Stanley Elkin - The Franchiser

“Listen,” he said, “you don’t know. A lot’s at stake here. My God,” he said, “we’ve got a dining room, place settings, service for eight hundred. Think,” he said, “the linen alone. A hundred fifty rooms. Three hundred double beds. That’s six hundred pillows, six hundred pillowcases. The towels. Think of the towels and washcloths and bathmats. A thousand maybe. What are we into here? I’m a bachelor, I’ve got a thousand towels, three hundred sheets for three hundred double beds.”

“More,” his housekeeper said.

“What?”

“More. For every sheet and pillowcase and towel there’s another for when they get dirty.”

“Jesus,” Ben said, “I didn’t even think about that. Twelve hundred pillowcases. Jesus. Two thousand towels.” He thought of all the other Travel Inns, of all the rooms in all the Travel Inns. He took a Travel Inn Directory from the registration desk and opened it at random. It opened on pages 120 and 121—Michigan, Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo. There were seventeen motels with 2,136 rooms. He multiplied this by the 204 pages that listed Travel Inns in the United States. There were 435,744 rooms. “That doesn’t count Canada,” he said. “That doesn’t count Japan. It doesn’t count Mexico or Zaire or Indonesia. That doesn’t count Johannesburg or Paris or Skanes in Tunisia or Tamuning in Guam.

“Almost half a million rooms,” he said. “Service for three and a half million. That doesn’t count Ramada, it doesn’t count Best Western. It doesn’t count Quality. That doesn’t count Hilton, Travelodge, Hospitality Inn. It doesn’t count Rodeway or the Sheraton motels or Howard Johnson’s or the Ben Franklin chain. It doesn’t count Holiday Inn. It doesn’t count Regal 8 Inns, Stouffer, the Six’s, Day’s Inn, Hyatt, Master Hosts, Royal Inns, Red Carpet, Monarch, Inn America, Marriott. It doesn’t count all I can’t think of or those I don’t know. It doesn’t count the independents. It doesn’t count hotels. And it doesn’t count tourist cabins in national parks or places where the Interstates ain’t.

“What are we up to? Twenty million rooms? Twenty- five ? What are we up to? What are we talking here? Service for 250 million? A ghost room for every family in America? And almost every one of them air-conditioned, TV’d or color TV’d, swimming-pooled, cocktail-lounged, restauranted, coffee-shopped.

“How will they find us? How will they know? What’s to be done? Yes, and occupancy rates never lower or competition stiffer. Go! Reroute traffic. Paint detour signs. Paint FALLING ROCK, paint SLIPPERY WHEN WET, paint DANGEROUS CURVE. Paint CAUTION, MEN WORKING NEXT THOUSAND MILES. Paint BRIDGE OUT AHEAD. How will they find us? What’s to be done ?”

He wrung his hands. “See?” he said. “I wring my hands. I am wracked. I chafe. I fret. I gall. I smart and writhe. I have throes and am discomfited. All the classic positions of ballet pain.”

“Mr. Flesh,” his housekeeper, Mrs. Befilicio, says.

“Yes? What? You know a way? Something’s occurred to you? Say. Mrs. Befilicio? Anyone. Everyone.” He speaks over her shoulder to Mr. Shoe. “A suggestion box. Have Mr. Wellbanks put a suggestion box together for the employees.” Mr. Wellbanks is the chief maintenance man. “Mr. Wellbanks, can you handle that?” He turns to his employees. “There’s bonus in it for you. How will they know us? What’s to be done? How will they find us? Yes, Mrs. Befilicio, yes, excuse me.”

“It’s just that…”

“What? What is it just? It’s just what? Just what is it?”

“Well, sir, it’s just that it’s past four-thirty and the maids go off duty.”

He stares at the housekeeper. “They’ll take their cars? Remove their cars from the driveway?”

“Well, yes, sir, that’s probably what we’ll have to do. Yes, sir.”

“Yes,” Ben says, “of course. We’ll see you in the morning.”

And at six the two desk clerks go off duty. His cashier leaves. Mr. Wellbanks does. John Shoe says he’ll stay on awhile.

Two people come in but it is only Miss McEnalem and Mr. Kingseed, his night auditor and night clerk.

Then his first guests arrive.

The couple are in their thirties. The woman, who holds the car keys, speaks for them. The waitresses, the hostess, the man from room service, the chef and her assistants hang about to watch them register. John Shoe glances peremptorily at his personnel and lightly claps his hands together, dismissing them.

“Have you a reservation, Mrs. Glosse?” the night clerk asks.

“No. Do we need one?”

“How long do you plan to be staying with us?”

“Just overnight.”

“Oh,” the night clerk says, “in that case I think we can fix you up then. Room 1107.” He gives the Glosses their room key and tells them how to get there. The instructions, as Ben has always found them to be, though he has slept most of his life in motels, are extremely complicated.

“Excuse me,” Ben says, “I happen to be in the room next to yours. I was just going there. I’m the blue Cadillac. You can follow me.” They walk along with him as he goes toward his car. “You’re lucky,” Ben says, “that room happens to be poolside. The water’s terrific. I took a dip before dinner. Dinner was great. The prime ribs are sensational. They do a wonderful Scotch sour. I’m going to watch television tonight. There are some swell shows on. It’s color TV. The reception is marvelous. I may doze off though, the beds are so comfortable.” He drives around to the rear of the long central building, stops and waits for them to make the turn. When they are abreast of him, he lowers his electric window. “Yours would be the fifth room in from the end of the building.” They nod and drive on to where Ben is pointing. Flesh slips his car in just next to theirs in the otherwise vacant parking area. “It’s convenient, isn’t it? The parking.”

“Real convenient,” Mr. Glosse says.

“Well, you folks get comfortable,” he tells them. “Maybe I’ll see you in the lounge later on. They’ve got a super combo. Really excellent. Young, but real pros. The kid with acne on drums is something else.”

The Glosses stare at him. “There’s free ice,” he says lamely. “In the corridor. Very cold.” Ben lets himself into his room and turns on the television set. He waits a few minutes, leaves by the door that opens onto the corridor, and returns to the lobby.

“Did anyone check in while I was gone?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” John Shoe says. “Some people named Storrs. A couple with kids.”

“Teenagers? Babies?”

“No. About ten, I guess. A girl ten, a boy about seven.”

He bites his lips. Teenagers would have been $3 extra apiece. A baby would have meant another dollar for a crib.

Ben sat with his manager in the small office behind the wall of room keys. He could hear everything that happened at the front desk, could hear the switchboard operator as she took wake-up calls. It was not yet midnight.

Ultimately twenty-seven rooms were let. Five to individuals, nine to couples, four to families with two children, five to families with one child. Four doubles went to sisters or to friends traveling together. There were seventy-two guests in the motel. The last room had been rented at twenty minutes to ten. It was an 18 percent occupancy rate. They broke even at 60 percent.

“Why don’t you get some sleep? Anyone traveling this time of night would just keep on going, I expect.”

“We’ll be killed,” Ben said.

“No,” his manager said. “They told me at school that unless you overlook a place like Niagara Falls, or you’re in one of the big towns, and only then if it’s some skyscraper setup that gets a lot of advance publicity and makes a mark on the skyline, you can’t expect to do much business the first month or so. At service locations like ours it could be three or four months before an inn takes hold.”