The Wellcrest

At one point in time the Wellcrest was a beautiful hotel. Or so it’s been said. In its better days it was most popular hotel in the city among the elite. There were banquets with tables covered in white linen and gold accented china. The doors to the ballroom were always open and big band, swing music flooded the lobby. Somewhere between then and now, something changed. Some say it was the war, but some say the employees got lazy. It’s hard to imagine the employees working at The Wellcrest during its prime, escorting guests in the right direction and smiling kindly.

There are only a few employees left and they are unexceptional to say the least. Dave Carter is the hotel manager. One can often find him leaning up against the front desk, with his right foot crossed over the other, using his tongue to get something stuck out of his teeth. Frank is the bartender and spends his days and nights serving dry scotches to men in moth infested su

gin to women wearing too much lipstick. Ron is the hotel cook and often spends more time in the back alley smoking Marlboros than he does in the kitchen chopping onions and prepping the hotel’s signature pot roast. Max is The Wellcrest’s latest addition as the new bell boy. He follows Dave around and caters to all the tasks Dave is too lazy to do himself. He welcomes guests, carries luggage, and is the only person in the hotel that calls Dave, Mr. Carter. The owner of the hotel visits often but is usually undetected.

Days and nights at The Wellcrest seem to run together. The schedule is the same. Max rolls out the dusty green carpet that lays under the awning over the front door of the hotel. Frank dries glasses behind the bar before stacking them on the cherry wood shelf behind him. Ron sneaks back into the kitchen through the side entrance patting fallen ash off his apron. While Dave stands by at the front desk, Max leads men and women to their rooms while carrying their luggage behind him.

In the early evening, Sheila, the hotel’s piano player, arrives. She always nods to Frank behind the bar as she pulls white sheet music from her purse and arranges is on the wooden stand above the keys. Her blonde hair falls over her shoulders in thick waves before she tucks it behind her ear. She sits down at the piano and the wood of the bench creaks. She always smooths her dress in her lap before her fingers hover over the keys and she starts to play. All the men watch her from a distance. All but one. He usually arrives ten minutes after she’s begun playing. When he walks through the doors her relaxed shoulders grow stiff. He’s older and his hair is starting to gray. His suits are always shiny and fitted around his gut. He walks promptly to the bar and sits on the first stool with a direct view of Sheila. Frank always brings him his drink without being asked and the man takes a sip without taking his eyes of her.

The employees tend to ignore much of what goes on in the hotel. Earlier this week, the front door yanked open and a lanky woman headed toward Dave who sat on a chair behind the desk using one of the room keys to clean his ear. She wore a short, orange dress with a black peter pan collar that covered only half of her protruded collar bone. Her black boots made her taller than Dave and reached the middle of her thigh. Dave threw the key onto the desk in front of him and straightened up.

        “Stay here and man the desk,” he told Max through gritted teeth, “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

         Before Max could protest Dave swung himself around the front desk and headed for the elevator where the woman was already standing. He wrapped his arm around her tiny waist and looked over his shoulder before slipping into the elevator. While he was gone Max checked in a man in his 50’s, and a woman who could have been his daughter, with no luggage. They only stayed for thirty minutes.  Then, he brought a scotch to an older man sitting in the dining room when Frank asked him to and organized the room keys behind the desk. An hour later the elevator dinged and out stepped Mr. Carter and the orange dress. She walked to the front door with a black duffle in one hand as she fixed her hair with the other. Mr. Carter smoothed his lapel from behind the desk and looked out into the lobby.

“Who was that, Mr. Carter?” Max asked as he watched her move through the revolving door.
“No one special,” said Dave.

      Very little changed from the day to day at The Wellcrest. The next night, Shelia had on a red silk dress and the man who watched her wore the same suit as before. And when the boney woman arrived she wore white. This time when Dave went upstairs with her he took something wrapped in a brown paper bag from under the desk with him. As he left, Ron came into the lobby with a cigarette dangled from his fingers. He asked Max to run out back and bring in crates of potatoes that were delivered. When he got back he stood and listened to Shelia play from behind the front desk.

There was an unspoken truth about why Sheila came back to the hotel to play each night. Tonight, the man who watched her got up from his seat at the bar and moved closer to her. He walked over to the piano slowly with his drink in his hand. The gold liquid rocked back and forth against the sides of his glass coating them in shimmer. When he reached the piano he put his drink down hard on the bench she was sitting on. Standing behind Shelia he bent over so his face was next to hers. She tried to move, but he grabbed her bare shoulder, his fingers making dents in her skin. Her fingers slid against the wrong keys altering the melody.

This man had an odd hold over her. She never got up and always showed up the next night. He dipped his head into her neck and whispered something in her ear. The music stopped entirely until he stood up straight. She inhaled and her fingers began to move. Gershwin. He traced his finger from one shoulder across her bare back to the other before retrieving his drink and walking back to the stool where he sat, with a smirk on his face, to watch some more. He looked around the rest of the lobby and eventually met Max’s gaze. His smirk disappeared and he returned a cold stare. Max looked down quickly and began fidgeting with papers that had been left under the front desk.

What was first a diversion tactic had now caught his attention. Bills and letters covered in red stamps had been shoved under there. Past due notices, foreclosure warnings, money transfers. Max felt a hand on his shoulder and  jumped.

        “What are you doing?” Dave asked.

        “Nothing, nothing. Looking for… a key,” he stammered.

        “Well, it’s not under those,” he said as he gathered them up while he watched the white dress walk out of the hotel, with the black duffle in hand. He took the stack and placed it under his arm walking around to the other side of the front desk, like he was a guest, and leaned over.

        “If you’re smart, you’ll keep quiet about these,” he whispered to Max.

        Avoiding his stare, Max nodded and glanced past his shoulder into the lounge where Sheila played Irving Berlin and the man had disappeared.

       

Creative Emulation: Lila

My inspiration for writing my Lila emulation was to somehow incorporate the melancholy tone I often felt was present while reading Lila. I feel like Lila often reads as sad and lost and melancholy which reminded me of the story I wrote for my NW emulation about the immigrant nurse who becomes pregnant with a wealthy doctor’s baby because I see her character as being lost and sad. Because of the similarity I felt was present I knew I wanted to continue writing a story that followed that plot line and decided to develop a specific scene from the original story into its own piece.

I also knew I wanted to somehow incorporate a family member from my main narrators past as Lila often recalls memories of Dolly. I tried to string that throughout the story and have the memories of her family surface when she’s feeling lost or in somewhat of a daze as other things are going on around her.

This is a creative response I wrote for one of my graduate classes.

*

His side of the bed was cold and the divot his body made was gone because he never stayed long enough to make one. The sheets were stiff but soft and their creases were hard and fresh from the dry cleaners or the department store package. Her hair was matted on the left side where she had been laying and a single bobby pin was hanging by its tip on her right. She pulled it out and left it on the nightstand. They had met earlier that night after his shift was over and he called and asked her to meet him. She was already halfway home when she got the call. She turned around anyway.

She stood on old train platforms for an hour. The planks of wood on Washington & Wells were stiff from the cold. The heater glowed orange and rattled over her head until the train arrived. She realized her hair was stuck in the zipper of her coat when it pulled at her scalp as she shimmied through the revolving doors of his building. She checked her face in the mirrored walls of the elevator as she went up. Her tanned skin was flushed a muted rose and her lips were cracked on the edges. She used her thumbs to smooth out the corner of her lips and push the bobby pin further into her black hair. She swiped a finger under her eyes where her mascara had smudged and smoothed out her coat. Just as the doors opened she twisted the burgundy scarf she had knitted higher on her neck. The stitches reminded her of her mother. She walked out and to the door at the end of the hall and knocked.

She could hear his low voice from behind the door. When he didn’t come she knocked again. She heard the shuffling of feet and the door slightly release as he turned the thick lock on the other side. When the door opened, he stood wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a navy blue t-shirt with the name of a university she didn’t recognize. He held the door open with one hand and had his cell phone in the other. He flicked his head toward the living room, a nod meaning she could come inside. She took off her old boots which were aged from the weather and stood them together by the door. She unzipped her coat and laid it on the metal bench in the front hall and gently placed her scarf on top of it.

She had found him wandering around the kitchen. As she watched him pace back and forth she could make out words about the new pediatric wing the hospital where they worked was building. He had told her about a few small details regarding the remodel but kept most of it a secret. Most of what she knew came from conversations she overheard while he was talking to one of his own colleagues. She glanced over her shoulder and saw two place settings made up at his dining room table. There were wine glasses at each setting but only one was filled with the expensive cabernet he always drank. As she got closer she saw silverware lying in the middle of his dish next to a half eaten medallion of beef. Dark greens sat in a pile on the other side of the plate with balsamic vinaigrette that had run down the edge mixing and pooling with the blood of the meat. The second plate held the same meal but untouched.

“Listen Mark, I don’t care. I don’t know how we’re going to get the money but we’re going to get it because we need it. We need two more of those machines and you’re going to get the money from them. I don’t need to know how you do it. Just do it,” he said as she listened and stood over her beef. She never got used to eating meat like that. Her mother used to rub all their meat in a cracked ceramic bowl filled with yellow and brown spices. She tried to make meat like that at home but it never came out the same. He cracked pepper on top of his bleeding meat and ate his greens.

“I didn’t get a chance to shower after the gym,” he said putting the phone into the pocket of his sweats, “so sorry about that.”

He kissed her on her cheek quickly and scanned the table.

“I’m finished,” he said as he looked at his plate, “but you can eat after we’re done, right?” He walked toward his bedroom before she could answer so she followed him, slowly, like she did the week before.

When he was finished he kissed her mouth for the first time that night. She could taste the wine on his lips. He got up from the bed and pulled up his sweats that had fallen to his ankles. With his body gone her skin filled with goose bumps as the cold air hit her chest and bare arms.

“Get dressed and come eat,” he said over his shoulder. His phone was already out of his pocket, the screen lit his face.

She laid there for a while. She smoothed her hair. Left the bobby pin. Her toes made little teepees in the sheets at the foot of the bed. He didn’t seem to notice the extra puff in her stomach. She kept her lower half covered with the department store sheets. She put her scrubs back on before leaving his bedroom and made sure to pull the material tightly away from her stomach so it wouldn’t cling. He sat at the head of the table and sipped his wine slowly while he scrolled through pages on his phone. She sat down quietly next to him and methodically began to cut her meat.

Her mother taught her how to knit. They would sit on the porch outside in the worn lawn chairs where the breeze was warm and the cement floor was dirty. She was eight or nine when she learned and her mother would say, “tirar con más fuerza, mi hija”, pull tighter, my daughter, when her stitches were too loose. Balls of cheap and colorful wool would fall all round their ankles until they spun them into socks that were too hot to wear and blankets that always stayed folded on the back of couch. Her hand had slipped while cutting through a piece of fat and her wrist bumped against the glass of the table top. He glanced over at the glass before he returned back to his screen.

She wondered what her parents were doing back at home. Maybe her father was picking papayas. He would always tuck one under his arm in his shirt and bring one home for her after work. Maybe her brothers would be kicking a ball caked in dirt around a dusty street corner. Maybe her mother would have taught her sister to knit.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said putting a piece of meat in her mouth, “it’s yours.”

This time he looked up.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I’m three months pregnant,” she said.

“How are you positive it’s mine?” he asked as his voice grew impatient.

“He’s yours,” she said.

He got up from the table spilling the glass of wine he had poured her and she had not touched.

“How could you have let this happen? Do you know what this will mean for my career if it gets out I’m having a child with the immigrant nursing student?”

He shuffled back and forth and ran his hand furiously through his freshly dyed hair. She watched the crimson drops fall into her lap from the stain they started on her stomach.

“No one will hear of this. You’ll have to start at another program. Mercy Hospital.” He stopped pacing and looked at her and said, “I won’t be financially responsible for any of this.”

She stood without a word, without blotting the engorged plum stain on her green scrubs, without finishing her meat. She walked to the metal bench to gather her coat where she could still hear him going on about reputations and responsibilities. She opened the thick door, walked down the hall, waited for the elevator doors to open and when they did she stepped in, and tightened the scarf around her neck with one hand while the other was tucked safely under her growing belly.

Creative Emulation: NW

For my NW emulation I knew I wanted to incorporate some aspect of race and class as Smith does. I wanted to try and tell a story from the perspective of a minority race as well as a lower class rank. I tried to have her observe different races and class ranks through her commute home to her son and through a personal relationship she had with a Caucasian man who held a higher status than her.

My inspiration for this was to draw from my own experience as a commuter. As a commuter, I’m constantly observing a wildly diverse amount of people on the number of trains I take and blocks I walk. Two of the characters I wrote in the story, ones that my main character observes on the train, are actual people I’ve seen on my commutes and (creepily) made notes about on my notepad on my phone.

This is a response I wrote for one of my graduate classes.

*

The air was thick with carbon dioxide. Everyone’s mouths emitted the gas as they forced breath through their fourteen dollar scarves and the collars of their discount store coats. Loafers shuffled and high heels clattered against the gray speckled sidewalk. The buildings towered over her as she walked, including the hospital where she had spent the last eighteen hours running blood work for other people. They cast a shadow over certain corners of the city which never saw light. Her knockoff camel colored boots made a scooting sound against the ground where they were wearing thin in the heel. The fake sheep lining made her foot sweat and her sock slipped further into the shoe. Some patches of ice remained on the sidewalk, melted into growing puddles, and some water found its way into the small hole which had formed in the sole of her shoe.

Her hair was black and crunchy from too much 2 for $3 drugstore mousse. It got in her face and stuck in her scarf and in the hinge of her glasses. Her frames fogged up every time she dug her chin further into her scarf until she couldn’t see the person shuffling in front of her. Her coat was old and less puffy than when she bought it. The right side of it was caked in salt dust after she brushed up against a parked car. The purple scrubs she wore were too thin and the wind cut through them to her fourth day, post shaved legs. She approached the staircase which would lower her to train underground. They were wet and garbage was wedged into the corners. Soggy train cards, flattened potato chip bags, disintegrated cigarette butts. A coffee stained to-go cup from the nearest franchise rolled around at the bottom of the staircase. There was a garbage can right next to it.

She swiped her train card and walked sideways through the old turnstile. Once on the platform, she made her way to her usual spot, halfway between the graffiti streaked bench and the K-9 officer and his muzzled German Sheppard, and waited for her train. She tugged at her scarf and pulled it away from her neck where sweat had accumulated in the crook of her collarbone. She turned to look down the tunnel and the yellow light was becoming brighter as the train approached. She looked at the time on her phone and thought about her son getting home from school as the train stalled and the doors slid open and she swung to the right to let train passengers get off before she got on.

She picked a seat next to the window although there was rarely a view other than black cement walls. She wondered if her son was doing his homework in their little apartment alone. She had made him chorizo and rice the night before and helped him with his science homework before she had to leave shortly after his bedtime for her shift at the hospital. In front of her there was a woman who wore twisted gold earrings and a black satchel with the McDonald’s logo stamped on the front along with tribal patterns, buckles, and a pin for the National Association of African American in Human Resources. Her coat was black and with a brown collar that was only a few shades lighter than her skin. She had a red, yellow, blue, orange, and gold patterned pashmina tied around her neck and a black beret with the Penguin Group logo on her head. She read the tabloids.

The tiny, orange penguin on the woman’s beret reminded her of the books she used to read her son, Luis, before bed. She recognized that puffin on the covers of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Corduroy. Luis used to ask why the caterpillar’s parents let him eat all that food. Most of the time she ran out of explanations and simply turned the page. The train jumped and she looked out the window only to see darkness. She pulled her knit gloves off her hands and continued to pick at the skin around the nail on her ring finger. The fluorescent light of the sign above her flickered and she looked up to read an advertisement for the new pediatrics wing at her old hospital.  A white child held a teddy bear and smiled next to a white doctor who wore a white coat and smiled with his white teeth. In small print at the bottom of the ad were the names of the pediatricians who ran the wing. His name was second.

They had met while she was interning at the hospital in the NICU. She was older than the other interns because she had arrived in the United States a few years before and only started nursing school the previous year. She had left her family south of the equator in search of a better education and her parent’s haven’t spoken to her since. She was listening to an RN speak about temperature control in incubators when he came in quietly with a couple holding hands close behind him. They approached an incubator with a small pink bow perched on the outside of the plastic top. He spoke to them softly and smiled as the new parents looked at their daughter through temperature controlled plastic. He shook the father’s hand, and rubbed the mother’s back, as he turned to leave. He caught her staring, nodded, left as quietly as he entered.

He had chestnut colored hair, blue eyes, and always wore a smiling alligator pin on the lapel of his white coat. He was from Massachusetts where his parents still lived and sipped gin and tonics slowly at their country club. He was older than she was by at least a decade but didn’t look it. He first spoke to her when she was waiting in line at the cafeteria. He asked where she was from and if he could buy her cup of coffee. They sat in the corner of the cafeteria with their coffee and talked until he was paged. No one had been as nice to her in a long time and it didn’t take long before his doorman grew to know her name. They always spent nights at his place, a spacious condo on the 72nd floor of a high rise, because he told her he wasn’t familiar with the neighborhood where she lived. They didn’t go out to eat or to see a movie and he was rarely there when she woke up but there was always juice and coffee waiting for her in the kitchen. She’d let herself out, ride the elevator down seventy floors alone, and tell her doorman to have a good day on her way through the revolving door.

It was there, at his place, when she knew she had to finally tell him. She had kept it a secret for a few months but she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide a growing stomach much longer. He jumped up from the table where they were having dinner and spilled his glass of red wine. The wine streaked across the glass table in her direction where she scooted her chair away from the table before the red droplets fell on her dress. She walked to the kitchen to get some towels while he went on about not being able to have a baby with the immigrant intern and what it would mean for his career. She knelt down to where the spill was gathering in a crimson puddle on the hardwood floor and watched the liquid soak into the paper towel dying it a muted plum color. Before she was finished he picked her up by her arm and told her she had to leave. She yanked her arm away and threatened to tell everyone at the hospital. He warned her about making threats before pushing her out the door. The next day she was kicked out of the program.

The hospital she works at now doesn’t have the same funding and its wings are older. The halls quiet and dingy and people rarely smile. It’s where she gave birth to her son and left his father’s name off the birth certificate. She thought of him when she looked at her son’s blue eyes and his milky caramel skin, much lighter than her own. He’s never called, never sent a birthday card, and she’s running out of reasons why.

The train pulled out from underground and the setting sun light streamed in through the green tinted windows. A ray caught her eye which made her blink and return to reality. There was a twenty-something guy leaning against the glass near the train door. He wore a thin, ratty fleece jacket, despite it being below thirty degrees outside, and his dingy blonde hair kept getting in his eyes when he leaned over to look at his phone. He pushed it away with his dirt crusted fingers before it feel over his forehead again. A neon green lanyard that read “Get Wet” hung from the pocket of his worn denim. The train slowed at her stop and she stood as the doors opened. The dingy guy didn’t move as she passed him and out the doors and he smelled like stale smoke and Fritos. She walked along the wood platform and looked up at the purple faded sky. The wind was strong but smelled sweet and the boy walking in front of her had hair like Luis’. She stepped in a puddle in front of the stairs that led out to the street and her sock squished in her boot on every step.

Creative Emulation: Dept. of Speculation

My emulation of the Dept. of Speculation was inspired by the voice of the narrator and the way the story is organized. One of the things I liked about the Dept. of Speculation was the tone of the narrator. Although it often read as melancholy and dark, I appreciated the authenticity it provided the prose. While this was mostly distracting, I sometimes liked the way the narrative seems to flop back and forth between flashbacks and current observations and quotes and poetry and seemingly useless facts. I knew when it came time to write my emulation I wanted to incorporate a similar trend of randomness (in terms of what moments I chose to include throughout) in my piece in order to show how a relationship has developed and why it has gotten to where it is. My story is about a couple and how their relationship has ended. It’s told by the perspective of the female who is intended to be perceived as a woman who is a little off, confused, and dealing with her own issues all while dating a man who is essentially too good for her and puts up with her attitude and distant nature.

This is a creative response I wrote for one of my graduate classes.

*

The desks were hard and the laminate tops were cold under my shaking hands. I kept my left hand on top the desk because it kept me steady while I dipped my head inside stacking multi colored folders which read my name on each cover in curved handwriting. I stacked colored pencils and pink erasers and notebooks bound with wire. College rule because wide rule was for chumps and people with big handwriting and because I was an obnoxious eight year old. Our teacher walked around the room and introduced herself to us and our parents. Meet the teacher day. They were polite and shook her weathered hand and we gave a meek smile and kept stacking.

I didn’t see him walk in. My mother had been absently handing me supplies from our recycled paper grocery bag while she talked to another girl’s mom standing at the neighboring cluster of desks. We were late, as usual, and the other desks in my cluster had been stuffed, the teacher’s hand had been shaken, the half smile had been given, and each child had left before I could arrive. My mother said her goodbyes to the neighboring mother and her daughter who looked up at me and smiled after placing her last folder in her desk. It had cats on it. I would decide later she would be my friend despite the cats. I went back to stacking. My mother was growing impatient with my pace and sat down at the desk next to mine. The chair creaked as she shifted her weight. She laughed at his name card taped to the surface of his desk. Long name for a little boy. She stood when he and his mother came running into the room, panting words of explanation. Our mothers talked behind us while we stood silently next to one another filling our small spaces. All his supplies were blue. Wide rule. He wore a brown sweater vest and his wire rimmed glasses fit around his blue and green and gray eyes. His teeth were crooked. I wish they still were. I always liked his crooked teeth.

He said he liked my prom dress but I didn’t ever fully believe him. It was white and I got it from the bridal section of the local department store. My hair was piled too high on my head and I gotten a headache from all the bobby pins. I smeared some champagne sparkle on my eyes, bronzer on the wrong parts of my cheeks, and my mascara clumped my lashes into jagged pieces. He told me I was beautiful.

There was one day we walked over to the lake. The water was mucky and it swooped up onto the shore pulling the loose grains of sand with it making them swirl in little circles until they settled at the bottom. He wanted to hold my hand but I kept it in my pocket. I’m cold. It’s too cold to hold hands. The sky is dark and the water rocks against my bare ankles. No one wants to hold your feet. It felt like the straight edge on printer paper. It was sharp and real. He carried both of my sneakers and they dangled from his fingers at his side. The laces swung as we walked. He was always one step ahead as he dug his heel into the wet sand.

I remember he liked his pizza two minutes undercooked. He liked collared shirts, black Camaros, and pretended to like scotch. He preferred Marvel to DC and his foot always shook when he watched TV. He didn’t like to read but displayed every book I gave him. He hated sitcoms and always fell asleep during Guys & Dolls. Marlon Brando is my favorite.

I lived in an old building in college. It was a small place with a small kitchen and paint chipped walls and a toilet that always ran and a sink that always dripped. The hardwoods were original to the building but they were collecting scratches and their color had faded. I had piles of books in each corner, some daisies on the kitchen table, and I stored sweaters in my oven. He fixed the sink so it didn’t drip and built me shelves for my books. One day he offered to sand my floors. I like my floors. He said he could make them shine. I told him I didn’t like shiny things.

He wanted to be in uniform. He ran six miles every morning while I stayed in bed with an onion bagel. He got the degree in criminal behavior and the only time he read a book for fun was to practice for the department exams. He wanted to protect the uniform. He memorized departmental procedures even before he was accepted by one. When he finally graduated from the academy I cried and he said he was proud to serve the uniform.

My hair would drip over his face in bed. Crimped brown strands that never knew their place. His chest was hard and sturdy and I memorized his heartbeat beneath my ear. He kept his gun on the nightstand. Each time I picked it up it felt heavier than the last. He didn’t like me to touch it. I want you safe. He would kiss my bottom lip and gather my hair, balling it in his fists at the back of my head so he could see my face. I wiped my mouth once he fell asleep.

One day I found that little black box. I found it and it fit in the palm of my hand. I found it in the pocket of his jeans when I was doing laundry. I found it and I threw up. I don’t know if the band is silver or gold, if the stone has square or round edges, or if some small words are engraved on the inside of the band. I still can’t look inside that stupid black box.

Last night I tried to remember what he looked like. It’s only been a week but already he’s slipping. I was lying in our new bed. In my new bed. The sheets are navy with a white paisley design scattered across the material. We fought about these sheets last week. We were standing in the bedding department and I had just shooed the sales girl away. I was already holding the paisley sheets when he picked up plain beige ones. Let’s just get these. I called him boring and walked to the cashier with the navy sheets in hand. As I reached for my credit card he came up behind me and slipped his arm around my waist and smiled. These sheets are a week old but we were a decade old.

I wondered if he was scared. I wondered if he was remorseful, regretful, or angry. I pictured him sad he had wasted so many years with me. I hope he was. I hope he realized in those small moments how much better he could have had it. There could have been a woman whose heart wasn’t so far away and whose hand was always available.

I held the sheets up to my chin. I tucked them under and kept them close just like he used to do for me when I pretended to already be asleep. The flannel felt warm and soft on my skin. I haven’t moved in days. The pillows are flat and used to the curve of my face. At first I pictured him running. I pictured his feet hitting the wet pavement like they touched the sand that day at the lake. I pictured his arms stretched out in front of him, his finger on the trigger, pointed at another man. I thought about that uniform. The uniform he so badly wanted to wear. I remember how his dark skin looked under all that black and buttons and ballistic armor. I thought about the uniforms that came to my door last Tuesday while I was cooking to tell me he wasn’t going to make it for dinner, or to buy new sheets, or to hold hands by the murky lake. I wondered what a bullet to the head feels like. I got up, ripped the navy sheets off the bed, and went to look for anything in our home that resembled even the slightest shade of beige.

Creative Emulation: Gilead

As soon as I started reading Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, I knew I wanted to emulate the theme as well as some of the voice. While I didn’t want to copy the plot line outright I still wanted to somehow incorporate the idea of a father leaving in some way. To steer it away from death as a form of departure I decided to go with a father who is leaving the family home because he’s divorcing the child’s mother. I also wanted to incorporate the idea of a father writing letters or a journal to a child of his whom he fears won’t understand him or what is about to happen that will change their lives.  I adopted the same dialogue style as Robinson does in Gilead in terms of the punctuation, or lack thereof. While reading, I felt that it made the conversations between John Ames and his son more relatable and informal and I wanted that to translate into my piece as well. 

This is a response I wrote for one of my graduate classes.

*

Last night we sat in your bed and talked about when I would be leaving. You kept your face buried in your pillow and your dark hair, matted with brown knots, cascaded over the yellow moon and star fabric. I remember the day your mother surprised you with that bed set. You were so surprised, jumping up and down, excited for your “big girl” sheets. I should have done more things like that. Maybe I should have been more like your mother. You asked where I would be going, and I said, I don’t know, maybe to a small apartment or to Aunt Cathy’s, and you said, I don’t like Aunt Cathy, and I said, neither do I.

I looked around your bedroom. The walls are both pink and blue. I remember painting those walls with you and your mother. We gave you a little tray of blue paint to paint the bottom half of the wall because you were too small to paint any higher. Your mother pushed your hair back with a flowered headband and you wore an old nightgown. I remember the way the sunlight always seemed to find her face when she laughed like when I stepped into the pink paint tray by accident. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything to make her laugh. You shifted your face across the pillow case, exhaling deeply, and I asked you, don’t you want some air, and you said, no.

You have so many books in your room. On floating shelves, on the floor, on the bookcase made of cheap bleached wood you wanted to help me build with your red and yellow plastic hammer. Some are filled with watercolor illustrations or cartoons and some are filled with inscriptions, mostly from me. I’ve never been good at speaking to people’s faces which is why half of your books have page long inscriptions and the reason I am filling this journal for you. I picked up the Eleanor Roosevelt biography I got you for your last birthday and held the glossy cover in my hands. We have been reading a few pages of this together every night so I asked you if you wanted to start or if you wanted me to start, and you said, I don’t feel like reading tonight.

There’s a painting on your wall that your grandparents had bought and framed for you. It’s a nice a painting and all but I’ll never understand how grandparents come to decide what they think will be a fun gift for a five year old. Those are your mother’s parents. It hangs above your dresser and within the cherry wood frame is a snow covered village complete with horse drawn carriages, quaint houses with evergreen wreaths and white picket fences, and townspeople talking on street corners. Maybe they thought it would be something you’d appreciate when you got older and presumably forced it upon your own five year old. Don’t do that. I guess I should appreciate things like that more but I never had grandparents who gave gifts like that because I never knew my grandparents. They died before I was born but I’d like to think they wouldn’t have gifted me paintings.

I tell you about my childhood when you ask. When school started last month and I was packing your lunch for your first day, I said, this is the kind of lunch I would have liked as kid, and you asked, what did your dad pack you, and I said, my dad didn’t pack my lunch, your grandma did and she packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple or an orange which made a big crater in the middle of the sandwich when she threw it on top. You got off the wooden stool, came around the kitchen counter, and took the red Jif lid in your hand and screwed it back on for me.

My father died when I was 12 but you already know that since you’ve asked a little about your grandfather before. To tell you more, he was tall and broad shouldered and had a deliberate stare. With one look you knew if you had disappointed him or made him proud. There was never any question in the grooved lines of his face. He had earned them by always speaking the truth. He served in the army in WWII and came home with a drinking problem and a pocket full of medals my mother kept in a black leathered book. He umpped some of my little league games but never got to see me play in high school or college. I’ve caught you staring at the black and white picture of him umpping I keep in my office. He stands behind home plate, a runner in between his legs, and his arm is raised above his head where his gray and brown hair is cemented with infield dirt near his left ear. You asked how he died, and I said, a heart attack, and you said, do you miss him, and I said, yes, and you said, does it make you sad, and I said, he would have liked you.

You lifted your face and turned it to the side and I could see you looking up at me out of the corner of my eye. My silence must have gathered your attention. I shifted feeling the extra couple of pounds I carry hang over the waist band of my jeans. When I looked down at your face you suddenly looked older to me. Your hair has grown longer, the color of your eyes has deepened to an almost black, and the jagged scar at the bridge of your nose you got when you were pushed head first down a slide has faded slightly. I pushed some of that hair out of your eyes and you swiped it right back. I’m sure your mother blames that stubbornness on me. I sighed and looked over at the little nightstand you begged us to get for you. It’s made of sandy colored plywood and has two doors on the front with purple cut out stars perfect for small fingers to open them. There is a picture of the three of us propped up against your alarm clock. It’s a skinny photo booth picture you found in my drawer and took without asking but I never said anything. You can’t be more than two in the picture and your head barely fits into the frame from where you’re sitting on your mother’s lap. I want you to know that it’s hard for me to look at this picture. It’s hard for me to look at your mother’s head buried in my shoulder while she’s laughing and hard for me to look at my own crooked smile not necessarily because I’m angry or sad, although I am some of those on certain days, but because I’m disappointed. It’s important for you to know that I’m disappointed in how your mother and I have given up. I’m disappointed because I know we could have done better and I’m disappointed in myself because I don’t have any answers to give you.

One afternoon shortly after my dad died I found my mom in the kitchen packing our chipped dishes in an old box and I asked her what she was doing  but she only muttered something about needing more newspapers to herself and ignored me. Later that day she came into my room where I was laying on the floor sorting my baseball cards and tossed a couple boxes onto the ground and said, “Pack whatever you don’t want left behind”. I tried to ask her what was for dinner but she was already in the hallway shuffling back to the kitchen. We didn’t have much when I was growing up, and had even less after my dad died, so there wasn’t much to pack but I did what I was told and ended up with two boxes filled with some old clothes and my superman pajamas, some comics, and my baseball cards and glove. We moved in with my great aunt Helen, your grandmother and all five of your aunts and me, before she kicked us out because it got to be “too much”. We moved around, living with various distant relatives, until we each grew up and either got married or went off to college. I enrolled as soon as I could and remember being so happy to be on my own and that’s where I met your mother and just like that I wasn’t alone anymore.

I bet you didn’t know much of that. I’m glad you’ll be able to read this journal one day. I hope you will. Just so there’s no confusion, I don’t hate your mother. I don’t think I ever could even if I really wanted to. It might seem like we hate each other and I’m sorry for that but please know that I don’t. I’ll love her for the same reasons you do: for her gentle touch, her quiet observation, even the way her jaw cracks when she chews. But I’ll love her laugher most. The way it fills a room and tips her head back and makes you feel like you won a prize if you were the reason for it all. I’ll miss that most of all.

You looked up at me with those moons and stars under your cheek and I knew you were waiting for me to say something important or serious. I ran my hand through my brown and gray hair and put my chin in my hand resting on my knee. I stared at that painting and all those people running their errands and going to church and gossiping on the corner of Main and Ideal. I couldn’t look at you so to the painting I said, “I will always be here for you. Even though I’m leaving and things will be different, despite everything, even Aunt Cathy, you will never be alone. You might not believe me now but I hope you’ll at least remember for when you’re ready to believe.” You shuffled a little in the nook you made in your bed and I felt the weight of your head lift off the pillow and you grabbed the book from my hand, turned to the dog eared page and said, “I’ll start.”

The Wellcrest

           The Wellcrest was an unusual place to work. I had started when I was nineteen as a bell boy, back when I was trying to “figure it all out” as if life’s unanswered questions could be solved by escorting surgeons and CEOs to their rooms, toting their monogrammed luggage and mistresses behind. Mr. Carter conducted my interview.
            “Have you worked in the hotel industry before…Matt, is it?”
            “It’s Max,” I said.
            I looked around the tiny office he had brought me to. It looked nothing like the rest of the hotel. The walls were covered in decaying striped wall paper, a thick layer of dust covered the file cabinet’s surface, a plant sat wilted in the corner although I was pretty sure it was fake. Mr. Carter sat at a desk made of cheap wood with his elbows digging into the newspapers stacked there. He wore emerald green pants with a matching jacket, The Wellcrest uniform, only his jacket had a wider lapel than everyone else’s because he was the general manager. He looked up at me, putting down my limited resume.
            “Well, whatever. “Have you worked in the industry before?” was my question.”
            “No, sir,” I said.
            “Do you have a keen sense for the area?”
            “Not particularly sir, I just mov…”
            “Do you have a knowledge of elevator safety?”
            He looked at his nails and sniffed violently causing the wrinkles in his forehead to protrude as his eyebrows lifted with his nose.
            “No”, I said growing increasingly aware I wasn’t going to get the job.
            “Can you lift a thirty pound suitcase?” he said, sighing.
            “Yes, sir.”
            He stood up slowly, using the cushioned arm of his chair, and extended his arm which resulted in a limp handshake.
            “Great. You’re hired.”

The Wellcrest was a decent looking hotel. It certainly wasn’t The Plaza but it was decent. The building was built in 1908 out of solid brick. Today, that brick is faded and slightly crumbling but we made it work. A green, freshly vacuumed rug always hung out of the front door on the cement leading guests under the matching green, domed awning propped up by golden rods cemented into the ground that always sparkled thanks to me. The hotel had an expansive main floor where the bar, lounge, ballroom, and dining room were located. The main elevator was to the right of the front desk and carried guests to one of the five floors which occupied about 55 rooms, ten of which were suites. Each room was relatively large and relatively well kept. I would learn soon after I started that this wasn’t the hotel you took your wife to on your anniversary and your kids to on your family vacation but instead the hotel you visited when you and someone who wasn’t your wife wanted to get away for the afternoon.

Mr. Carter began my “training” the Monday after my interview. We walked through the main floor as he lazily pointed to each area as we passed.
            “The dining room is through those double doors. Dinner is at 5:30 because the only people who eat in there are 93. Mr. and Mrs. Schlurman and they’re about to buy the farm any day now,” Mr. Carter said, crossing his fingers.
            “They eat here every day?” I asked.
            “Every god damned day,” he said.
            We passed the bar and the lounge which was an erratic blend of old and new furnishings. The bar top was made of dark, cherry wood with mitered corners and there were rows and rows of full bottles against the wall. There were worn couches the color of pine trees, the cushions discolored where people had sat for the past 60 years. On side tables, under a shag carpet, were bubbled lamp shades sitting on wooden bodies emitting light through the floral synthetic fabric. In the corner sat a piano made of ebony, its lid propped open exposing the silver wires inside.
            “At about 8 o’clock the bar starts to get some action,” Mr. Carter said as we approached the front desk, “whatever you see… ignore it. Eyes ahead.”
            I stared at him as he organized keys into the square slots against the wall behind us.
            “Whatever I see?” I asked.
            “Whatever. Whoever. Eyes ahead.”

The first night on the job wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had. Mr. Carter trained me in elevator safety: “keep the guests calm”, he said, “But if they don’t shut up keep them in there a little longer even after it’s fixed. I don’t need to hear that.” Then, he trained me in the art of luggage carrying: “Pick it up, drop it off. Don’t let it drag.” Finally, he told me if a guest had a question, he informed me they rarely do, answer to the best of my ability and if I didn’t know the answer: “don’t send them to me. Lie.”

That evening began with the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Schlurman at 5:25. Mrs. Schlurman walked behind her husband at a glacial pace. Her back arched as she shuffled, the pearls around her neck swung side to side. Mr. Carter exhaled deeply when he saw them.
            “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Schlurman. Table for two?” he asked lazily.
            “We’ve been coming here every night for 25 years, Carter and every night you ask the same question,” Mr. Schlurman spoke at the same pace his wife walked, “and it’s always just the two of us.”
            “Follow me,” Mr. Carter said.
            Mr. Schlurman looked up at me before entering the dining room.
            “New boy, Carter?” he asked.
            “Yeah, he’s new,” Mr. Carter said, looking at his watch.
            Mr. Schlurman looked me up and down and took off his maroon fedora before speaking.
            “I like my scotch dry,” he told me.
            “He’s not a waiter, Mr. Schlurman,” Mr. Carter said sighing, “He’s the bell boy.”
            He looked me up and down again and said, “Well, I still want it dry.” He started to walk again and yelled over his shoulder, “Come on, Gladyce. We don’t have all night.”

It was never easy for me to stand still. A bell boy is supposed to stand completely still with his arms behind his back but Mr. Carter never held me to it. I stood next to the front desk waiting for Mr. Carter’s return when a woman walked into the hotel. I straightened up waiting for her to approach the desk to check in but she took a quick turn into the lounge. I tried to remember what Mr. Carter had said, eyes ahead, but I couldn’t help it. She walked past the faded couches and nodded to the bartender who was drying glasses behind the bar. She approached the piano and took white sheets from her purse balancing them in the notch of wood above the keys. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulders in thick waves before she tucked it behind her ear. She sat on the bench and the wood creaked. She smoothed the blue chiffon of the dress in her lap and it fell to the floor and hung around the piano bench. She straightened the sheet music. Her fingers hovered over the keys before she began to play. Mr. Carter returned to the front desk knocking me out of my daze.
            “Take them God. They’re ready,” he said looking up at the ceiling.
            “Are they really that bad?” I asked.
            “They’re a nightmare. The man must have 97 hats, he wears a different one every night. I only put up with them because they’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars here over the years,” he said, straightening his lapel.
            “Who is that woman?” I asked.
            Mr. Carter looked up and down again quickly before answering.
            “Oh, that’s Sheila,” he said, rubbing out a stain.
            “How long has she been playing here?”
            “Long time. She’s highly requested,” he said, not looking up.

Just then a man walked through the front doors. I straightened up again but when Mr. Carter didn’t I relaxed. He was older with graying hair but didn’t walk like the Schlurmans. His suit was fitted around his gut and his shoes squeaked on the tile when he walked. He walked into the bar and promptly sat on the first stool with a direct view of Sheila. The bartender brought him a drink without being asked but the man never took his eyes of Shelia.

At one point in time the Wellcrest was a beautiful hotel. Or so I’ve heard. Mr. Carter said that before he came to work here it was most popular hotel in the city among the elite. The hotel held banquets with tables covered in white linen and gold accented china. The doors to the ballroom were always open and big band, swing music flooded the lobby. Somewhere between then and now, something changed. Mr. Carter said it was the war. I think the employees just got lazy. I imagine Mr. Carter working in The Wellcrest during its prime, escorting guests in the right direction, smiling, and his lapel crisp. I looked over at him leaning against the front desk, his right foot crossed over the other, using his tongue to get something stuck out of his teeth. Before I can ask more about the old Wellcrest, the front door yanks open and a lanky woman is headed for the front desk. She wore a short, orange dress with a black peter pan collar that covered only half of her protruding collar bone. Her black boots made her even taller and reached the middle of her thigh. This time Mr. Carter straightens up.
            “Stay here and man the desk,” he says through gritted teeth, “I’ll be back in about an hour.”
             Before I can protest he has swung himself around the front desk and headed for the elevator where the woman is already standing. He wrapped his arm around her tiny waist and looked over his shoulder before slipping into the elevator. While he was gone I checked in a man in his 50’s, and a woman who could have been his daughter, with no luggage. I brought Mr. Schulman his scotch because for some reason he requested I bring it and I helped Mrs. Schlurman out of her chair when they had finished their dinner. The elevator dinged and out stepped Mr. Carter and the orange dress. She walked to the front door with a black duffle in one hand as she fixed her hair with the other. Mr. Carter smoothed his lapel from behind the desk and looked out into the lobby.
            “Who was that woman?” I asked.
            “Eyes ahead,” he said.

The next night wasn’t much different. Mr. Schlurman wore a blue fedora and his wife wore dainty gold chains. Shelia had on a red silk dress and the man who watched her wore the same suit as before. And when the boney woman arrived she wore white. This time when Mr. Carter went upstairs with her he took something wrapped in a brown paper bag from under the desk with him. There was nothing to do while Mr. Carter was gone. No one requested a drink and no one checked in so I stood and listened to Shelia play from behind the front desk. I watched her fingers move swiftly over the keys and her body sway to the music she made.

Tonight, the man who watched her got up from his seat at the bar and moved closer to her. He walked over to the piano slowly with his drink in his hand. The gold liquid rocked back and forth against the sides of his glass coating them in shimmer. When he reached the piano he put his drink down on hard. Now standing behind Shelia he bent over so his face was next to hers. She tried to move but he grabbed her bare shoulder, his fingers making dents in her skin. Her fingers slid against the wrong keys altering the melody. He dipped his head into her neck and whispered something in her ear. The music stopped entirely until he stood up straight. She inhaled and her fingers began to move. Gershwin. He traced his finger from one shoulder, across her bare back, to the other before retrieving his drink and walking back to the stool where he sat, with a smirk on his face, to watch some more. He looked around the rest of the lobby and eventually met my gaze. His smirk disappeared and he returned a cold stare. I looked down quickly and began fidgeting with papers that had been left under the front desk. What was first a diversion tactic had now caught my attention. Bills and letters covered in red stamps had been shoved under there. Past due notices, foreclosure warnings, money transfers. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped.
            “What are you doing?” Mr. Carter asked.
            “Nothing, nothing. Looking for… a key,” I stammered.
            “Well, it’s not under those,” he said as he gathered them up while watching the white dress walk out of the hotel, black duffle in hand. He took the stack and placed it under his arm walking around to the other side of the front desk, like he was a guest, and leaned over.
            “If you’re smart, you’ll keep quiet about these,” he whispered.
            Avoiding his stare, I nodded and glanced past his shoulder into the dining room at the table where Mr. and Mrs. Schlurman have their dinner. Mr. Schlurman had his face three inches from his soup and hadn’t noticed his wife’s face laying in hers.
            “I think Mrs. Schlurman is dead,” I said, deadpan, “Maybe we should do something.”
            “We could,” he said and then walked with his stack of secrets into his office.

This went on for weeks. Shelia kept coming to play her music and the man kept coming to watch. To touch and to terrify. I kept coming to work and pretended not to notice when Mr. Carter disappeared into the elevator with paper bag, wrapped stacks of money tucked into his lapel and a tiny waist in the crook of his arm. Shelia never said a word and neither did I.

I did wonder though about the poor schmuck Mr. Carter was stealing money out from under. Someone probably spent their whole life building this hotel and now look at it. Everyone in town knew it as a pay by the hour hotel. We could have probably kept it cleaner. And its reputation was shot since a woman had recently died in her soup. I thought about the owner of this pathetic place sitting alone in their house somewhere faithfully believing that everything they built was being well taken care of. My thoughts were interrupted when Shelia walked through the door. She carried the same purse with her sheet music poking out. She looked up before she turned into the lounge and smiled at me while tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She sat down on the bench and it creaked. She fixed the sheet music above the keys and smoothed her dress and she began to play. Berlin. Like clockwork, halfway into her second song, he appeared at the bar with his drink in hand. He got close again, leaning up against the side of the piano to watch her. When she didn’t look up he walked over and stood behind her, pressing the front of his body into her back.

I heard Mr. Carter’s office door slam behind me and he walked to the front desk where he would wait for his coconspirator to come sauntering through the front door. He counted the green bills and organized it into stacks in front of me now, instead of in his office. Pretending to ignore the fluttering paper in his hands I asked about the man in the lounge.
            “I told you, keep your eyes ahead,” he said still counting.
             I looked into the lounge and saw Shelia trying to squirm and arch her back so she wouldn’t be touching him. I didn’t want to stay quiet anymore.

“Shouldn’t we do something? I mean, he’s sick.”
“We should,” Mr. Carter said.
He packed the money into a paper bag and folded it tightly just in time for his guest to appear at the front door.
“Well, why don’t we?” I said impatiently.
“Because he’s the owner of the hotel,” Mr. Carter said and disappeared into the elevator.