else out here like you,” he said. “Because you’re what I like. You’re exactly what I like. All my boys have been like you.”
I don’t know why I went back with him. I must have liked the idea of being one of his boys, the newest one in line. I was probably flattered he thought of me as a boy at all, though he wasn’t more than ten years older than me. This time he was more courteous, though he was still passionate in a way that made me feel I had less control than I preferred.
“Sit on my lap and make out with me,” he said.
He pulled down his pants so they were around his ankles, then sat down and patted the tops of his thighs. “Take down your pants and sit on my lap.”