Rick Moody - Hotels of North America

Let it be said, however, that though I admired his style, his way with a modifier, K. and I could still ill afford even the incidentals at the Dupont, which, at at least sixty-two dollars, were more expensive than some rooms we have inhabited (for example, the Motel 6 on Idaho Street in, Elko, Nevada: fifty-five dollars a night). Having given my speech on the usefulness of the firm handshake and the importance of making eye contact, and having been bested in the contest by others, I did not feel that it was right to stay another night in assisted living, and so I tried to seize my car by claiming a medical emergency featuring acute pains in the lower-right section of my GI tract, halfway between the jutting of hip bone and navel. It could have been a puncture, I told the valet; there could have been a puncture, as I had recently undergone my first routine colonoscopy. Was he aware of the risks of routine colonoscopy? A puncture in the wall of my sigmoid colon, if untreated, could result in peritonitis or, worse, sudden death, because of leakage of the contents of the bowel into the bloodstream. K. manufactured some tears in order to facilitate our expedient relocation. The guy in the garage volunteered to call for an ambulance, but we demurred, saying we could not wait, we had our bags and were ready to go, and that was when some of the management-level enforcers of the Dupont Embassy Row appeared and presented us with the accounting. ★★ (Posted 1/7/2012)

TownHouse Street, Milano Duomo, Via Santa Radegonda, 14, Milano, Italia, July 11–13, 2011

I have found on occasion that the Italians are suspicious of the benefits of air-conditioning. Or skeptical, or resistant, or oblivious to the benefits of air-conditioning. Although it is also true that we were lamentably ignorant about Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion, nor would our exhaustion have made such calculations easier. Our trip had included six hours spent in the international terminal at Boston’s Logan Airport, where Delta Air Lines, the world’s largest, wore us down by putting us on the plane, taking us off the plane, changing the gates, and telling us four different departure times, all of which was followed by the fourteen-hour flight itself, inclusive of a layover at JFK. By the time we arrived at our Italian hotel, at 4:32 a.m. (or, as they say in Milano, 0432), at our wits’ end, K. was consternated to the point of tears, especially when we came to understand the still, humid fact of our interior. Did I say that we were staying at the hotel under assumed names, Jonas and Katherine Salk? The air-conditioning was not the only problem. The others I will itemize herewith.

As a general rule, design-oriented hotel interiors should have some practical sense to them. The sink should make feasible the staging of objects on its edge or beside it. If the sink slopes all the way to the edges, it follows that no items may be put there. The phrenological-skull sculpture on the desk unsettles, and, given that there is one in every room (this we know because we demanded a room change), we might well deduce that the hotel had purchased dozens of these phrenological sculptures. At first we were unclear on the fact that the city depicted in the gigantic wallpaper mural of photos was actually the city we were visiting. Why do we want to look at wallpaper photos of Milan when we could just go downstairs and see the city for ourselves? A faceless and portly middle-aged businessman of Milan massaging some portion of his abdomen, a cherubic boy refugee standing in front of a farmacia, etc. We grew tired of them. Yellow rubberized furniture is unappealing. I was in graduate school in sociology during the heyday of the English pop group Culture Club, and I did, I’m afraid, enjoy humming along with their first celebrated tune, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” But playing this, and “Boys Don’t Cry,” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” in jazz versions through the dining-room sound system every day is asking for trouble. Katherine Salk believed that the Culture Club song was what precipitated her migraine, but it could also have been the yellow rubberized furniture.

I didn’t realize she was ill until after I tried, at a morning business engagement, to interest some local Italian banks in collateralized-debt obligations — the kind of high finance I’d practiced when younger, before I became a motivational speaker — after which meeting we attempted to make a visit to the cathedral in town and were turned away because, as a carabiniere told us, Mrs. Salk was “too discovered.” She had to get a lightweight cardigan from the yellow rubberized rack on which were placed some unremovable white plastic hangers, and then we headed back to the cathedral. This while they removed our few belongings to room number 2, where the air-conditioning did perform as advertised. There was a very fat man standing in front of the hotel at all hours with his hand outstretched. He superficially resembled the businessman in the wallpaper photo collage. Mrs. Salk says that the door handles gave her “repetitive stress injuries.” And also multiple lacerations. The maid took our unwrapped bars of soap. And: There were people lining up for Hot Pockets, or the Italian confectionary equivalent, under our window, owing to a business adjacent. Was “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” an allegory for our relationship to Milan? Some people like a bidet, but Mrs. Salk said she does not want to shoot water up herself from a spigot that others have also used. ★★ (Posted 2/4/2012)

Groucho Club, 45 Dean Street, London, Greater London W1D 4QB, United Kingdom, January 5–6, 1998

There are times when it is necessary to be apart from K. for extended periods. Travel almost always marks our intervals of reflection and monastic separateness. In fact, there was an epoch before K., an epoch in which I was married. It was in those days, on a trip to England, that I first began developing my skills as a motivational speaker, at which I later became a highly regarded professional in the field. Prior to this career epiphany, you understand, I plied my trade in the trenches of securities exchange. It is true that the buying and selling of securities is related to motivational speaking, because in each case, I rely upon my powers of observation. When I see an undervalued company, I am powerless not to share the potential for shareholder value. This is an opportunity you cannot afford to pass up; if you do, you will be hitting yourself about the face and shoulders later in life; you will be rending your garments.

That cigar-chomping hemorrhoidal bigot who sits astride the riding mower on the two and a quarter acres beside you, he is smart enough to spend his IRA on this stock, so why can’t you? Do you want him to have something you do not? Do you know what will happen if he has something over you? He will come for your possessions, and it will be symbolic at first, he will initially borrow your saw or your dripper hose, but then he will want your car and your fluffy Samoyed, and then, of course, he will come for your wife. Do not find yourself cuckolded! Buy this stock now!

Sometimes this obligation, this intensive search for value, can lead me, internationally, to the old Europe. The Groucho Club, which is a sort of residential club in the City of London, neighborhood of Soho, is noted for the exclusivity of its bar and the eminence of its many patrons. It is true that not all of these persons are financial analysts, but when you consider that the Groucho Club hosts, on a nightly basis, stars of stage, screen, and popular music, then you can understand why I would have been obligated to berth myself there. The networking opportunities were significant. During the nights on which I was present, when I made my needs apparent to a certain bar employee, it became clear to me that there was a Pet Shop Boy on the premises, and while I understood only vaguely what a Pet Shop Boy was, I was even then extremely chuffed, as they say in London, about the possibility of talking to the Pet Shop Boy about opportunities that I saw with certain undervalued securities. His support could make all the difference. If it was necessary to snog with the Pet Shop Boy or members of his retinue in order to demonstrate the seriousness of my mission, then I would snog.