Russ Franklin - Cosmic Hotel

Ursula slept. The Creature was eventually killed by spear guns.

I slowly lifted her hand to see the numbers twirling on her stopwatch as she slept. She was trying to somehow quantify real sleep time versus lost time if the aliens came to take her away.

I turned the television off and put my back against her back and tried to sleep, but the bed covers were loose and frustrating.

I had no choice but to get up, but I didn’t get in the other bed. I put on my red tracksuit and went down to the empty nighttime lobby. I shut myself in the phone booth on the end and waited. The sign on the phone said:

1) STOP!

2) Listen for tone.

3) Deposit coins.

When it rang, like I knew it would, I snapped it up without speaking. It was the old favorite “Viva Las Vegas,” and it did seem like the best song ever—“ . .and I’m just the devil with love to spare. . Viva Las Vegas. . ”

I glanced outside to the lobby but saw nothing out of the ordinary, just the lobby at low staff, and I closed my eyes to relax. The tight confines of the phone booth was wonderful, slouched with knees braced against the metal wall, but then my leg tingled — tingling, tingling? — but I realized that my phone was vibrating in my tracksuit pocket. The message was from “UNKNOWN,” which meant Randolph:

You are very happy tonight.

How do you know? Why can’t I show this conversation to anyone?

At the right time everyone will know. They aren’t ready.

You are from another planet.

:)

And I need Raye’s help.

You know what he has found?

Yes.

Do you have something to do with the noise?

Is the noise your planet?

No.

No, but. .

But that is where I want to go.

I am going to have to locate the dog again. He didn’t look after the dog. There will be a slight delay.

The dog? I looked at the world outside the phone booth as if I would see a dog among the late-night check-ins. On the concierge’s desk, a small sign apologized for the inconvenience of her not being there.

Forgive me if there is a long period of silence.

I must search and solve problems for the dog.

I fell asleep in the comfort of the booth, one of those deep, paralyzing sleeps from childhood, and dreamed of being back in the hospital bed beside Mr. Leggett. I happily waited for Rose Epstein to call her name and tell everyone she wanted to go home. I wanted Mr. Leggett to tell one of his stupid jokes even though I had always agreed with my father about jokes being the shallowest form of human conversation.

In chapter 9 of The Universe Is a Pair of Pants , “Mediocre Men,” Van Raye ranked them:

3) Talking about sports.

2) Talking about television shows.

1) Telling jokes—“Did you hear the one about. .?”

“It is slightly interesting to wonder where these jokes come from,” he wrote. “The ‘farmer’s daughters’ jokes, ‘a guy walks into a bar’ jokes? Nobody knows who creates dirty jokes, nor why such categories evolve and remain. How do the jokes survive in the world? How do they become popular enough to be repeated? Why do these appeal to people, appeal to them enough that they are memorized and stored? They spread like the most proficient virus. Why?”

In the chapter, he tells of an experiment. He made up a joke, told it to a friend when they were on a hiking trip on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula (picture a woman in a tent). “I told my English-speaking friend the joke on top of a volcano,” he wrote. “It was funny, if I say so myself. I told no one else the joke, and I will not write it here. This is about what spreads among human beings by shear desire to have this superficial contact with other human beings. I hope to one day hear my joke repeated to me somewhere far away from Kronotsky.”

I woke in the phone booth the next morning, sat blinking my eyes to a new, dull-gray day dawning through the hotel, and I was surprised to see Elizabeth get out of the elevator at that moment, fully dressed in a navy business suit. I started to fold the door open but Elizabeth’s speed of walking made me stop to see what the hell was going on. She was looking at someone. He was in the direction of the bank of courtesy phones on the opposite wall, and as soon as I saw the rounded Bob Cratchit posture I knew it was Charles.

Charles wore a big blue arctic parka and a knit cap. He still had on sunglasses like he was a movie star, and the heavy coat couldn’t hide that stooping posture. They went toward each other like a bad movie, Van Raye with his arms open, Elizabeth moving too fast, not even caring if anyone saw her. She hit him with an embrace that knocked him slightly off balance, then took his cheeks between her hands and stretched her neck forward to kiss him on the lips.

He appeared mildly shocked.

I rose awkwardly out of the booth, stood with the help of my cane and the doorframe.

I walked to them and said, “Elizabeth?”

She let go of him and kept his elbow in her grip and simply said, “Charles is here!”

“Look who’s here!” he said, eyes behind the glasses. “ Me! ”

“Charles,” I said. He came and hugged me, pinning my arms so that I could only touch his elbows. “It’s really you,” I said. “Thank God. Charles, let me go. You’re squeezing me.”

He did and said, “We’re all here!” He took in the sight of Elizabeth, down to her gold shoes. “I’ve never had a greeting like that! Darling, look at you, you look fantastic! I look horrible. It really took too long to get here. It wasn’t supposed to be this long. And the storm.” His parka squeaked as he moved. He had on black pants and boots with zippers.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re here.”

The waterfall ran in the fake rainforest. The Air of Liability was clear. Guests pulled their luggage by us. Everything was quite normal except the girlish look of delight on Elizabeth’s face.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” I said. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Well, we have plenty of time.” He clapped his hands. “You look fine,” he said to me. “I love the getup,” he pointed to my red tracksuit. “Very urban.” He took Elizabeth’s arm, me with the other, moving us along as if we were guests in his hotel.

“My God. This is just like you to call when you are already here ,” Elizabeth said. “I wasn’t even dressed. I could have used some warning.”

“We had to beat the storm.”

“Have you had breakfast?” she said. “Do you want a room? Of course you want a room. There’s an extra room, Sandeep’s old room. I could see what else is available. I’ll book you something.”

“Elizabeth, slow down,” he said. “I’ve got some things.” He pointed toward a gold luggage cart where a homeless woman sat on a pile of cheap bags that included two garbage bags and a drawstring laundry bag. The woman’s hair had recently been sheared off. She wore sandals, her legs spread so that hairy shins were revealed.

He herded us to the cart and said, “This is Ruth Christmas.”

The woman didn’t attempt to get off the cart. She had an unlit cigarette in her fingers and she had the expression of careful, objective observing.

“This is Elizabeth Sanghavi, and this is Sandeep.”

She only nodded and reached up and hooked her hand around the top bar of the cart and let it hang there as she took an imaginary drag of the unlit cigarette in the other. She was clearly deranged. My thought was, Where had he picked her up?

“This is. . ” Elizabeth said, “this is your luggage? I mean, this is it?” Elizabeth was staring at the woman, but then tried to occupy her eyes with scanning the bags. “I thought you were bringing your horn.”