Thinker in the Lounge

There is no assurance from my fears as they are helping me to make them real.

As I sit in the lounge of my thoughts, perfectly in their order of contemplation. lined up carefully in rows of importance, calling to me at once, pleading for me to begin my deep reflection. It is nights like this, in complete solitude, that I am able to fully decompose the current situation I have placed myself square within. I sit with the book in my lap. I know it is a tale I must begin however to procrastinate another day is the only relief I can talk myself into. The only thinker in the lounge tonight. No others to distract or delight. The clink from my teacup gently reminds me that with ears to hear, I am not alone. A delicate shatter of pitches and frequency, as the clank echoes to the back of the room. I take my last sip and wave to the waitress at the bar. Maybe an Irish taste in this last one, seems no other company will be warming me tonight.

 I look back down to my book, its contents luring me to open the cover. Once I begin, I will never be the same again. And once I begin, I will never be safe again. I shut my eyes and remember the day she handed it to my care. I don’t know what it means, but the veil is in my hands. I turn the book over and a scorpion outline is found woven into the fine leather covering. A scorpion? I think and I wonder if it is referring to astrology. I too am a scorpion. However, I haven’t decided if this placement is a blessing or a curse. And by admitting this now I have blown my cover broken my first rule. Never tell your secrets for they will come back as rumors. Told and retold, regurgitated to another like a saga playing out for entertainment. But I am now turning a new page in my book, finishing a chapter I wasn’t supposed to begin. When you let go of yourself, finding it again comes with pain never processed before. An avoidance to discover the root of the problem, knowing it is just attached to an even deeper issue than thought before. 

Here she comes, finally. I’ve been waiting for her interruption hoping for it to end not long after. 

Just a spot and do you have Jameson?

She stops and grins wanting to tell me I have bad taste. I do not care.

Yeah, just a lil kick for an ass! Haaa! I’ll get it.

She walks back to her island of expensive boose and cheap coke. I see two women walking to the entrance. Laughing not paying attention to the thinker in the lounge. Always watching. Reading. Recording. Contemplating. Thinking.

She risked her life to get me the book at least I could read it. I turn it back over to the front. No title, just a brown patina of oil-soaked fingers dripped candle wax and scratches from time decorating the luscious, soft material. The women see me. I smile at them as my waitress walks back over.

I’ll be with y'all in a few. Here ya go honey; this will top you off. 

I can smell the sweet poison as it is poured into my drink. Just an antiseptic for the thoughts beating inside my head. 

Hey Hun? I say to her.

Whatever the ladies want, put it on my tab. Tell them my room is 417 at the Orient if they want to thank me later. I jokingly smile back at her.

I look back to them and tip my cup and drink the contents at once. The heat travels down my throat and courses its way into my resolve.

I forget her for a moment staring at me like I had broken our vows. 

Ok Candy, I see nothin's free.

I pull out my wallet with my family crest encrusted in gold and crystal inlay. She knows I am important she knows I have what she wants. I pull out four brand new hundreds and place them inside the cup she so absentmindedly holds before me.

Pay the tab when they are done and you can have the rest, my love.

I stand from my fortress of solitude and tuck the book under my coat.

Maybe I will begin to read it at the hotel, if I am still alone later in the night. As I leave the lounge I look back once more to assure myself I haven’t left a thought behind, purposefully ignoring the ladies this time to interest them more with my generosity and then sudden departure.

I know I will see them again in a couple hours or three. Either that or Candy, the lil con artist she is, will take the whole lot and make the ladies pay their way. Either way I will be visited by strangers or my easy waitress. I’ll know by morning if I need to find a new lounge for late night thinking because she will want more all the flirting I have done to ripen her up. 

I should have just left out the whole room number part, guhhhh no, as I slap my forehead. I know her character. I know she wants me. Little does she know I have been planning this for so long. The mysterious thinker in the lounge.

Seven years have passed since I last saw the book. It’s words disappearing from my intellect, losing their tone throughout the turning clock hands and calendar pages. Seven years I have stayed in this hotel room. It has become my prison sentence, bound by the consequences of my actions that night. 

Tell them I’m in room 417 at the Orient if they want to thank me. 

What fateful words those would turn out to be. I didn’t return to the lounge after that night. But not for reasons you might would think.  It wasn’t Candy or the unknown ladies that would disturb my late night nap that evening. It was a knock with a heavy hand. It was a pounding from an angry hand blocked only by wood and metal. In my mind I knew I had angered a beast, a sleeping vision of deaths best friend. Purgatory, she is called.

Who’s there? I ask, regretting instantly my responding.

I want my girls back! Hey creep let my girls out! I know you have them; got this number and everything so give them here! That was 7 days ago so you better have my money freak show!

He beats again, this time shaking the frame loose from the wall.

Give me my girls!

Or what big man? Or what are you going to do to me?

The beating stops. I look at the dent forming in my side of the door, like an egg on a forehead after the first tussle in the playground, smarting red but gloriously proud of itself for showing up. I look around the room. How long was I asleep? Are there girls here? I walk to the closet and look inside. Suits hang in a line ready for the hot sun and brisk walk to my work downtown. 

Look man I don’t even care about them; just give me the money and I won’t call the cops.  20k should be enough.

Are you extorting me? I don’t have them man.

Let me in to see myself, you are lying creep.

I walk to the bathroom door light shining through the crack. I hear the water first, gentle splashes under skin, pockets of air. Someone is in my bathroom. Was I asleep? 

Hello?

7 days ago, I think to myself. What day is it? I walk to the side of my bed and look at the phone. The digital time says 3:23 am. I push the flashing button. Missed call at 1:06 am today February 25. But today was the 17th. I know it. I scramble over to my pants on the floor. I had sushi earlier; I have a receipt in my pocket.

Dude I’m calling the cops.

Stop beating on my door or I’m calling them! I yell back.

Wings and Sushi Downtown total cost for my crab rolls for dinner $47. I read the story of my last purchase. Derrick rang me up. I paid him a tip of $10 and I did this all 6 hours ago on February 17. I drop the paper on the dirty hotel floor and finally look around my lived in room. No housekeeping for 7 days either I think as I am surveying the surfaces of their contents. 

That is when I hear the drain release and water escape from the tub. Who is here with me?

The banging starts again.

I’m going to come back with more just like me dirtbag! 

I am frozen in my place. I search the folds of my intellect for clues to prepare me for what is in there. 

Is there a towel, Honey?

Who is Honey? I’m not Honey. I’m getting out of here. 

I turn to leave and see her shadow come out from the curtain.

Oh Honey, you can’t leave us.

There she stands in front of me. The bathroom door opens and the other one walks out.

Why is he awake, Candy?

I look back at my waitress, but her face is solid black. I can’t make out a nose from an ear. Her form is fluid in front of me.

Who are you? I say to the girl in the bathroom doorway. 

I’m your daughter, she says and laughs out loud.

Or maybe I am your mom.

My stomach turns as she walks over to me and slaps my face with her open fist. 

You should have let him in. 

Yea, you should have let him take us with him. He let us out. We were just hungry.

Candy is always hungry.

She squats down to face me holding a fist of my hair to control me.

You will never leave this room.

Yea, thank you again for the drinks.

She says as she comes closer to my face and mashes her forehead into mine.

You will never leave this room again. 

And that is when I see it in the corner. glowing bright in the artificial night.

Like a tiny sun contained in a jar on the table. 

Oh, you see it there.

You see your soul over there don’t you?

She pulls her head off mine just to bang it back into my sockets.

Do you know why you won’t ever leave this room at the Orient???

She picks up my license off the dirty, carpeted floor and looks at the writing.

Mr. Scorpio do you know why?

I stare through the pain as blood drips from my nose. I taste the metal in the spaces between my teeth.

Just tell me then, tell me what you have done to me! I scream into the room.

As I open my eyes I see the empty room again. Are they gone? Was I dreaming? I hear banging and run back to my door. I peep the hole to see a short man waiting across the hall.

Room service please! He calls as I watch him knock again.

Oh, was I imagining it all!

But then I feel her. I am at once reminded that I am not alone.

I feel her nails tickling up my back.

I feel her lips on my earlobe as her breath winds down to my eardrum. 

She whispers to me.

Because you are dead.