Ten in the Mourning

Ten in the morning, my eyelids weighed down by the weights that are sleep deprivation, completely self inflicted. I work my IN key into the slot, through the transparent door I can see that a tenet already waiting. By his sloth-ish stance he's obviously trying to get the point across that one he's been standing there for a while and two he's tired of it. I walk past him in a morosely averting manner. I don't even make eye contact. I don't speak to him. I get the money drawer from the back and retreat to unforeseen territory. From behind the wall I gaze at the clock, five after ten, another tenet arrives.



My bad mood pervasive, the first tenet is now agitated but my opening the window now mollifies that. This routine had become monotonous to me. The man I recognize as 312, his room number, places a plastic container of mucky water that looks as if it'd come from the sewer, reminisce of pickle juice. He places a blackened light bulb next to it. I roll my eyes at this, making it very prevalent.



"Last night the storm hits, a know, my light bulb in da chanda'ler there explo'aded like sum sorta gun shot. I a'most hit da floor," he took a pause searching my face for recognition, I replied with a blank stare purposely.



He continues " Anyhow shoon as it explo'aded water from da storm came floo'din water all around my place, I collect'd the water in tupawear like right here," he said shaking the tupawear softly making it overflow onto the desk.



This angered me; I couldn't comprehend why he would need to bring it as if it were evidence. It seemed completely pretentious and sordid. But this man had been known to have pseudo problems to have an excuse to have human interaction… like most of these people. I told him I'd have our Maintenance man look at; he gave me an incertitude look then withdrew down the hall.



It'd been two years since my Dad forced me to work this grotty job; every Saturday at ten I would curse him once more. Sophomore year summer, I had made plans to completely indulge in my indolence when he sprung this on me. I'd be working at the Gateway Inn, the place I'd spent most of memorable childhood due to the fact that a bar was adjacent. He owned the place… the Gateway Inn; he used it for his office and refuge for most of the divorce period. The divorce didn't bother me I was precocious at my young age; I knew that it was for the best. In fact I'd never understand why a racist foreign democratic from Nicaragua married a tubby staunch Republican who had a tongue for hard liquor. Despite my Father's harmful vice I still preferred him to my Mother. Believe me it is inauspicious to try to tell your children why you're getting a divorce… we don't care… or really ever will. But I digress.



In came the Maintenance man, self-proclaimed Chicago Dave, why he is here in Reno I'll never know. He jovially pushes by the door left ajar by me.



"Ho-o-owya doin' Karina?" he asked with cajole. Dave had always had a stutter; it was like a revving engine when he would hit a particularly hard word. He sometimes came to work late but I never besieged him to do different. Finding a hardworking Maintenance man was elusive for any motel. We had the prerequisite five minutes of small talk followed by him making his exit.



I sat there completely miserable, indolent, and fractious. "Seven dollars an hour," I said to myself, "Seven dollars an hour." I had ignoble actions when I was at work… a report for a clogged sink… need for new clean towels…relay this message to this tenet… all left uncompleted. My work ethic was inauspicious for the sheer reason I felt abject disgust when I would see any of these tenets. Each of them a quality worse to their prior, completely distorted ineffable features. Their comport completely ignoble, two kids here, five kids there with a pregnant mother, five pit-bulls, a bed-hidden mother on a breathing tube they can't afford… all of them have something extra in the two-hundred seventy-six square feet hell of their own making.



My first year working, a woman by the name of Denise lived in room 218, she was an exuberant vivacious woman who was imperturbable. A nebulous of drug induced haze was Denise's life. She staggered around in her stained sundresses demanded attention. Her hair charcoal stringy wires that hung below her bony hips, her face wrinkled with liver-spots scattered across it. An artist she would call herself. She went to art school. We all see how far that gets you.



One day Denise was not full of zealous and inept to walking straight. Emaciated, her dress draped from her bony shoulders swaying as she staggered. With moist eyes she told me her boyfriend, whom she had been on and off with since I remember, had beat her. Then she abruptly lifted her dress flashing her bare pelvic, ultimately un-kept her enormous bruise was not what I was averting my eyes from. The most perverse gesture any tenet had ever done has been ingrained in my mind, an image I'll regrettably never forget. From that day on, I would have no cajole for work, I would not have manners, I would not listen to anyone's petty stories. They were all the same.



"Can I get some Tee-Pee?" asked the tenet that had newly arrived. Each vowel strenuously prolonged in an ill attempt to reveal humor. It was 203, an obese man with glasses who found it devilishly fashionable to bleach the tips of his greasy hair and sport even more horrendously large shirts in attempt to appear skinnier. His wife, who did not have a name to me, was just as obese. They had multiple kids, more than I should care to ask, but it seemed every instance a new face appeared, it transpired from 203's room. The most notable of all these exuberant youth was a boy around thirteen, extremely odd in every sense. His hair blended in with his skin, which I did not think was possible, but perhaps the mantle of dirt smoothed the blending process.



I handed him a roll reproachfully, he thanked me in his normally elated manner. I sat stasis, uninterested in my surroundings, wishing I didn't have to participate in my own life.

I saw another figure approaching, though I could not see their face, my eyes rolled habitually involuntarily. I would repeat this process several times throughout the day, to any tenet no matter what they meant to me.



I recollect there was a man by the name of Larry, he lived in 231. He was an irritating man to put it kindly. The most obnoxious and extravagant acts he would preserve for my manager April. He would attempt to follow her around like a puppy-dog hoping that the stranger would find it a home. Out of loneliness he would attempt to converse with me, which had been futile for every tenet prior. Larry overdosed on his prescribed drugs one day. April went to Larry's room to get him clothes for the duration of time he was hospitalized; as she left she noticed a sticker right before reaching the door. "Smile, people want to see you!" it said reproachfully.



Seven at last, I hurryingly collect my purse and make a dash for freedom. Saturday is mine, nothing to stop me, no obstacle in sight. As I'm dropping the window, three tenets appear. Frantically attempt to drop the window but to avail, I look back at the traitorous clock. "Five to seven," it scoffs at me. Seven at night, my eyes narrowed by the frustration by the false hope of going home, completely self inflicted.