CHAPTER TWO – THE ELECTRIC BUGALOO
It is kind of messed up, but this is my story, and I’m sticking to it.
So, um, right after I wrote that last chapter, I hear somebody trying to enter the hotel. I have to explain how this works, so bear with me.
When I arrive to start my shift, I lock the main entranceway. I unlock it at six o’clock in the morning. So, from midnight to six, the main doors, which are made out of glass, are locked. Guests that are already registered can use their room keys to get in, although most of them do not realize that. People that are looking to get a room or visit somebody in the hotel have to wait until I buzz them in.
There is a phone right next to the door. It is very clearly labeled that this phone rings the front desk. Somebody states their business to me, and, if applicable, I buzz them on in. What I don’t do is automatically buzz in any old goof ball that wants to get in. This is all for security purposes, in case you had not figured that out. I apologize if you did, but I have deal with all of the people who get nasty with me for not being able to get right into the hotel at two o’clock in the morning. What would be the point of locking the doors in the first place, if anyone can get in just on the merits that they showed up right while I was standing in their line of sight?
The front desk is right next to the main doorway. If I’m standing there when the guest comes to the door, that guest will never figure out that he has to pick up the phone and talk to me. Ever. They will just keep pulling on the doors, waving and staring at me, thinking I will just walk over and open the door for them. I can be standing there, with my phone in my hand, pointing at it to signal the dope to pick up the line, and the douche bag cannot figure it out.
That is why I never stand at the front desk while the doors are locked. I sit back in the office and write crappy novels until I hear the phone go off. I found it amazing how fast people will learn how this security measure operates when I’m not there to show them.
Now, there are certain things that I look for when somebody asks for a room. The third shift check ins are a lot different from the second shift ones. The night guy at any hotel has to be a bit more cautious as to who he sells his rooms to. You sell a room to a bunch of nineteen year olds who are all riled up from their road trip, and you are going to have a bunch of people constantly calling the desk and complaining about the noise. You also have to be cautious of angry couples, sex addicts and drunks for the same reason.
You also want to watch out for whiners. Whiners take many shapes and forms, but they are fairly easy to spot. These people will take forever to check in, mainly because they want to complain about every little detail.
“I don’t know my license plate number. You don’t need it.”
“Yes, actually, I do. It is in case anything happens to your vehicle overnight, I know who to get in touch with.”
“What do you mean my room is fifty bucks? The sign outside says it’s forty four.”
“The sign outside says that they run at forty four ninety nine and up. You requested a room that costs five dollars more than our cheapest rate.”
“Why do I have to give you my ID? Nobody else takes my ID.”
“Yes, every other hotel takes your driver’s license and photocopies it, just like I have to. That way, if you go and destroy your room, we will be able to get the bill to you, and know who to report the police to.”
These guests will also be calling the desk all night long to complain. That is why the hotel usually happens to be sold out when they arrive. You just have to be able to spot these folks as whiners before you let them know that any rooms are vacant. You pick up the ability to spot them over time.
I also won’t sell rooms to people who, for no reason, greet me with an attitude.
“You gonna let me in? You want me to stand out here all night?”
“Well, you can, but we’re sold out right now. You can go try the gizz factory hotel across the street, if you’d like.”
“What do you lock the doors for, pussy? This a high crime area or something?”
“Nah. Just a high jerk hole area. We’re sold out, so try another establishment. And go screw yourself.”
You’d think that these types of people would be rare, but, truthfully, they are all the bulk of what I get here during my shift. I don’t have the tendency to sell a lot of rooms during the course of the night.
I have told you this so you will know what my job is like on a nightly basis. Getting the bookkeeping done in an hour or so, sitting in the office and writing this book, and getting bothered by people who don’t have the common sense to treat the person who controls their fate for the night with a little respect.
On with the story… So, I hear someone at the door; he pulled on it once and he realized it was locked. I always expect whomever it is to just keep yanking on the door, or stupidly try knocking, and I’m usually right. But that’s not what happened. This person picked up the phone and rang me. Right away, this person figured it out. I was floored. This never happens. I might actually sell a room tonight.
I pick up the phone before I even look at the person. I do that so the person will not automatically hang up and go yank on the door some more. That happens a lot. Why people can’t take ten seconds to speak to me so I can rest assured that they are not going to shoot me as soon as I let them in, I’ll never know.
“Hi, there. How are you doing tonight?” I asked, in my generic helper servant voice.
“Mmmm, yessss…” a voice hissed back.
That’s when I turned to the door and looked. This person, probably the only one ever to get this procedure right… This person wasn’t a person.
What I thought was going to be the perfect hotel guest -– he was a freakin’ troll.
Now, when I say troll, I don’t mean an ugly person, though this troll was ugly. I’m also not referring to an old guy with hair growing out of his ears or a fat chick in a muumuu. This was a fairy tale, bridge dwelling, goat eating troll.
I could go on for paragraphs describing what the troll looked like, but I’m not going to. Use your imagination. You’ll probably be right.
“You…,” the troll went on. “You are the one they call Shawn Essler, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Can I help you, troll?”
“I have been sent here to give you a mighty gift. Might I come in to present it to you?”
“Are you getting a room?”
“Um… No…”
“I’m sorry, then. I’m not authorized to allow anybody who is not either checking in or already a registered guest into the hotel. If you want to just leave your parcel in the doorway, I will deliver it to the rightful recipient.”
“This gift, it is not for one of your guests. It is for you, and you alone. And it is not a parcel. It cannot be left out and retrieved later.”
I shrugged. I ended up buzzing the troll in. And he thanked me. Here was the most polite, cordial and responsive creature ever to set foot in my hotel.
The troll sat at one of the tables in the lobby. I came around and pulled up a chair across from him.
“You are working on a story,” the troll stated. “You have completed a forward, compiled an introduction and written one and one half chapters.”
“So what? Are you here to read what I’ve got, or have you just come here to play clairvoyant all night?”
“How would you like to be done with the book already? I could give you that power.”
“No way, troll. I’ve seen this routine in all sorts of stories and shows. It’s some sort of trick. You get me the finished book, and something stupid happens, like, it’s written in a dead language or Martian or something.”
“Nothing like that. You will simply write the book, in English, at a very fast pace.”
“Yeah, and then something else happens. No one will publish it, or no one will read it.”
“I will make it so. You will be published, and nearly everyone will read it.”
“How can you do that?”
“Dude, I’m a freakin’ troll.”
I thought it over. I knew there had to be a catch.
“This isn’t going to be one of those things where, like, you want my soul after I die, is it? I don’t have much time left in this world, and I don’t want to spend eternity in the underworld just to have a few years of creature comforts.”
“I can’t do that. I’m not Satan. I’m just a troll.”
“Then what’s the deal troll? Why do you want to do this for me?”
“There is something. I will have a curse placed on you. For the rest of your life, no one will take you seriously.”
“That’s it? That’s your curse? Fine, sign me up. Nobody takes me seriously now.”
The troll hunched over the table. He rolled his eyes.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. That isn’t really much of a curse,” the troll mused. “I really should have thought it over a bit more.”
“To say the least. My job may be pretty unsatisfying, but at least I show up every night prepared.”
“Okay. Nix the curse. I will bestow upon you this gift, if you can answer these questions three.”
“Ah, man. This blows rectally.”
“Question the first: How many –- ?”
“Is the answer seventeen?”
“Uh, yes, actually. Um, question the second—.”
“Is it a horse?”
“Yes! Come on! Give me a chance here.”
“Sorry.”
The troll leaned back into his chair. His eyes widened. He smirked.
“I want you,” he leaned forward, “to define love.”
“Screw you, troll. That’s not a question. That’s an order.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. Stupid writers. Question the third, what is the—?”
I cut him off again.
I defined love for him.
It’s not that hard of a question to answer, really. I don’t see how it kept blowing up computers on science fiction shows.
The troll worked his magic. “Hullabaloo The Electric Bugaloo! I give thee the power to craft your scripture at a lightning pace! It shall be printed! It shall be released! And the world over shall read it!”
“That was a little over the top, troll, don’t you think?”
“Shut up, Shawn.”
And, after that, the troll left, and I went back to my office. I sat down, opened my loose leaf binder, picked up my pen, and took off. My hand flew. It actually took me longer to flip the pages than to actually fill them with my inane prose.
That morning, after I got out of work, I got right onto my parents’ computer. It literally took me two and a half minutes to type this piece of junk book that you’re reading right now. And, the only problem I had with the spelling and grammar check was that it didn’t recognize “gizz factory” as a valid phrase. I ignored it.
After that, I got online, found a publisher, e-mailed him, and instantly got the response. He wanted to read my novel. Unfortunately, my folks’ computer uses an operating system that doesn’t have a standard text document program on it. I use a word processing application that nobody else uses, so I couldn’t send the manuscript online. I had to print it up and mail it. As soon as I got home from the post office, I got the response e-mail, which said that they were going to publish me.
However, they neglected to mention whether or not they liked the book.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, my first published novel was out in the bookstores. Well, I never actually saw it in the store, but it would have had to have been, since that’s where published books go.
The troll had held his end of the bargain. Now, I just had to wait for the check to come. I’m not legally allowed to tell you how much it was for, but I can mention that it was well more than enough to pay for my cemetery lot and burial fees.
And, for the record, yes, I did have the troll say “The Electric Bugaloo” in his granting me the powers, just so I could title this “Chapter Two – The Electric Bugaloo”.
Oh, just so there’s no mystery or debate about it, this is what I told the troll:
“Love is the emotion felt from a chemical reaction that takes place in the human brain. Humans are a species that are intended to mate for life, though our ever expanding intellect has given us the knowledge of how to mate for recreation, rather than the intended purpose of procreation.
“However, still being a species that is meant to mate for life, the homosapien brain has evolved to release these chemicals into our psyches in order to feel what is commonly referred to as ‘love’. Thus, we feel compelled to submit to one mate for life, as opposed to the recreational foray of many mates.”
I am sure that a lot of people are going to yell and fuss about that definition, and everyone will tell me that I’m wrong. That is just because what I said doesn’t tell their specific story of love. But I bet all of these people that want to yell at me don’t have a written, published definition of what love is. I do, so suck it.
Plus, the troll thought my answer was right.
CHAPTER THREE – BEAT A GIRL AT ARM WRESTLING
I haven’t paid any attention to the sales of my book. Hopefully, it has been selling well, but really, I could care less about my sales. I have not gotten my check yet, and that’s what’s really bugging me. Everything else went so quickly, so how come I haven’t gotten my money?
Thus, I still have to work my stupid hotel job. I’m still living with my parents and driving my mom’s car. I’m still sick, single, unfulfilled and uncomfortable. Ten years ago, I would have been doing back flips just to have been published, without any worries as to when my check was coming.
I guess that’s the biggest difference when you switch from being ambitious to being desperate. When you’re ambitious, you find the way to make ends meet. When you’re desperate, you have to hold on to survive another day.
I still don’t have any clue as to what this book is about, even though I’ve already written it. Never read it, and I did not really pay any attention to what I wrote. I honestly don’t care. If I wasn’t good enough to get published when I put my heart behind my work, I’m sure that some feeble attempt that only got the green light by troll powered meddling would have to be rotten.
Not that I didn’t feel any pride. I did, but the type of elation I felt was about equal to what I would feel if I beat a girl at arm wrestling. You take no pride in the fact that you actually won, just that she’ll now shut up about how tough she is, and how badly she says that she could bring you down.
Oh, and just a quick message to any female readers: Stop trying to prove how tough you are by picking the smallest guy in the room and talking about how you can beat him up. I say this on behalf of all small guys. What do you expect the outcome is going to be? There will not be anything good that comes from whatever message you are dead set on proving.
This is what I mean. You take a girl who’s five foot eight and a hundred and twenty five pounds, and pit her up against me, at five six and a buck twenty. Now, technically, she has a slight advantage, right? She’s bigger. Well, no. That’s not how it works. You could have some wicked Amazonian broad that benches refrigerators, put her up against me, and the result would still be the same. Not so much the outcome of the actual fight, but with the situation that I am now placed in. So now, everybody cheers for her to rip me a new one as payback for male chauvinism, but, God forbid, I actually defend myself and lay a hand on her, and I get every guy in the room piling on top of me, after blood, and every female witness spreading stories about how I am a misogynist who beats women.
I have never picked a fight with a girl. Get that straight. I have never picked a fight with a girl. But, I have had a lot of them try and pick fights with me. It’s a losing situation, no matter what happens. Say we fight, and I destroy her. Now I’m a no good evil man. Say we fight, and she beats me. Now I have everybody constantly letting me know how I was beaten up by a girl.
Now, say I explain this position to said girl, and I tell her that, because of the given situation, I refuse to fight her. Yeah, then I’m the pussy who’s too afraid to fight a girl.
Which I have been many a times, because girls keep wanting to tell me how badly they could beat me up, and I have no desire to fight anyone, let alone a girl. So, ladies, please, cut it out.
Anyways, I was talking about the minor bit of pride I felt about getting published. I’d feel some more if I actually had some money in my pocket. As of right now, I have to wait until I get my next paycheck from the hotel, take the extra ten or fifteen dollars I have left over, and celebrate alone at the nearest bar for a few rounds.
Oh, what a joyous occasion.
Let me explain how that will go down. I’m not very good around crowds, so I’m not going on the weekend. I go into work at midnight, so I can’t go in the evening. I’ll end up at some nasty bar on a Wednesday afternoon, with the only drinking patrons being retired old guys who need to get juiced before their four thirty dinnertime.
I’ll sit down, by myself, get ignored by the bartender for twenty minutes anytime I need a drink, and stay until my spending cash is gone. The only solace will be if I’m at a place with a Mega Touch, as I have always been decent at that.
But, if there’s no Mega Touch, I’ll sit by myself for an hour and a half, nursing warm beer and lamenting on my failed life. This is my big celebration for getting published.
However, this is a story, and stuff has to happen in a story, so let’s say I meet somebody in this bar.
I’m not going to mince words and talk about how cliché this is, so I’m going to meet a girl. She has to be hot. And her boobs have got to be freakin’ huge. And she has to be interested in me. Why? Because I’m the hero in this super suck story, and the hero has to have a love interest. This nameless girl is going to be mine.
Let us just forget about the fact that this sexy piece of hooch would never be at this bar, at this time of day, on this day of the week, let alone would she ever approach a guy like me. I have to mention that she approaches me, as I’m painfully shy and self-conscious, and I don’t think I have approached a girl since I got rejected for the ten thousandth time in junior high school.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” Nameless Girl asks, pointing to the stool next to me.
“Not unless there’s any reason I should that I don’t know about yet. Like, you’re really a dude, or that you freakin’ fart all the time or something.”
I should mention here that women are not completely unjustified in not wanting anything to do with me. Nameless Girl finds this cute, though.
“No. Nothing like that,” she proclaims, giggling.
Nameless Girl slips onto the stool next to me. This would be the part where I stare at a TV screen or out a window, doing everything I could to avoid the lady knowing that I have any interest in her, but at the same time, keeping myself open to any advances she might make on me. The result of this tactic always results in the lady never making any advances on me, just in case you were curious. After I’m done drinking, I would leave, having never had the chance to win her heart.
But, obviously, that can’t happen, so she’s going to initiate some flirtatious verbiage.
“So what brings you out this afternoon?” she asks, sipping her fruity girly drink.
“This is my big celebration,” I respond.
“A celebration? What are you celebrating?”
“I just got published. I’m a writer.”
“Really? That’s so interesting.”
No it’s not. And she knows that.
She continued. “Actually, I just got done reading a book, and when I finish a book, I like to go out and muse over it for a while. You know, I had a funny feeling that I’d run into somebody I could talk literature about with when I headed out.”
She stared at me for a moment. I started feeling awkward, so I think that she needs to say something. Anything.
“It’s so sad that you have to celebrate alone. Where are all your friends and family?”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. What little I got in the way of a brood is still at work.”
“Except for you. It must be great not having to show up for work every day. Just get to spend your days writing.”
“Actually…,” I take a deep breath. “I work third shift as a bookkeeper at an economy class hotel where I make eight dollars an hour. I live with my parents, and I don’t have a car. In fact, I rode my bicycle down here today. I can’t seem to find a decent job in Rochester, and the only reason I wrote a book is to get a paycheck, which I have yet to receive, that will allow me to have a little bit of comfort before I drop dead from poor health, depression and a general lack of desire to keep fighting on.”
Again, she just stared at me. I get that a lot.
“You sound just like the main character from the book I just read.”
Oh really?
“The book was lent to me. This guy, he’s supposed to be really smart, but he has no outlet for it. Then, a troll gives him the power to write his book. And he—.”
“You’ve read my book. I’m Shawn Essler.”
Nameless Girl’s eyes widen. She covers her mouth in revelation.
“All right, I got to ask. You write about stuff that hasn’t happened to you yet. You’re writing in the future tense. Is the stuff coming true?”
This was all a little off putting. I don’t know how to answer that. I haven’t written it yet. I mean, I have, but I really haven’t. And why is she asking me questions about my book? She’s a fictional character in it.
“I don’t know. Right now, I’m writing the chapter where you and I meet.”
“I was right. I knew when I read the book. I’m Nameless Girl!”
“You, uh… You do know that you don’t exist, right?”
“My friends will flip out when they find out that I’m Nameless Girl!”
I’m trying to make sense of this, but she’s too wrapped up in this retarded story.
“What makes you think that anyone will know what you’re talking about, let alone care?” I ask.
“What? Shawn, everybody knows who Nameless Girl is. And who you are. Almost everybody has read Shawn Essler Must Die.”
That’s the title of this book? I, not even knowing what my story is yet, can’t help but query further.
“So, uh, that means that the book was a big success, and I’ll be given the chance to write another one, right?”
“No. The book doesn’t sell well at all. And, you die.”
What a relief.
I pressed on. “So, why are you happy to be Nameless Girl? She’s just some pointless, object of desire character meant only to add some sexual stimulation to the book.”
“I’m not happy to be Nameless Girl, Shawn. I just wasn’t prepared for it is all.”
I took a swig of my brew. She has read my book before I’ve even written it.
“Nameless Girl is fairly important to the story. You don’t have many characters in it, but I’m a big part in certain sections. Plus, we have sex.”
Beer really stings when it shoots through your nostrils.
“We…?” I choked out.
“Yeah, Shawn. We have, as you put it, some hot, wild, dirty, crazy, nasty monkey sex.”
“Um, not to be nosy, but does that happen now in the book?”
“No.”
“CRAP!!!”
Everything went silent for a moment. The old, drunken guys and the bartender glared over at me.
“I mean, uh, what’s supposed to happen? I don’t know the story yet.”
“Everyone else does. You’ll get there, eventually.”
“And then I die?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask how?”
“You can, but I have to tell you that I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But…”
“What I said was, ‘I have to tell you that I don’t know’. Of course I know how you die. I read the book. But, I have to tell you that I don’t know because that is what Nameless Girl tells Shawn Essler when he asks her how he will die.”
Nameless Girl jumps up from her seat.
“I’m going to leave you now,” she continued. “Because that is what I’m supposed to do. We’ll see each other again. You’re ending this chapter soon. You’ve got to devote Chapter Four to Marcus DeMello. He’s your enemy. Have fun.”
Nameless Girl started off. I still had one more question. A big one.
“Nameless Girl!” I hollered. She spun around.
“Yes, Shawn?”
“Um, when we, uh, get it on, can you wear something sexy? Like, a French maid’s outfit or black underwear or something?”
She smiled at me. I don’t think a girl’s ever done that before.
“Nope. Doesn’t happen that way.”
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