Tuesday, June 24, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

HomeArts & Entertainment'The Last Hotel:...

‘The Last Hotel: A Novel in Suites’: Suite 27

Installment 26: a chance encounter in the elevator. "As Reardon stepped in, he noticed the pretty older woman from the fourth floor. He had seen her before. Dark hair and flashing eyes, her name was Rachel, he thought. He nodded to her as he walked to the back of the elevator car. She wore a short black dress and high heels."

Editor’s Note: This is the 26th installment of Sonia Pilcer’s novel THE LAST HOTEL. We have seven more chapters to go!  Stay tuned. If you want to own the book — print or kindle edition — go to: https://amzn.to/1IW0sEA. Look for it every Friday. To read the 25th installment, with links to previous ones, click here.

 

Suite 27

 

“Jeezus!” Reardon grumbled, stubbing his knee against a metal chair. He shoved it like a sparring partner. The chair tipped over. He lifted it and placed it by the table. Then picked up the Marlboro pack and shook it. A cigarette rolled out. Lighting up, he inhaled deeply.

Two in the afternoon, and Reardon had just awoken after a long night. Usually, he kept his intake down, sipping wine or a few beers, and a lot of black coffee. But at midnight, the Dublin crew rolled in for a nightcap, and some hours later, a second bottle of Johnnie Walker Red had a few fingers worth.

Now his head was pounding. His stomach turned. He took a long draw on his smoke. Began to cough. “Holy Mother of Christ!”

It had been a good night at the bar. Lots of people, lots of drink. The jukebox played Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa. Some youngsters wanted disco, but he had standards. No disco at his bar. Counting the till. Five thousand dollars. But now he was goddamn paying for it.

He had stumbled into the Last Hotel at 4 AM. No one around, thank God. He entered the elevator and pressed two.

In the early hours, pathetic, sodden, fallen soul that he was, Reardon had stood in front of his door, checking that it was his door, Suite 27, but the fucking key wouldn’t fit into the fucking lock. He was to about to go back to the elevator, down to the basement to ask Henry, when, finally, click. Spin. He was in. He didn’t remember getting out of his clothes, into bed.

Lead-directory3-502x1024

Reardon had been a bar man most of his life, after he’d given up acting. He’d had a few film roles, a brief appearance in ‘Amarcord.’ But there was too much bullshit. Too many assholes to lick.

Sure, he wasn’t a movie star, which he’d been groomed for. Universal Studios had brought him out to audition for a TV series, which he didn’t get, and put him up with three other actors in a bungalow on Sunset Blvd. Too much coke was sniffed off the surface of their glass coffee table.

 

Reardon had lived at the hotel since 1970, when Patty left him. He was fine with that, but she’d taken his one and only Collie, their daughter, to San Francisco. The Last Hotel, four blocks away from the bar, was as much commitment as he could handle. He still thought about moving to be closer to her.

He’d worked at the Shamrock for the last twenty years. And he prided himself on it. It was his bar, though there were other bartenders, and he didn’t own it, of course. But he felt like it was his place. People came to see him, to talk to him, though he kept his own counsel most of the time. Except the occasional joke. “The past, the present and the future walk into a bar. It was tense.”

Reardon walked the bar plank, which added several inches to his six feet, with rooster pride. A bartender wasn’t someone who just poured drinks. You had to know the bar, of course. He flipped the colored bottles, cascading liquor into multi-shaped glasses in an instant. Moreover, you had to know people. How to keep things light, when some of New York’s heaviest creatures crawled in, and keep things jovial, watch for the troubled ones, the ones who’d had too much to drink, keep things bright, keep the patrons thirsty.” It required a certain gift. “Did you hear about the dyslexic who walked into a bra?”

Red-eyed, barefoot, cigarette dangling from his lips, Reardon lumbered into his kitchen, about the size of a NYC parking space. He raised the sleeves of his ancient white terrycloth bathrobe, then poured water into his expresso maker, and filled the metal cup with Italian. Then, from the mini fridge Saul had given him, he took out tomato juice, a lemon, an ice cube tray and a bottle of Stoli from the freezer.

“The hair of the dog that bit you,” he pronounced aloud. Or at least he thought he did. What dog? Booze was the dog, he supposed. What breed? He’d read that a hangover was the body’s response to alcohol withdrawal. Something about dilation of the blood vessels. Better to withdraw gradually.

He poured a quarter glass of Stoli, and filled the rest with tomato juice. A squirt of lemon. He added Worcestshire, Tabasco, a little white horseradish. Down the hatch. He sipped his expresso. With his straight silver hair, shaggy though it was, he looked like a commercial for coffee.

He turned on the tube. Nothing, but soap operas. He stopped going through the channels when he saw his neighbor, Monica Powers. She was a looker. Right now, she was emoting about something or other. A terrible actress though. Like all the other bad actresses he’d seen emote on stage, and off, especially at the bar. He searched for basketball scores, politics, but nothing at this hour. He switched the TV off and downed the rest of his Bloody Mary in several sips. Oooh! His whole body shook like a wet dog. “Jeezus.”

There was the time that the five of them traveled to Ireland together. Maddy O’Brien, Christopher McCarthy known as Cart, Patrick Devan, Ciornan Joyce and Yours Truly Reardon. They crawled Dublin’s pubs on their knees, on their bellies, bellowing Irish doggerel, Maddy crooning ‘Danny Boy’ in his famous tenor. Ciornan was from the fair city. He took them to Oliver St. John Gogarty, the Brazen Head, the Stag’s Head, where he heard the curse of Mary Malone.

Last night, at the bar, he recited it from memory. That’s how loaded he was. “May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.”

A couple people applauded.

One thing that Reardon knew was booze, and he could hold it. Like a bull. He’d been accused of a hollow leg, an unholy tolerance. But not this night. He’d given in. Surrendered to the devil. He loved the hell out of those mates! It had been great for everyone to be together again. “What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? One less drunk.” Just like old times before marriages, deaths, AA. But there was a price, which the rigmarole rolling in his head kept reminding him.

Now he felt as if he could puke. He went into the bathroom, but all that came out were a few dry heaves. A smoke. He needed a smoke. He shook the red and white pack. Nothing came out. Impossible. It was totally unfucking unacceptable — he had run out of cigarettes. “No, Jeezus! No! Not now!”

This was the limit. He jumped into the shower. The hot water pelting his back, his head, awoke him from his stupor. “Oh, Benediction!” he sang out.

Oh, the years of nuns in Catholic school in their black robes, which made them mysterious, even, on occasion, enticing. He had an image of Sister Ruth, who he’d once caught a glimpse of her legs when she sat down.

He threw his white terrycloth bathrobe over his wet body, tying its belt around his waist. He stared at himself in the steamed mirror that he cleared with his hand. He grabbed his razor. A rotten racket, that Hollywood business.

In the early afternoon light, Reardon’s face looked like a mask of a very handsome man: the angular bone structure with its steel beam cheek bones, deep-set, deep coal eyes, the intense black brows, and slightly pugnacious Irish nose. His hair had turned silver in his twenties, and he wore a ruler-straight side part. Because of the way he looked, some people expected him to be a certain way. That wasn’t his problem.

He slipped into last night’s jeans with clean knickers, pulling out a black turtleneck from the top shelf in his closet. He had five black sweaters, which he rotated. Grabbing his wallet, sunglasses, and a black leather jacket from the hook, he was out the door. Something to eat wouldn’t be bad. Coat the belly. But first, a carton of smokes.

Slamming the door behind him, he walked to the elevator. It was just two floors, but he couldn’t handle even that. He pressed the elevator button. It was on the fourth floor.

As Reardon stepped in, he noticed the pretty older woman from the fourth floor. He had seen her before. Dark hair and flashing eyes, her name was Rachel, he thought. He nodded to her as he walked to the back of the elevator car. She wore a short black dress and high heels.

The elevator started again. That’s when they both felt a jolt. “Jeezus!” Reardon muttered. The car came to a complete stop, throwing Rachel against Reardon. Startled, they looked at each other, then moved away to opposite sides of the elevator.

“Oh, excuse me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Then the lights went out.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Saul! Henry! Help!” Rachel called.

No answer.

“Are you all right?” Reardon asked.

“I think so,” the feminine voice answered. “How about you?”

“It looks like the elevator’s stuck,” he grumbled.

“Oh no.”

“I know.”

“I hope it won’t be long.”

“I’d kill for a smoke,” he said.

“You don’t have to kill anybody,” she said. “I have Virginia Slims.”

“God bless you!” he cried out. “Mother Mary…”

She hunted through her large bag in the dark. “I can’t see anything.”

A light flashed from downstairs and the door opened. “Who’s up there?” Saul called.

“It’s me, Reardon from Suite 27, and –“

“Rachel,” she called out. “Suite 42.”

“Okay, listen carefully. We have a problem. I called already. Someone is coming. The cable’s stuck and the electric short-circuited. You’re fine as long as you stay where you are. I’ll leave the door open a crack. Reardon, tell her some jokes,” he joshed. “I’ll stop by in a few minutes.”

The light became a thin crack.

“Let’s have that smoke,” Reardon said gruffly.

“Do you think we should? There’s a limited amount of oxygen in here.”

“Well, he did open the door.”

“Not much -–“ she said.

“I gotta have a cigarette,” he implored.

“I understand,” she said.

“I’ll just take a few puffs.”

“Is there something we could do to distract you? Something that will keep your mind on other things?” she whispered.

“Like what?

“Like this.”

She reached out in the darkness, kissed him on his neck, giving him a light vampire nibble.

“Oh!” He gasped.

She ran her lips up his neck, and whispered in his ear, “Have you ever wanted to do something naughty?”

“Huh?”

“Something totally forbidden?”

“Like what?”

“You know.”

He stared at her, just making out her form in the darkness.

“You’re a very handsome man, but I’m sure you know that.” She held him, and kissed him on the lips. “It’s kind of sexy, isn’t it?”

“I’d say so. This is a great way to stop smoking.”

She kissed him again.

“Nice.” He sighed.

“Yes.” She leaned back into his embrace. “I don’t mind being stuck a little.”

“Neither do I.”

They slowly lowered themselves to the floor of the elevator. He rolled on top of her. “Might as well get comfortable,” he chuckled.

“Hmmmm…” Rachel sighed.

After a few minutes, the elevator jolted again and the lights came on. The elevator began its slow descent, coming to a stop at the first floor. Reardon leaped to his feet. Then he took Rachel’s hand and helped her up.

He coughed, clearing his voice, then looked at Rachel, and grinned sheepishly. Her lips were a vivid red. So were his. She smiled at him.

Saul opened the door. He studied them both. “Everything okay?”

“Here’s your smoke,” Rachel said, placing a cigarette between his lips.

____________

sonia'scopy3-4
Photo by Denise Demong.

Sonia Pilcer is the author of six novels including The Holocaust Kid. The Last Hotel is now available at your favorite bookstore or Amazon.comVisit Sonia Pilcer’s web site here.

spot_img

The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.

Continue reading

Chesterwood’s outdoor sculpture exhibit brings climate change into focus

This year, Chesterwood’s 47th annual outdoor sculpture show, “Global Warming/Global Warning,” asks viewers to consider such themes amid the threats that climate change poses to Chesterwood’s own old-growth forest. 

THEATER REVIEW: ‘Magdalene’ plays at The Chester Theatre Company through June 29

“And you certainly won’t be disappointed in the work of these two fine actors.”

‘Landscapes for the Anthropocene’ artists to give a poetry reading at Child & Clark Gallery on June 28

The two Berkshire County based artists and poets will be reading at the Child & Clark Gallery in Great Barrington on Saturday, June 28 at 5 p.m.

The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.