The Hotel Eden: Stories

The Hotel Eden: Stories Read Free Page B

Book: The Hotel Eden: Stories Read Free
Author: Ron Carlson
Tags: USA
Ads: Link
everything outside, changed. They all had a dock and an entry off the Thames. For us it was enchanting, this lost world at once rough, crude, and romantic. Two steps down under a huge varnished beam into a long room of polished walnut and brass lamps, like the captain’s quarters on a ship, we’d follow Porter and sit by the window where the river spread beneath us. He’d call the barman by name and order three pints. I mean, we loved this stuff. We were on the inside.
    “Do you know the opening of Heart of Darkness ?” he asked. We’d never read it. “Right here,” he said, sweeping his hand at the window. “At anchor here on a sloop in the sea reach of the Thames.” And then he’d pull the paperback from his pocket and read the first two pages. “Geez, that makes a man thirsty, eh, Mark?” He’d bump me and we’d drink up.
    It was a long tour. We left the London Bridge sometime after five and didn’t cross under the river in the tunnel at Greenwich until almost eleven. I remember scurrying through the long tiled corridor far beneath the river behind Porter as he dragged us along in a hurry because the pubs were going to close and we’d miss the last train back to Hampstead. We were all full of beer and Allison and I were dislocated, a feeling I got used to and came to like, as we came out into the bright cold air and saw the Cutty Sark moored there. This was life, it seemed to me, and I ran into the Red Cloak on Porter’s footsteps. I was bursting and so pleased to be headed for the men’s when he took my arm and pulled me to the bar. “Let’s have a pint first, just to savor the night,” he said. I wasn’t standing upright, having walked with a bladder cramp for half a mile, and now the pain and pressure were blinding. I gripped the glass and met his smile. Allison came out of the ladies’ and came over. “Are we being macho or just self-destructive?” she said.
    “We’re playing through the pain,” Porter said. “We’re seeing if the Buddhists are right with their wheel of desire and misery.” I could barely hear him; there was a rushing in my ears, a cataract of steady noise. Disaster was imminent. Porter took a big slug of the bitter, and I mirrored his action. We swallowed and put down the glasses. “Excuse me,” he said. “Think I’ll hit the loo.” And he strolled slowly into the men’s. A blurred moment later I stood beside him at the huge urinals, dizzy and reclaimed. “We made it, mate,” he said. “Now we’ve got to pound down a thousand beers and catch the train.”
    It had been a strange season in London for me. It was all new and as they say exciting, but I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant. Now on the train to the north coast with Porter, I actually felt like somebody else who had never had my life, because as I saw it, my life—high school, college, Allison—hadn’t taught me anything. For the first time I didn’t give a shit about what happened next. The little play dance of cause and effect, be a good student, was all gone.
    “You’re not married,” I said. It seemed late on a train and you could talk like that.
    He looked at me. “It’s not clear,” he said. “In the eyes of men or the eyes of God?” I must have been looking serious, because he added, “No. I’m not married. Nearly happened once, but no, it was the timing, and now I’ve got plenty to do.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “It was a girl at Hilman,” he said. “I’d have done it too, but it got away from us. There’s a time for it and you can wait too long.” He pointed at me. “You and Allison talking about it?”
    “No, not really. I mean, I don’t know. I guess we are, kind of, being over here together. But we’ve never talked about it really.” Now he was just smiling at me, the kid. That’s what I wanted to say: hey, I’m a kid here; I’m too young. I’m too young for anything.
    Porter drank. He was the first person I’d met who drank heavily and didn’t make a

Similar Books

Freed

Berengaria Brown

This Side of Providence

Rachel M. Harper

Shanghaied to the Moon

Michael J. Daley

From the Dead

Mark Billingham

Healing Hearts

Margaret Daley

Corpse in Waiting

Margaret Duffy

Knitting Bones

Monica Ferris

Rival Forces

D. D. Ayres

Raising Faith

Melody Carlson