It was tourist season. We blended in. Sure, the crowds were pandemic-thin, but visitors stood out: Hawaiian shirts, ballcaps, sundresses, shorts, Birkenstocks, poodles, Audis, Teslas, gray, more gray, and tides of pale-skinned ex-urbanites. Folks on the large wrap-around verenda: knives gently sawing salmon or steak, forks overturned Euro-style, chilled Chablis, tea, coffee, tiramisu, chatter, clatter, laughter. We were just some anonymous passers-by.
I had never seen so many rooms before. Correct that. I had, in skyscrapered Vegas-style mega-hotels. Pictures of them. Here it was a surprise. Four stories high and a full block deep. Hundreds of rooms, though we didn't count them.
We ambled through long musty hallways with ancient carpets, paintings from the 19th and 20th century, sconces, majestic weighty drapes, ocean-liner beds, bookshelves with classics and never-made-its.
-- C'mon, let's go in here.
-- What?
-- C'mon. Don't be scared. Let's ...
-- You kiddin'?! Really? No.
I took him by the elbow and ushered him into The Clemenceau. Cavernous. To be honest, I did not usher him; I gently persuaded him with a hand grazing his thigh, wandering into his Life Valley. I led him like a lamb, his doe eyes wide and his teenage heart racing.
We did it. More than once. I lost count. That was predictable and easy. And gales of fun. I didn't know until a year and a half later that that was his inaugural romp, his Clemenceau Originale. Father of Victory. The Tiger. My own feline conquest.
As evening fell, we strolled the other floors. On the second floor, we found a darkened room, closed the creaking door, creaked the bedsprings with our raucous youth, and fell asleep like it was nobody's business.
What could be more natural? Easy come, easy go.
Except we didn't go.
We played Stowaway.
Again and again.
First it was daring, then a habit, then a routine.
No one ever questioned us.
Housekeeping, porters, chefs, maitre d's, janitors, maintenance, painters, plumbers. front desk, back desk, security. no one.
Why would they? We were part of the family. "Always had been," they'd whisper to each other.
The first year, I took a few steps off the veranda and tripped, fell flat on my face. Road rash, bruises, and sore forearms. Thought nothing of it.
A few months later, he wanted to go out for an evening stroll, shake off cabin fever. When he put his hand on the brass door handle he was jolted by a shock so fierce he fell backward.
We experimented.
Exit by window, the old prisoner tied-sheets bit. We kept bouncing back up, as if the sheets were bungee cords. It was funny, until it wasn't.
Climb to the roof. Try the ancient rusty fire escape. Another bout of electroshock "therapy."
Burrow into the basement. Find a subterranean route to the sewer. Nope.
Nothing worked. It wasn't hard to figure out. Why frustrate ourselves? No sense succumbing to futile, impotent gestures.
I write letters.
Nearly every day.
I post them in the house mailboxes: by the lobby, the gift shop, by the elevator on each floor (the old-fashioned mail chutes).
I write to friends (though the addresses in my address book are likely obsolete; and the friends may not be alive), my parents, sisters, bothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, old classmates, even a few enemies.
I am waiting for an answer.
Just one.
