Another legend passed away this week.
When Shane MacGowan left us, the memories came rushing back.
My memories were less about the Pogues and more about the people I’ve met who lived life like the lives in Shane’s lyrics.
Fairytale of New York was released six months into my hotel career. It hit the top of the charts just as I was “celebrating” my first Christmas as a hotel security guard.
Christmas was a special kind of time in hotels back then. Save for a few flight crews and stranded souls, it was empty.
Most people, including hotel staff that were able, took time off and celebrated with their families. With a not-yet-my-ex-wife busy studying and me as the only breadwinner in our family, I was happy to pull a double shift at Christmas. Occupancy was low, the bars were closed and the restaurants were running on the fumes of the company Christmas parties that had kept everyone in Security happy thanks to all the overtime they created.
Yes, there were issues and incidents but when you’re at the bottom of the totem pole they mean nothing as long as you know you’re getting paid overtime.
The stillness of the post-party yuletide season was almost upon us when the front desk called us about the guests in a junior suite. A credit card company had called to say the card was maxed out. That wasn’t unusual.
What was unusual was that shortly after the credit card company called, the police phoned the hotel to ask about the guests in the same suite. They asked the hotel to keep an eye on them.
There were two occupants in the suite. A woman in her forties and a man in his twenties. The woman’s husband had called the credit card company and the hotel. He said his wife had run off with a younger man, emptied the family bank account, and was maxing out their credit cards. Two small children at home were asking him two questions: “Will Santa come this year?” and “Where’s Mommy?”
The man could answer neither. At least not until the credit card company tracked “Mommy” to our hotel.
The call from the police was transferred to me in security.
“Keep them there. The husband is flying in from out of town and will pay the bill and pick up his wife.”, they said.
We didn’t have the power of detention, but judging by the amount of food and liquor room service had taken to the junior suite, the guests were unlikely to be going anywhere soon.
When the police arrived with the husband in tow, it reminded me of the lyrics in Kenny Roger’s song, Lucille.
“He had a strange look on his face
The big hands were calloused, he looked like a mountain
For a minute I thought I was dead
But he started shaking, his big heart was breaking”
OK, I didn’t think for a minute that I was going to die. The man was escorted by two policemen… but the other lines fit.
My security partner and I went to the room and identified ourselves as security. The police and the husband followed.
When the woman opened the door, my colleague and I skirted past her so we were between her, her husband, the police and her young lover.
It wasn’t dramatic.
The husband tearily asked his wife to come home for Christmas. The kids missed her. They were worried about Christmas and afraid Santa wouldn’t stop at their house if Mommy didn’t come home.
On our side of the room, the “boyfriend”, if we can call him that, was in a world of his own. He was sitting on the end of the bed watching wrestling on TV.
“Hey, do you guys know if room service is on the way up with our food?”
We said we didn’t know.
In the end, the husband, with good support from the police, convinced “Mommy” to accompany them to the airport, fly home for Christmas, and figure out their future later.
The “boyfriend” wanted to wait for the room service he had ordered, but his request was denied because the room and the room service was being paid for by a credit card that didn’t belong to him and that had no funds.
He made one final request to the police.
“Can you guys drive me to the airport?”
When that too was denied, he asked how he was supposed to get home. He lived 500 miles away.
We left him on the sidewalk where he stood watching snowflakes on the bitter December evening.
My colleague had a year’s seniority on me. That meant I would have to write the report. As we headed back to the office, the next call came in.
An undesirable had been seen loitering in the ground-floor shopping arcade.
“Your turn”, said my colleague.
As the newbie, it was always my turn.
I recognized the man standing by the payphone. We removed him from the premises regularly.
When he saw me, he sheepishly said,
“Don’t I get one phone call?”
I could hear the icy winter wind whistling through the gaps in the arcade doors. Outside, there were horizontal stripes of snow being whipped through the streets. It was minus a whole bunch and the man by the pay phone was wearing a wool coat that was so well worn it was almost transparent.
One phone call couldn’t hurt.
I didn’t want to eavesdrop so I wandered through the arcade, window shopping the shuttered shops. When I returned, I couldn’t help but hear the man as he ended his call.
“OK, tell everyone Merry Christmas from me. No hard feelings. I’ve always been the black sheep of the family. I don’t want to cause any trouble, but it’s cold. A kind soul gave me a coin so I could make a phone call with. I just thought I’d take the chance and ask if I could come for Christmas. Merry Christmas.”
When he saw me, he apologized.
“Sorry, I know I’m not allowed in the hotel, but I had a coin and I knew there was a phone here. I’ll leave now.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s almost funny”, he said, “My parents gave me two names from the bible, but it didn’t help. My brother’s name isn’t biblical and he’s doing fine.”
I unlocked the door to the street from the closed arcade and he disappeared into the winter night.
Later that shift, the night staff gathered in the canteen for dinner. We’d heard the day shift had enjoyed leftovers from the huge Christmas party buffets and opened the fridge with great expectations.
There were five plates in the fridge.
Each plate had two chicken drumsticks and three pieces of broccoli. Not quite the spread we’d expected.
My colleague winked and said, “Not bad compared to what some people will eat tonight.”
I often worked double shifts on holidays. I always told people it was because I wanted staff with families to be able to enjoy time at home. That was true, but it was equally true that I was fascinated by wandering the quiet hallways and the chance encounters with the few souls that found their way to the hotel when most people were celebrating.
Every year there would be one or two IT folks or service workers that hadn’t finished their jobs before the last flight out of Norway. Every year there would be a few like Lukas Johannes, the man with two names from the bible.
And every time I hear the song “Fairytale in New York”, I remember them and I remember the colleagues that celebrated holidays with me.
Whatever you do and wherever you are this holiday season, please spare a thought for the cast of the fairytales and for the people in hotels, healthcare, police and other services that are out there keeping things going so we can enjoy time with family and friends.
Stay safe, Always Care
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, 87 Stories is a journal of how my gap year lasted four decades, made me an emigrant, an immigrant and gave me a life I never dreamed of.
The surreal stories from the hidden world of hotels series gives a behind-the-scenes look at the wacky, wonderful world of hotels from the eyes of a university dropout who had a storied, basement-to-boardroom career in hotel security. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the episodes!
In addition to my love for writing, I’m also a professor, an educator, and a consultant. I’ve been told that my specialty is saving bacon.
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If you’re looking for a better way to treat your employees this holiday season than getting them so drunk that they might punch you in the face, why not gift them all our book, “Spin the Bottle Service”? Some people say it makes people better guests!
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