When I took the job at the hotel I expected something more glamorous. The day I arrived for work, finding in the parking lot a naked man in Santa beard and cap beating a pimp with a sock full of batteries – I suspected the description related over the phone might not have been accurate.
The pool did not resemble a glittering sapphire. Rather, it seemed to be a kidney shaped mound of dirt dotted by several tombstones for pets. The complex of hotel suites, a hive of rooms in a horseshoe, suggested a building could get addicted to meth, suffering all the adverse physical side effects associated with such; graffiti tattooed brick; an odd implicative assortment of vehicles in the lot, from high end luxury SUVs to rust bucket sedans; occasional whiffs of fresh mint stabbing through a miasma of weed, piss, and compost… part of me wondered if somewhere in Chicago a more regal establishment existed, its own nefarious history passed on to this place like some architectural Portrait of Dorian Grey.
A simpler, less mystical explanation would be the Breeze Inn used to be a fine place once upon a time, but that era existed decades ago. Before superhighways, every city owned specific streets operating as the main thoroughfares into downtown. Other businesses gravitated to these veins, feeding off the steady flow of tourists and traveling professionals; eventually falling into the slow decay that followed the arrival of quicker, more direct routes stabbing the heart of the city.
Plus, gone are the days of a traveling salesperson, retiring from the road to rest in a quiet motel. Now they arrive, and dart straight from the airport to appointments. Whether successful or not, the modern professionals then depart – here and gone the same day – red eye on to the next opportunity. There’s no need to slip back to ersatz comforts, raiding the mini-bar on the company dime, celebrating victory, or taking the edge off failure, either way numbing to the fact they’re miles from home. Cloisters of lonely itinerant professionals – maybe such places were always meant to die. However, it’s a slow death that the manager seemed eager to pay someone to witness. So I settled in for the moribund days of the Breeze Inn.
#
I helped Butterscotch shovel ice from the bin into a large trash bag. She held the bag open, while I scooped in bucket loads.
“I tell you man, I tell you I hate this fucking guy, but he pays good,” Butterscotch said.
Making small talk, “I wouldn’t be too comfortable with him either.”
“I mean like it’s easy and all. Alls I gotta do is fill the bathtub with ice, soak there a few, and lie on the bed. Don’t gotta move, or do nothing, while he does his thing. It’s easy.”
“And it pays good,” I said.
“Yes, it does.” A look flashed across her eyes like a deer missing its chance to escape headlights. Butterscotch shrugged, “Beats what I used to do.”
“What was that?” Seeing the bag mostly full I closed the ice bin.
“Hotel clerk,” she laughed, “I’m just playin’.”
Chuckling too, “I know. Have you a good time Butter.”
She hoisted the bag over her shoulder, “You too Connie.”
I’d long since stopped trying to correct the permanent residents. About a week in, attempting to jazz up my job, I began referring to myself as the hotel concierge. This resulted in customers referring to me as Connie.
Back in the front office I found a group of bleary eyed teens. College kids on their first road trip, they stopped at the Breeze Inn because they couldn’t afford anywhere else.
The boy who fancied himself in charge, upon seeing me, angrily rang the desk bell. I walked around, and removed the bell from the counter.
Smiling, “How may I help you?”
“Last night… we got no sleep. Someone tried to break into our room. I braced the door with a chair, and spent the whole night holding a Bible to bash whoever burst in.”
Shocked that a room still possessed a whole Bible – guests tended to use the pages as rolling papers – I remarked, “Well, if they really wanted to break in they’d’ve probably smashed the window. That’s happened before.”
Looking confused the boy said, “What? Seriously, dude, we want our money back.”
“Dude, did you spend the night in the room?”
He glared, “Yeah. So what?”
I replied, “So read the sign.”
I pointed. The group collectively turned to find a bare wall. By the time they turned back, I held a bat wrapped with barbed wire, “You spent the night. You don’t get shit.”
Slowly the pack of children receded to their car. On the way out a young lady dressed like a burnt out trucker shouted, “I’m giving this place the worst review. Zero stars!”
Mathematically speaking that might actually improve our standing. However, I felt no need to tell her that. Those kids didn’t yet understand that for the low, low price of fifty dollars they experienced a story they could tell the rest of their lives. Some pay more for less.
Yet, I didn’t have much time to reflect on such things. Taking the bat in hand I hurried to room 207. At three on the dot, every afternoon, a thin envelope peeked out from under the door. It contained enough cash for one more night, paid daily since 1987. The manager suspected vampires resided inside. I saw no reason to doubt that. All I knew, if I didn’t get to the money first some resident would snatch the cash. Sure enough, stepping onto the landing I saw Willy the Goat idling towards 207.
Pointing with the bat, “Get away from there Willy.”
“Fuck you, Connie, I ain’t doin’ nothing.” Tucking his hands into his pockets, their greasiness darkening the fabric from the inside out, Willy stomped away.
Collecting the envelope I glanced inside, a blood stained twenty, and several crinkled, gutter plucked ones. Slipping it in a back pocket, I decided to tour the rooms quickly. At open doors I paused to knock politely, peer in, and inquire if anyone needed anything.
Room 213 needed her dick sucked. Room 108 wanted a bowl of fingernails. Room 201 required nothing, emphasizing the fact by pointing a gun; I backed away from the nine year old girl slowly. For the most part guests needed fresh towels, needles, and bandages, the usual assortment of necessities at the Breeze Inn; what I could handle myself, I did, delegating other responsibilities to Isabella, the head maid.
Isabella maintained the Breeze Inn with a stoicism rivaled by stone. She slips into a room, tap-tap-tapping her key softly, “Housekeeping,” upon seeing a junkie on the bed, she checks the pulse. Finding none, she flags a few strays, runaway dusthead punk rock kids failing proudly. For the promise of a free night’s rent they drag the body to a nearby dumpster, and pitch it – out of sight, out of mind. Tap-tap-tapping, she finds a shit coiled like soft serve ice cream in the middle of the floor. She cleans the mess without so much as a sigh; however, should the guest return she walks casually by. Using a knitting needle she exacts a piquerist vengeance, stabbing deep into a butt cheek. The other two maids, a pair of ladies I’m sure should be in high school – though the education here is better than a degree – take orders in brusque Spanish. At the end of the day I pay her cash, wondering why she always smells like coconut – obviously a cream, or perfume, but why that scent exactly – I never ask because she seems the kind of person who’ll tell you what you need to know when she feels you need the info. Then the three maids depart together in a wood panel station wagon, leaving me alone for the evening.
#
Every hotel possesses at least one ghost. And frankly, given the amount of suicides, deaths, and murders which occurred here, the Breeze Inn surprising only possessed one. Interestingly enough, though, it’s one of the more famous Chicago specters.
On weekends, several ghost tours rolled by the hotel. Passengers pressed their faces to windows, ogling the location, though never daring to set foot off the bus. Seated on a chair outside the lobby, smoking and sipping whiskey, I could hear the static cracked recitation of tour guides. The blather all sounded the same: “This (hiss) The Breeze Inn (crack-hiss) once a premiere Lincoln Avenue stop (hiss-hiss) ’s what you see now. In December 1980, this is where…”
The story is myth. For those few who don’t recall, whatever reasons why, the bare facts start in December 1980, a legendary musician stopped for the weekend. His band used to stay at the Breeze Inn as part of superstition, having stayed there during the early days touring on pennies in a van more likely to breakdown than arrive on time. So, whenever in Chicago, he insisted on staying there. Coming back from a radio interview the musician saw a fan waiting by the room. The musician reached for a pen. The fan reached for a gun. The musician went to sign an autograph, and the fan shot. The musician died. The fan claimed to be an angel sent to make the musician immortal. Like I said the rest is myth, the “real” why debated always since the plain truth is too unpalatable – lunatics don’t need reason to do crazy shit.
Soon as the bus pulled away, cameras flashing, the ghost peers out of the office, “They gone?”
“Yep,” I say, cracking two beers, “Whiskey slug?”
(Whiskey slug: personal slang for whiskey double.)
Taking a seat next to me he says, “No thanks Connie. I don’t feel like getting too strange this evening.”
#
“Hello.”
“How do you do ma’am?”
“I have cancer.”
I nodded, “Not well then.”
She smiled like a kindergarten teacher comforting a kid with a skinned knee, “I’d like a room.”
“Okay. Sorry to be blunt, but I find it’s easier, um; there’s a thirty dollar additional fee applied to any guest we suspect is planning to, well…”
“Suicide?”
“Yeah.”
“Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
#
Marissa Oak explained things clearly, leaving no doubt as to her state of mind, intentions, or willingness to be dissuaded. She intended to rent a room for two months. Her doctor prophesized she would not last longer than one, but on the off chance she lived more, and for any inconvenience, she felt obliged to pay two in advance. During that time she planned to stay in her room, allowing anyone who wished to visit her to spend however long they wished.
I asked, “Is it a kind of performance art?”
She shrugged, “In a way. More than anything else I just want some company.”
Filling out her forms – writing somewhat escaped her since the cancer got to her brain – I asked, “What about family and friends?”
“They’ll be here. But I kind of want new strangers too. It’s like Wilde said, something like the beauty of new friends is they don’t know the old stories.”
“Do you have dinner plans?”
She patted my hand, “Don’t be a cliché.”
“Well, on that note, do you have any drugs?”
She looked at me sidewise, “Morphine.”
“We got junkies here. Be careful. They’ll steal it.” I furrowed my brow, “Shit.”
“What?” Marissa asked.
“If you attract a crowd that means worse than junkies, fucking tourists.”
She chuckled. I didn’t.
#
I swung the barbed wire bat, “Back! Back you savages!”
Everyday droves of tourists arrived. None seemed familiar with the concept of a line. Whenever they scattered into something nebulous, the horde pushing in to watch Marissa die, I herded them back into formation with the bat. The manager and I worked in tandem, taking turns herding and performing typical Breeze Inn duties. When she could, Isabella lent a hand, her glare pushing the crowd from chaos to order.
It took three days for things to truly get out of hand. By then news crews began arriving, spreading the word, reports drawing more and more spectators. Members of her family did the same, dispersing word online. Marissa wanted the company of strangers, well, she got it.
Folks came from as far as Orlando to sit with her. Some chatted, conversations ranging from the mundane to grasping at the profound. Others arrived to tout holistic cures Marissa politely declined. Some stood silently, and left as quietly. She welcomed all with a smile. Those who held out a hand to shake she hugged. Some kept a respectful distance, I suspected to hide their discomfort touching a wax wrapped skeleton. Still others came to defeat accusations of pretention by leeching off Marissa’s death to seem deeper; I remember a twig like woman lying on the bed with Marissa, cuddling while the twig’s friend recorded them. I wanted to smash the camera, but somehow sensing the intention, Marissa suggested by a subtle expression I leave them alone. So I did. She didn’t see what I saw -- #Idiedwithher. She saw something positive I can’t relate because I couldn’t perceive it well enough to describe.
When she slept many left. Others set up a tent city in the parking lot. The manager, seizing on the opportunity, charged ten bucks per tent occupant. They paid. It felt obscene, yet I still collected the cash every evening. Though, that said, I skimmed a few off the top to bribe the worst junkies.
Hand a ten, “Leave her drugs alone.”
“Whatev’s Connie. Jeez. Acting like I’m some fucking scumbag. I don’t rob the dead.”
But you would. Who wouldn’t? It’s not like they can stop you.
By the third week Marissa couldn’t get out of bed. She could barely speak, often just able to force a kind of gargle-cluck. Her eyes appeared to go in and out of focus.
The tourists stopped flooding in. Many who stayed aimed all manner of camera at her, streaming her decline in real time.
“We’re with her now…”
No, you’re not, I thought, but remembering her glances I respected what would’ve been Marissa’s wishes. I let them be.
Off duty hookers brought her water. I remember Butterscotch laying a cold cloth on Marissa’s forehead. She said, “This is how my mama died. She went in a better place than this shit hole. You know what I mean, right Connie?”
“Yeah, Butter, I hear ya.”
Towards the end the news crews departed, though reporters called regularly to see if Marissa died. They shot enough stock footage they just needed to know when to say the end occurred. The tourists mostly left. Even the hashtag allstars fled as reality crept in. What few remained occupied the parking lot wondering what to do next.
Meanwhile, in room 105 Marissa lay dying. Her family and friends surrounded the bed. Her breathing came irregularly, inspiring the guilty desire she die now, for her own good as well as theirs. I stood in the doorway watching.
The manager approached, “Hey, Connie, since shit’s calmed down a bit, the usual stuff needs to get done.”
Crossing my arms, “And what?”
“And you need to do it.”
“You’re saying I need to do my job, not be here.”
He nodded, “Yeah.”
“Then I quit.”
A few hours later Marissa breathed her last. When I walked away I saw the hookers on the second floor holding junkie candles in a vigil. The tent town broke up quickly, washed away on a flood of tears. I saw Marissa’s younger brother disappear into 216, a heroin black hole he’d been orbiting.
In the office I collected my last few day’s pay. The phone rang. I answered.
“Hello?”
“This is channel {redacted for legal reasons}. Is she dead yet?”
Looking out the front I saw Marissa taking a seat next to the Musician. He handed her a beer. She smiled at me, and waved.
I said, “Nope. She’s gonna live forever.”
The pool did not resemble a glittering sapphire. Rather, it seemed to be a kidney shaped mound of dirt dotted by several tombstones for pets. The complex of hotel suites, a hive of rooms in a horseshoe, suggested a building could get addicted to meth, suffering all the adverse physical side effects associated with such; graffiti tattooed brick; an odd implicative assortment of vehicles in the lot, from high end luxury SUVs to rust bucket sedans; occasional whiffs of fresh mint stabbing through a miasma of weed, piss, and compost… part of me wondered if somewhere in Chicago a more regal establishment existed, its own nefarious history passed on to this place like some architectural Portrait of Dorian Grey.
A simpler, less mystical explanation would be the Breeze Inn used to be a fine place once upon a time, but that era existed decades ago. Before superhighways, every city owned specific streets operating as the main thoroughfares into downtown. Other businesses gravitated to these veins, feeding off the steady flow of tourists and traveling professionals; eventually falling into the slow decay that followed the arrival of quicker, more direct routes stabbing the heart of the city.
Plus, gone are the days of a traveling salesperson, retiring from the road to rest in a quiet motel. Now they arrive, and dart straight from the airport to appointments. Whether successful or not, the modern professionals then depart – here and gone the same day – red eye on to the next opportunity. There’s no need to slip back to ersatz comforts, raiding the mini-bar on the company dime, celebrating victory, or taking the edge off failure, either way numbing to the fact they’re miles from home. Cloisters of lonely itinerant professionals – maybe such places were always meant to die. However, it’s a slow death that the manager seemed eager to pay someone to witness. So I settled in for the moribund days of the Breeze Inn.
#
I helped Butterscotch shovel ice from the bin into a large trash bag. She held the bag open, while I scooped in bucket loads.
“I tell you man, I tell you I hate this fucking guy, but he pays good,” Butterscotch said.
Making small talk, “I wouldn’t be too comfortable with him either.”
“I mean like it’s easy and all. Alls I gotta do is fill the bathtub with ice, soak there a few, and lie on the bed. Don’t gotta move, or do nothing, while he does his thing. It’s easy.”
“And it pays good,” I said.
“Yes, it does.” A look flashed across her eyes like a deer missing its chance to escape headlights. Butterscotch shrugged, “Beats what I used to do.”
“What was that?” Seeing the bag mostly full I closed the ice bin.
“Hotel clerk,” she laughed, “I’m just playin’.”
Chuckling too, “I know. Have you a good time Butter.”
She hoisted the bag over her shoulder, “You too Connie.”
I’d long since stopped trying to correct the permanent residents. About a week in, attempting to jazz up my job, I began referring to myself as the hotel concierge. This resulted in customers referring to me as Connie.
Back in the front office I found a group of bleary eyed teens. College kids on their first road trip, they stopped at the Breeze Inn because they couldn’t afford anywhere else.
The boy who fancied himself in charge, upon seeing me, angrily rang the desk bell. I walked around, and removed the bell from the counter.
Smiling, “How may I help you?”
“Last night… we got no sleep. Someone tried to break into our room. I braced the door with a chair, and spent the whole night holding a Bible to bash whoever burst in.”
Shocked that a room still possessed a whole Bible – guests tended to use the pages as rolling papers – I remarked, “Well, if they really wanted to break in they’d’ve probably smashed the window. That’s happened before.”
Looking confused the boy said, “What? Seriously, dude, we want our money back.”
“Dude, did you spend the night in the room?”
He glared, “Yeah. So what?”
I replied, “So read the sign.”
I pointed. The group collectively turned to find a bare wall. By the time they turned back, I held a bat wrapped with barbed wire, “You spent the night. You don’t get shit.”
Slowly the pack of children receded to their car. On the way out a young lady dressed like a burnt out trucker shouted, “I’m giving this place the worst review. Zero stars!”
Mathematically speaking that might actually improve our standing. However, I felt no need to tell her that. Those kids didn’t yet understand that for the low, low price of fifty dollars they experienced a story they could tell the rest of their lives. Some pay more for less.
Yet, I didn’t have much time to reflect on such things. Taking the bat in hand I hurried to room 207. At three on the dot, every afternoon, a thin envelope peeked out from under the door. It contained enough cash for one more night, paid daily since 1987. The manager suspected vampires resided inside. I saw no reason to doubt that. All I knew, if I didn’t get to the money first some resident would snatch the cash. Sure enough, stepping onto the landing I saw Willy the Goat idling towards 207.
Pointing with the bat, “Get away from there Willy.”
“Fuck you, Connie, I ain’t doin’ nothing.” Tucking his hands into his pockets, their greasiness darkening the fabric from the inside out, Willy stomped away.
Collecting the envelope I glanced inside, a blood stained twenty, and several crinkled, gutter plucked ones. Slipping it in a back pocket, I decided to tour the rooms quickly. At open doors I paused to knock politely, peer in, and inquire if anyone needed anything.
Room 213 needed her dick sucked. Room 108 wanted a bowl of fingernails. Room 201 required nothing, emphasizing the fact by pointing a gun; I backed away from the nine year old girl slowly. For the most part guests needed fresh towels, needles, and bandages, the usual assortment of necessities at the Breeze Inn; what I could handle myself, I did, delegating other responsibilities to Isabella, the head maid.
Isabella maintained the Breeze Inn with a stoicism rivaled by stone. She slips into a room, tap-tap-tapping her key softly, “Housekeeping,” upon seeing a junkie on the bed, she checks the pulse. Finding none, she flags a few strays, runaway dusthead punk rock kids failing proudly. For the promise of a free night’s rent they drag the body to a nearby dumpster, and pitch it – out of sight, out of mind. Tap-tap-tapping, she finds a shit coiled like soft serve ice cream in the middle of the floor. She cleans the mess without so much as a sigh; however, should the guest return she walks casually by. Using a knitting needle she exacts a piquerist vengeance, stabbing deep into a butt cheek. The other two maids, a pair of ladies I’m sure should be in high school – though the education here is better than a degree – take orders in brusque Spanish. At the end of the day I pay her cash, wondering why she always smells like coconut – obviously a cream, or perfume, but why that scent exactly – I never ask because she seems the kind of person who’ll tell you what you need to know when she feels you need the info. Then the three maids depart together in a wood panel station wagon, leaving me alone for the evening.
#
Every hotel possesses at least one ghost. And frankly, given the amount of suicides, deaths, and murders which occurred here, the Breeze Inn surprising only possessed one. Interestingly enough, though, it’s one of the more famous Chicago specters.
On weekends, several ghost tours rolled by the hotel. Passengers pressed their faces to windows, ogling the location, though never daring to set foot off the bus. Seated on a chair outside the lobby, smoking and sipping whiskey, I could hear the static cracked recitation of tour guides. The blather all sounded the same: “This (hiss) The Breeze Inn (crack-hiss) once a premiere Lincoln Avenue stop (hiss-hiss) ’s what you see now. In December 1980, this is where…”
The story is myth. For those few who don’t recall, whatever reasons why, the bare facts start in December 1980, a legendary musician stopped for the weekend. His band used to stay at the Breeze Inn as part of superstition, having stayed there during the early days touring on pennies in a van more likely to breakdown than arrive on time. So, whenever in Chicago, he insisted on staying there. Coming back from a radio interview the musician saw a fan waiting by the room. The musician reached for a pen. The fan reached for a gun. The musician went to sign an autograph, and the fan shot. The musician died. The fan claimed to be an angel sent to make the musician immortal. Like I said the rest is myth, the “real” why debated always since the plain truth is too unpalatable – lunatics don’t need reason to do crazy shit.
Soon as the bus pulled away, cameras flashing, the ghost peers out of the office, “They gone?”
“Yep,” I say, cracking two beers, “Whiskey slug?”
(Whiskey slug: personal slang for whiskey double.)
Taking a seat next to me he says, “No thanks Connie. I don’t feel like getting too strange this evening.”
#
“Hello.”
“How do you do ma’am?”
“I have cancer.”
I nodded, “Not well then.”
She smiled like a kindergarten teacher comforting a kid with a skinned knee, “I’d like a room.”
“Okay. Sorry to be blunt, but I find it’s easier, um; there’s a thirty dollar additional fee applied to any guest we suspect is planning to, well…”
“Suicide?”
“Yeah.”
“Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
#
Marissa Oak explained things clearly, leaving no doubt as to her state of mind, intentions, or willingness to be dissuaded. She intended to rent a room for two months. Her doctor prophesized she would not last longer than one, but on the off chance she lived more, and for any inconvenience, she felt obliged to pay two in advance. During that time she planned to stay in her room, allowing anyone who wished to visit her to spend however long they wished.
I asked, “Is it a kind of performance art?”
She shrugged, “In a way. More than anything else I just want some company.”
Filling out her forms – writing somewhat escaped her since the cancer got to her brain – I asked, “What about family and friends?”
“They’ll be here. But I kind of want new strangers too. It’s like Wilde said, something like the beauty of new friends is they don’t know the old stories.”
“Do you have dinner plans?”
She patted my hand, “Don’t be a cliché.”
“Well, on that note, do you have any drugs?”
She looked at me sidewise, “Morphine.”
“We got junkies here. Be careful. They’ll steal it.” I furrowed my brow, “Shit.”
“What?” Marissa asked.
“If you attract a crowd that means worse than junkies, fucking tourists.”
She chuckled. I didn’t.
#
I swung the barbed wire bat, “Back! Back you savages!”
Everyday droves of tourists arrived. None seemed familiar with the concept of a line. Whenever they scattered into something nebulous, the horde pushing in to watch Marissa die, I herded them back into formation with the bat. The manager and I worked in tandem, taking turns herding and performing typical Breeze Inn duties. When she could, Isabella lent a hand, her glare pushing the crowd from chaos to order.
It took three days for things to truly get out of hand. By then news crews began arriving, spreading the word, reports drawing more and more spectators. Members of her family did the same, dispersing word online. Marissa wanted the company of strangers, well, she got it.
Folks came from as far as Orlando to sit with her. Some chatted, conversations ranging from the mundane to grasping at the profound. Others arrived to tout holistic cures Marissa politely declined. Some stood silently, and left as quietly. She welcomed all with a smile. Those who held out a hand to shake she hugged. Some kept a respectful distance, I suspected to hide their discomfort touching a wax wrapped skeleton. Still others came to defeat accusations of pretention by leeching off Marissa’s death to seem deeper; I remember a twig like woman lying on the bed with Marissa, cuddling while the twig’s friend recorded them. I wanted to smash the camera, but somehow sensing the intention, Marissa suggested by a subtle expression I leave them alone. So I did. She didn’t see what I saw -- #Idiedwithher. She saw something positive I can’t relate because I couldn’t perceive it well enough to describe.
When she slept many left. Others set up a tent city in the parking lot. The manager, seizing on the opportunity, charged ten bucks per tent occupant. They paid. It felt obscene, yet I still collected the cash every evening. Though, that said, I skimmed a few off the top to bribe the worst junkies.
Hand a ten, “Leave her drugs alone.”
“Whatev’s Connie. Jeez. Acting like I’m some fucking scumbag. I don’t rob the dead.”
But you would. Who wouldn’t? It’s not like they can stop you.
By the third week Marissa couldn’t get out of bed. She could barely speak, often just able to force a kind of gargle-cluck. Her eyes appeared to go in and out of focus.
The tourists stopped flooding in. Many who stayed aimed all manner of camera at her, streaming her decline in real time.
“We’re with her now…”
No, you’re not, I thought, but remembering her glances I respected what would’ve been Marissa’s wishes. I let them be.
Off duty hookers brought her water. I remember Butterscotch laying a cold cloth on Marissa’s forehead. She said, “This is how my mama died. She went in a better place than this shit hole. You know what I mean, right Connie?”
“Yeah, Butter, I hear ya.”
Towards the end the news crews departed, though reporters called regularly to see if Marissa died. They shot enough stock footage they just needed to know when to say the end occurred. The tourists mostly left. Even the hashtag allstars fled as reality crept in. What few remained occupied the parking lot wondering what to do next.
Meanwhile, in room 105 Marissa lay dying. Her family and friends surrounded the bed. Her breathing came irregularly, inspiring the guilty desire she die now, for her own good as well as theirs. I stood in the doorway watching.
The manager approached, “Hey, Connie, since shit’s calmed down a bit, the usual stuff needs to get done.”
Crossing my arms, “And what?”
“And you need to do it.”
“You’re saying I need to do my job, not be here.”
He nodded, “Yeah.”
“Then I quit.”
A few hours later Marissa breathed her last. When I walked away I saw the hookers on the second floor holding junkie candles in a vigil. The tent town broke up quickly, washed away on a flood of tears. I saw Marissa’s younger brother disappear into 216, a heroin black hole he’d been orbiting.
In the office I collected my last few day’s pay. The phone rang. I answered.
“Hello?”
“This is channel {redacted for legal reasons}. Is she dead yet?”
Looking out the front I saw Marissa taking a seat next to the Musician. He handed her a beer. She smiled at me, and waved.
I said, “Nope. She’s gonna live forever.”
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