Russ Franklin - Cosmic Hotel

When the clicking of the door latch finished echoing off floors on the other side of the atrium, I said, “I really hate this hotel.”

“The sleepwalkers in the Grand Aerodrome aren’t hidden down lonely hallways, are they? This is open and quite dangerous.” She pointed out into the Air of Liability and all the rooms we could see. “She won’t remember any of it in the morning,” Elizabeth said. Her eyebrows of consternation never slept.

The atmosphere of the open-atrium hotel was dreamlike. Tiny room number lights sat beside each door where guests were sleeping or fucking or everything people do inside a layover, airport hotel.

“The problem is that everyone in this country is filthy rich and they don’t even know it,” Elizabeth said. “We are all filthy rich and everyone takes prescription medications. We have quite literally turned into a country of Elvis Presleys.”

My phone dinged.

“Who could be messaging you in the middle of the night?”

“Dubourg,” I lied and looked at the message.

I need you to introduce me to Raye.

You have to help me.

“We got our stuff,” I said to her, and left her looking into the Air of Liability and contemplating a country full of Elvis Presleys. I typed and sent:

I am not in contact with him. If you can do all this why can’t you contact him?

His introduction to me must be handled gently.

Who are you?

I should have a name. .

I really like talking to you.

Do NOT contact me again.

What you are doing frightens me.

Don’t be frightened. Do you want to listen to Elvis?

I couldn’t sleep, not even with the betta fish swimming in his tank beside my bed. His color was coming back, and he was more greenish than I remembered, but they did this sometimes, this slight change of color brought on by the transition.

I gave up on sleep and dressed in my swimsuit and robe and went down to the outside pool. It had quit raining and the water was freezing but for some reason it felt good. I floated on my back and tried to focus on a bright star in the sky. My ears were submerged in the dull thrum of water, making the sound of someone on the pool deck calling my name seem angelic, “ Mr. Sanghavi. . ”

The security guard stood by the pool looking down at me, walkie-talkie in hand. “Mr. Sanghavi?”

“ What? ”

“The phone in the lobby is for you,” he said.

“What phone?”

“The payphone in the lobby.”

I hurried to the pool’s stairs. “Who is it?”

“The operator said a person-to-person for you, Sanghavi. Would you not like me to take these calls?”

“No, no. Please, always.” I grabbed my robe. I noticed his nametag said ALBERT.

I left him on the pool deck, took the fire stairs two at a time, loafers slapping concrete. Out in the lobby, I cinched the robe tighter and noticed all the payphone booths were dark except for the one where a receiver sat on the triangle corner table, door open.

I pushed the door wider and picked it up. “Hello? Hello?” And then the song began, “ A little less conversation, a little more action, all this aggravation ain’t satisfaction. . ”

A message vibrated on my phone.

It’s always funny.

And it makes you happy, right?

Outside, the floodlights above the main desk shined on a front desk agent bowed to her terminal. One of my loafers had come off and now sat abandoned on the carpet, and an older man worked a vacuum, getting closer and closer to it without thinking an abandoned loafer in the middle of the lobby was strange, the vacuum’s tiny headlight touching the shoe and retreating. I listened to the music, trying to think. The old man looked up through the hotel as if to determine where the shoe had dropped from. I responded:

No.

Maybe

Oh

My mother lost her violin in Dallas on November 9.

These were simple little words. I knew that the violin wasn’t the same thing as tracking down lost packages, but I was desperate.

I don’t want to frighten you again.

You wont

The phone in my booth rang. I picked it up slowly, expecting Elvis, but there was no drum roll or bass beat, only silence and then a man’s deep voice cut in, “. . until five, Monday through Saturday.”

“Hello?” I said, but it was a recording: “The Warehouse of Mishandled Luggage is officially warehouse 122-Alpha located on the south perimeter.” It stopped and then began again, “Welcome to the Warehouse of Mishandled Luggage! The warehouse hours are nine until five, Monday through Saturday. .”

Is this a joke?

What do you believe?

What do you want from me?

Only to be introduced to Raye

I got out of the booth and went and retrieved my shoe.

There was one early-morning guest checking in at the front desk, and I stepped beside him and said to the agent, “If any of those phones ever ring, please see that someone answers them.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” the agent, a woman, tried to remain pleasant. “Those are public phones, not hotel phones.”

“I know that. . but. . ” Her nametag said CARLA. “Carla,” I said, “it is of the utmost importance. . ”

A voice behind me said, “This is Mr. Sanghavi.” It was Albert the security man, looking like some creepy undertaker in his mustache and his thin neck, hands interlocked in front of him and the ugly nylon jacket with his name sewn on.

I said to Albert, “I was just saying, any phone calls on the pay-phones are very important to me. Even in the middle of the night, text me. I’ll give you my number.” I got my wallet from the robe’s pocket.

“I will make sure you get any phone calls. I hope there was no problem,” he said.

As he watched me shakily find a business card, he said, “Is it true that you had everyone from the Springhill Plaza blackballed?”

“Blackballed?”

“Blackballed from the hospitality business.”

“That’s absurd. Do you honestly really believe that?”

He seemed to be interested in the wire sculpture on the white marble wall behind the desk. “I’ve worked nights here for twelve years. I heard one person at the Plaza made Ms. Sanghavi angry.”

“No,” I said, “that’s not true. Why would you believe that? Do you really think we have the kind of power to tell every hotel never to hire someone?”

“A few hours ago I didn’t believe there was such a thing as the Sanghavis,” he said. “I also heard that you travel with your own staff.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I can assure you we are real, and we have no staff , and we are here to help the Grand Aerodrome and all of its employees and associates.” I finally found a bent card and handed it to him.

“I have pried. I’m out of line,” he said.

“Albert, we don’t close everyone down. There are plenty of properties we help become better hotels, and we always educate the staff, which makes the employees more valuable. Please, just let me know if those phones ring. If you answer it and call, I’ll be here immediately. Twenty-four hours.”

The front desk agent reemerged from the office and held out a package for me and said, “This arrived before I came on duty tonight. I mean, I was told about it but it was late. . ”

The return address was “C. Van Raye” with his California address and a sticker signifying it had been forwarded overnight from Dallas.

I remained poised until I got into the rising glass elevator. I tore open the package and pulled out a book. The title was The Universe Is a Pair of Pants , subtitle, A Survival Guide for the Multiverse . At the bottom it said simply, “Van Raye,” the name the world knew him by. The cover was a beautiful image of the unmistakable Hubble Ultra-Deep Field photograph, showing hundreds of galaxies in the darkness of space — elliptical, globular clusters, spiral arms, like a cosmic Pollack splatter in rich colors. But then I realized this famous photograph of the galaxies had been transposed on a pair of black jeans, a woman’s shape filling out the pants. How does he get away with this? The truth was that he had a large female readership. I thumbed through the table of contents to look at the chapter titles to see if anything looked familiar, to see if anything had to do with my life, as if one chapter might be titled “Sandeep, My Son,” but there was nothing like that, only the Durastock letter folded inside.