Melvin and the Mistaken Hotel
by Caitlin O'Donnell
A suitcase wasn’t an ideal mobile home, but it would do. I peeked in peeling back the zipper to let in some air. Amidst a squished tuna sandwich, a tiny box with holes for my pet rat Melvin, some Mickey Mouse panties, and a tube of red lipstick I had stolen from my mother’s purse, lay a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t smoke. My mom had told me smoking was bad for you and you shouldn’t start until you’re at least twelve. I was only ten.
The cigarettes were a gift for Mary Jane, or as my mom referred to her, “The money grubbing husband stealing whore,” (the MGHSW). When Dillard came into my mom’s life she started complaining less and less about Mary Jane but the endearing nickname stuck. To my mom, the cigarettes sent the message: “Thanks for taking the kid for the weekend/ here is another nail for your coffin.”
Grand Central Station was abuzz. A troop of girl scouts stood giggling as they batted their eyes at some boys on the other side of the track. A man dressed in a long yellow raincoat stood rocking back and forth singing, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” in a gruff baritone. A classy lady in a pillbox hat ran for her gate, tripped over her stilettos and fell with a smack on the glossy marble.
Screech. The wheels of the train churned more and more slowly and rolled to a stop. With great difficulty I tried to hoist my bag up off the platform. It was a lot heavier than it seemed. It was as if my plump Aunt Sally clutching her box of Twinkies had secretly been squeezed into the bag. Either that or an elephant.
“I got it kiddo,” Dillard said swooping down and throwing the bag over his shoulder. I could hear the bag’s contents shift inside and flinched thinking of Melvin.
Stepping onto the train we pushed ourselves through the aisle, looking for an empty seat. The only one we found was squashed in the back behind a huge man who took up a good seat and a half of space. He wore a dapper beige suit, but his face was grizzled with round doughy features.
“Excuse me, could I sit next to you?” I said in as polite a voice as I could muster. The big man grunted and didn’t move. As I squished past him, Dillard hoisted my suitcase and, with the grace of Wilt Chamberlain, flipped it towards the rack.
“Have a good trip, I’ll see you in a few days,” he smiled as he walked towards the door. I nodded. It wouldn’t be a good trip; visiting dad and the MGHSW was like putting some one from the Adams Family in the middle of the Brady Bunch.
The train started with a jolt and my precious suitcase slid around and suddenly slipped from the rack above us, tumbled out of control and landed with a loud thud on the head of my giant seatmate. As it clunked, the bag opened and the contents went spewing. The tuna sandwich landed on the big man’s lap, smearing mayonnaise on his suit; the pack of cigarettes bounced off the shoulder of an elegant woman across the aisle who gasped and glared at me. And there was Melvin scurrying under the rows of seats, past business shoes, briefcases, pumps, and stilettos.
Pairs of socks and underwear were everywhere as if they had been tossed across the aisle like flower petals at a wedding. Or was it a funeral? A pink sock on someone’s lap, a training bra on the floor and a pair of panties covered in pictures of Donald Duck resting like a toupee on the head of my huge seatmate.
Glowering, he rose to his feet, his face growing redder by the second. He reminded me a little of Mary-Jane when she caught me turning her bras into puppets. His eyes seemed to be pulsing as if they were about to pop out and the underwear on his head fluttered. He loomed over me. “What the #!%$ were you thinking! That probably gave me a concussion and my suit …” Words flowed out of him, half of which I didn’t know what they meant.
A few rows down, a sudden high-pitched cry followed by a series of yelps rose like a wave down the aisle, sending the passengers leaping. People jumped up on top of their seats for safety; others stood up scanning the floor for the intruder, Melvin. Purses, glasses, and newspapers went flying in every direction. I pushed past my huge seatmate and got down on all fours. I had to save my darling from an unfavorable fate.
“There it is!” shrieked the elegant lady whose finger waved up and down frantically as if it were trying to fend off a bee. She had managed to climb up on her seat and was staring down into the rats black beady eyes. Then the scampering began– up her leg, tiny nails clinging to her panty hoes. Shrieking she began jumping up and down. I was almost there, crawling on all fours down the aisle. I had nimbly twisted through all the obstacles in my path and my prize was almost in reach. Just before he was able to make his final escape under the woman’s skirt I grabbed him and held on tight. My darling was safe and I had learned my first lesson for my future travels: Don’t bring small furry pets on trains, especially if they are named Melvin.
* * *
It was 8 years later, the summer after my senior year of high school, that I experienced another train adventure. I was on a train to Geneva Switzerland, where I was going to work for the summer at the partnering office to Dillard’s firm in New York. But, the train broke down in Luxemburg. It was the middle of the night and I found myself with a group of other disgruntled passengers searching desperately for a hotel. Everywhere we looked was full. My legs were tired and my eyes sagged heavily under the pale streetlamp light as I dragged my suitcase behind me.
This was Luxemburg? It wasn’t anything like the one I’d researched for 7th grade English. I had expected to see dukes and duchesses sitting outside drinking peppermint tea. No dukes or duchesses were in sight and the only drinking I saw was from the brandy flasks of men staggering along nearly deserted streets.
Down an ally way we discovered a pub that seemed quite alive at an hour that most everywhere else was beginning to fall asleep. A sign in neon lights flickered, “Café de Nuit” and music drifted into the evening air, along with joyous drunken slurs. One of the passengers, a tall man with a heavy walk, and a light sense of humor, went in to see if anyone inside knew a place we could spend the night. He came back out with a strange smirk. “We can stay here,” he said, “You can get anything you want here if you pay for it.”
Confused, I walked into the bar. It felt like an alternate universe, reeking of Gitanes, Gauloises, and sweet floral perfume. Loud voices, and high pitched laughter danced around the room. I had lived with a French family when I was 16 and tried to learn as much argot (slang) as I could but this argo I didn’t get. Maybe it was better that way. “Merde,” “Baiser,” “Tu me cases les couilles,” “Nichons,” the words left behind sleazy grins as they slurred out of drunken mouths. An older man winked at me, “beau cul.”
I swung away and my face smacked into the vast bosoms of a woman behind me. She wore a colorful dress like the rest of the women in the bar that squeezed in at the waist and showed most of her breasts one of which I had just encountered. A large jeweled necklace hung around her neck, and wild blond curls surrounded he face like a lion’s mane. Makeup caked her face, and her bright red lips looked like they had been drawn on. (Not royalty, I concluded).
“Tu est une Americaine?” she said with a toothy grin.
I nodded, my heart pounding. She paused, gathering together her words “You want room?”
I nodded again, and she giggled at her own mastery of the English language. “Viens petite, viens.” I followed the clicking of her spiked heals through the crowded room and down a narrow hallway. She unlocked one of the doors near the end, gestured me in, and went back towards the crowded bar. The room was small, with just a small bedside table and a big bed in the middle with thin white sheets.
The sheets weren’t the only things the room that were thin, the walls were to. Even when I had closed the door, and double locked it, I could hear a lot. Sitting under my covers in my nightgown, I listened. I could hear Edith Piaf’s throaty voice on the jukebox, the beating of feet dancing, a glass breaking, raised voices, and laughter. Then I began to hear a steady bam, bam, bam, in the room next to me, the creaking of a bed.
Bam, bam, bam. Then it hit me. Me, just out of high school trying to get a night’s sleep, finding my way to a whorehouse. Bam, bam. What would my mother say? I jumped up and reached for my contact lenses and, to my horror, they slid off the bedside table and disappeared under the bed. I turned on the light, but without them everything was a blur. I grabbed the table and with all the strength I could muster pushed it against the door; two locks just wasn’t enough. What if someone came in and thought I was a hooker? My heart was pounding so loudly I felt like the whole whorehouse could hear it in my chest. Bam, bam, bam.
Crawling under the bed, I searched for the contacts on my hands and knees but to no avail. I did, on the other hand, find a pair of lacy black underwear, a shot glass, a whole lot of dust, and two condoms (at least they used protection). Through out the night, the partying got quieter but the activity in the neighboring rooms got louder. When I finally found those tiny blue lenses it was 6:30 in the morning.
I threw on my clothes, moved the table to its original place and ran (suitcase in hand) down the street and out the door. I didn’t stop running until I found the swishiest hotel in town. I sat in the outdoor patio eating a croissant and drinking a cup of peppermint tea. Sadly I didn’t see any dukes or duchesses.
After my second train adventure I had learned another valuable lesson: You can get anything you want in Luxemburg if you pay for it.