The great eye of the sun rose hot; rose up from the bubbling, frothing sea, warmed the beach and glinted off the windows of the shoreline hotels, rose between the palms – waving green, dewy in the morning – then up between the white stucco towers of downtown, and at last took its place within the infinite blue of the daytime sky. There was a scattering of clouds on the horizon, and the weak crosswinds left it a mystery whether they might make landfall.
“More ice on floor two.”
“More ice?”
“Yes, fill the bucket.”
Padre nodded, sighing silently to himself. Padre left the manager’s office, stepping out from the air conditioned space into the swelter of the Miami climate. Padre stopped at the main kitchen, scooped huge, jagged ice chunks up with an orange bucket, and walked to the stairs.
Most of the tourists were still asleep. The hallways on the second floor, exposed to the air, with views of the beach and ocean, were empty; nobody stirred. Morning shadows, more distinct than their dusky brethren, fell from the banisters and cast striped shadows onto Padre’s black work slacks. Padre’s shirt was also black, and his name tag was comprised of a gold colored plastic lapel pinned to his shirt.
Padre, at thirty, was too old to take pride in his black attire and golden nametag. These things which differentiated him from the bell boys and the cleaning staff had at one point put a mild twinkle in his eyes, but today was a Sunday and he was carrying a bucket full of ice to deliver to people who were still asleep, and so he merely put his head down and walked up to the ice room. Padre dumped the ice carefully into the cooler, making sure to get it all in.
His task complete, Padre walked back out to the hallway, and nearly bumped into an old, very old couple.
“Oh, my,” said the wife, putting a wrinkled, paper-thin-skinned hand to her chest.
The old man loudly cleared his throat.
Padre bowed his head.
“Excuse me,” he apologized.
The old man, in a white polo, white slacks and white loafers, put his broad, hairy hand on his wife’s back and ushered her passed the porter. Padre began to walk in the opposite direction. The old man stopped and turned, hailing him.
“Hey you.”
Padre stopped walking.
“Yes sir?”
“We’re staying in room 206.”
“Yes sir.”
The mid-morning sun broke through the thicket of palm fronds grown up from a raised tiled planter, patterning the second floor hallway in brilliant webs of tropical white and bathing Padre in a light which glinted off his nametag.
“I tried to take a hot shower this morning,” continued the man, “and couldn’t get anything but a weak stream.”
The wife and her husband each pulled out large, wraparound sunglasses from hidden pockets and put them on, shielding major portions of their faces.
“Sorry sir, I’ll find out what the problem is.”
“Good, see that you do.”
The couple walked one way and Padre went the other. He quickly ducked down into a stairwell, out of the fiery touch of the sun.
Padre took the long way down. He crossed the entry pavilion with its impressive faux marble fountains - winged angels and winged baby angels – and scuttled through the lobby, ducking around the hanging, fluttering white curtains, satin curtains, and stopped at the tiki-bar on the rear landing above the pool. His friend Immanuel stood behind the bar, drying, in the classical pose of bartenders everywhere, drying a just-washed glass.
“Manny, your eyes are red already.”
“When in Rome,” replied Manny.
Padre smiled, Manny was a free spirit, he thought, and his outgoing nature raised his opinions on hotel matters to preeminence amongst the mostly immigrant staff – he’d been working there almost as long as Padre himself. The ocean breeze down here was strong, a fresh invisible current which sent the little palms around the pool to fluttering incessantly.
“You on all day?”
“Mas amigo, a double.”
“A double?”
“Si.”
They didn’t readily dole out doubles, but Manny always seemed to get them, somehow. The time and a half must be nice, thought Padre.
The manager had once said, quoting a study he’d read, that “working a double shift increases the chances of a workplace mishap.” That was at a staff meeting. Most of the workers had such a tenuous grasp of English that they had no idea what the manager was babbling about. Padre and Manny both understood; Manny had translated for the cleaning staff, talking down to them in simplified colloquialisms, his voice adopting a condescending register, as if savoring his altitude above their ignorance, and Padre had just stood quietly by himself, leaning up against the back wall.
“Amigo, want a little something?”
“Later, I got to see the manager.”
“Complaint?”
“Si.”
“Típico.”
Two fresh faced girls, looking to be on the cusp of eighteen or perhaps nineteen, came down early to the pool. They flashed their mascara whipped eyes at Manny as they passed, and then sashayed down to some loungers by the edge of the water.
“Bonita,” said Manny.
Padre looked at the girls, rapped his hand on the counter, and smiling said, “alright, see you.”
Padre left the tiki-bar and went inside. Manny watched his friend go. The shadow of the straw roof of his tiki-bar cut sidelong across his face. For just a moment he wore a solemn expression, thinking if his friend didn’t take a little now he was apt to take a lot later.
From the lobby Padre took a side hallway to the management suite. The office was very comfortable. Though not adorned like the lobby, the space was still ample, the furniture was immaculate white, and the files were arranged neatly in rows on high shelves. Padre knocked on the door.
“Yes?”
Padre opened the door.
“You need something?”
“Yes, 206 complained of no hot water.”
The manager rose slowly, strode across the room with weighty footfalls, and put his hands on his hips. He stood at his window looking out. The shadows of the fine venetian blinds stuck to him like prison bars, unwavering upon his impressive suit, even as he shifted his considerable weight.
“206,” he murmured several times.
Padre could not see his boss’s face. He stood in the doorway staring at the manager’s broad-shouldered form.
“Who’s staying there?”
“An old couple.”
“Oh – yes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“It’s nothing you know. This is Miami, you don’t need hot water, and anyway that’s not the problem. If there’s even a problem, that’s not it. Damned if I know what it is, do you?”
“No.”
“Get maintenance up there anyway, what’s it to us?”
“Now?”
“Yes, no – wait, they’re old?”
“Very.”
“Get our guy up there after lunch.”
“After lunch?”
“Yes, when they’re just about to siesta, they’re old and they need to siesta, it’ll make an impression.”
Then the room was silent, deadly silent – not even the wind-swayed palms or the bustle of the staff before noon permeated the cool silence of the heart of the hotel.
“Okay boss.”
From the manager’s office Padre left to continue his rounds. He walked with a meaningful gait, along the sides of the lobby and the hallways of the hotel’s many floors, out of the way of the guests who were arising in groups of twos and threes, sun-burnt and bleary-eyed, making their way down to breakfast and the pool.
Later in the day, Padre looped back down to the pool. Two members of the cleaning staff, natives of a different land, stood at the far corner of the pool deck. Padre went over to them. The men talked and joked in Spanish, occasionally switching to English in the presence of superiors or when negotiating something with a guest.
He bade them hello and they both nodded congenially.
“I don’t think it’s going to rain today,” said one.
“Yeah, it’s hot as hell man,” said the other.
Padre looked up at the sky, tasting the thick air; he knew well the heat which came before a rain but kept any opinions he had to himself.
The cleaners swept fallen palm fronds, curled in brown death, collecting them into neat piles out of the line of sight of the hotel guests. Their green uniform shirts were already dark with sweat before noon. Padre heard them laughing as he returned to the bar. Manny was absent. A young bus boy in a white shirt sat somnolent on a high stool behind the bar.
“What are you doing back there?”
“They told me to cover.”
“Where’s Manny?”
The boy nodded his head curtly, indicating the direction of the lobby.
“Manager’s office?”
“Yeah.”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah,” said the boy, nodding again, and then pointed to the two girls in colorful bikinis wading now in the shallow end of the pool; their cheeks were flushed red and they were laughing and talking overloud, clearly drunk. Padre recognized the girls from that morning. They began to splash one another, indiscriminately wetting nearby guests.
More guests were coming down to the pool now, staking claims around the deck on loungers over which they hung the hotel’s large, fluffy beach towels with its signature green insignia imprinted upon them. Many of the guests were staring at the girls with mild looks of curiosity or consternation. The atmosphere had grown too hot, the sun suddenly seemed completely overbearing; Padre wiped his forehead with his shirt, tugged unconsciously at his collar, and walked into the lobby. He had to go see how much trouble his friend was in.
By the time Padre had gotten to the manager’s hallway - his head filling with excuses for his visit, hot water issues or maybe towel shortages, yes towel shortages – the door had already been flung open from the inside, and Manny was storming out.
“Amigo?”
“That son of a bitch,” was all Manny had to say for himself as he rushed down the hallway, his face and eyes flushed darkly, mouth twisted, obviously into some kind of great anger.
Padre tried to grab a hold of his friend, but Manny skirted his reach and rounded the corner, disappearing into the lobby. The manager’s door shut swiftly, loudly behind him. For a moment Padre stood alone in the hallway, a closed door on one side and the din of the lobby calling, with the boisterous arrival of new guests, on the other.
Padre followed the path Manny had taken. Padre moved swiftly passed the arrivals, through the lobby and the beautifully adorned foyer, out the double-glass sliding front doors. Outside, in the heat and shade of the great sago palms, valets in red vests were running to-and-fro, obtaining tickets from sun-burnt guests just checking out and fetching their Jaguars and Bentleys.
Padre found Manny just beyond the white-gravel loop of the front drive, in view of the elegant, sparkling fountain, and just outside the reach of the hotel’s dark shadow, which had shortened considerably beneath the full glare of a midday sun.
“Manny, what happened?”
“Shit canned.”
“Shit canned, why?
“The girls wanted to drink,” Manny stated simply.
As if reminded by his own comment, Manny pulled out a flask, a bronze, old and dented flask – the kind of heirloom which looked like it could have gone down the generations, seen wars, booms and busts, ocean travels and anything else – unscrewed the top, and drank several gulps.
“Here,” he offered.
Padre declined the flask with a perfunctory wave of his hand, an over dramatic wave which seemed to both, in its motion, to negate some other greater offering, or maybe it was nothing besides the weight of the sun on the minds of the men.
Several fine, expensive automobiles sidled passed them, easily climbing the incline of the gravel driveway up to the hotel. The sun glinted off the bodies of the cars, and the men had to squint or turn down their faces.
“Want to know why those baby angels have wings?” asked Manny, looking at the fountain.
“Why?”
“Porque las madres de los ángeles tienen alas,” Manny answered, his blatant, almost belligerent tone reminiscent of shit can and cerveza.
Padre looked at the fountain, with the angels and the water rising up, shimmering for an instant in the sunlight, and then cascading back down to the broad pool below.
“It’s too hot,” said Manny, and turning, he walked slowly down the road, his steps carefully laid out, one at a time, so slowly as if compensating for some great deficiency. Padre stood simply, watching his friend grow small in the crowd of tourists flooding the great sunny boulevard.
That night, long after his shift had ended, Padre sat alone at a table by the pool. He sat under a fully-open umbrella, although it was well past sunset. He sat there staying dry while it rained. He sat there leaning precariously forward at the edge of his chair, rocking unsteadily, like a man who’d taken too much. That night it came down harder than it had in a long time, but Padre hardly seemed to notice and until midnight, or perhaps later, the sun’s residual glow still warmed him and sang viciously when he closed his eyes like it had been burnt into his eyeballs.
Nathan Weinstein has been published in Mary Magazine among others.
Permanently archived at http://girlswithinsurance.com/index.php/prose/short/121-0110-nw-padre and short-linked via http://frsh.in/4k
