Biggadoo City, founded in 1882 by a colony of tin miners. Now a hotspot for party and club goers from all around the world.
I could sense the vibe as soon as I exited the train station, at this time of year, the city was alive with tourists. I felt laid back and remembered that I was on vacation when I walked down a lively cobbled street lined with different themed bars and restaurants, midday drinkers dressed in colourful light fabrics on the porches, watching me watching them. The smell of sizzling food permeated the air; I hadn't eaten for almost fourteen hours, the train buffet carriage was filled with flies which used the mouldy offerings as practice landing strips. Along with the sound of stainless steel utensils that swished against hot pans, the smell of someone's sauteed potatoes snuck out from the kitchen and fornicated with my senses. My stomach grumbled as if a structural column had collapsed inside me.
There's nothing like the temptation of food to bring the senses home, and indeed I could be at home for this was a one way trip - I had packed up and left my tiny rented apartment, dumped all the things that I couldn't take with me in a skip at the end of the road and given the rest of it to a second-hand charity shop. I thought about a pair of shorts that I would have liked to be wearing; I imagined them on a plastic hangar, squashed on a rail between other musty clothes. I wished I hadn't given them away, oh how I longed for them! However seductive the restaurants were, I had to ignore the call of my digestive system and look for a hotel, or I would be sleeping on the streets. Biggadoo didn't look like the kind of city where you could get a peaceful night's sleep outside on the pavement, especially when the revellers were knocking the alcohol back as if they didn't need to find their way back to their beds.
How does one select a hotel? When planning in advance, one might look at the hotel room's photos in a travel brochure, read some reviews on the internet; whether the cost of the room is within your budgeting requirements and if the facilities meet your requirements. The price of the room was not an issue, even during the tourist season, Biggadoo is fairly cheap. So the first thing I looked for was a sign that said “HOTEL”; it didn't take long before I came across a five storey stone building that had these letter hanging over its entrance.
I stood outside to assess to the best of my ability, what kind of hotel it was: clean? Rat-infested? Bed lice ridden? Were there dead bodies plastered into the walls? These are the kinds of questions, a wary traveller like me has to ask himself. There weren't many clues, crimson curtains were drawn behind all the windows. Okay, I'll go inside and ask. I pushed open the glass door and was greeted with the perfume of recently sprayed cheap room deodorizer. The small foyer was panelled in wood, there was an small unoccupied counter to my left which was behind security bars and perforated perspex glass. I looked inside and noticed a black haired man reading a newspaper at a desk with an overflowing ashtray that threatened to erupt. He saw me, “What do you want?” he said in a gruff voice. A rhythmic banging sound began from somewhere above.
“I need a room for a week.”
“What for?” He looked at me suspiciously. The muffled moan of a man experiencing joy from his groin joined in the auditory performance happening beyond the ceiling.
This sounded like an odd question, but I replied nonetheless, “To sleep in, sir.” I straightened up my back and lined my arms against my sides.
“Just to sleep?” He put the paper down and reached for a packet of cigarettes on the desk. There was a knocking sound, “Wait one minute!” I noticed a door on the other side of the small office. He uttered something in a foreign language, and a small middle-aged woman in an apron with a bucket and mop came in. She put the cleaning stuff into a small cupboard, he gave her some money, she counted it, shook her head disapprovingly with a sigh then left. He came over to the counter, “Look buddy …” His accent was flaky as hell, “ … this hotel,” he swirled his forefinger in the air and pointed his pupils upwards, “you gotta get a girl to stay here, know what I mean, buddy?”
I needed a hotel, and this hotel was as good as any other, if he had a room I was going to take it, there was no guarantee that the other hotels would have vacancies. I leaned on the counter with my elbow, it creaked, “Where can I get a girl?
He smiled, “You are in luck, sir! Every room comes with a complimentary girl! Will you be paying for the week's stay by credit card or cash?” I handed him my credit card. “Please sir, take a seat over there,” he motioned me towards some worn purple velvet upholstered chairs by the entrance and pressed a button that was just out of sight. A buzzer rang in the distance. I took a seat. He lit a cigarette. There was a clomping sound down the red carpeted stairwell, then three ladies emerged. They marched into the lobby and assembled into a rough line. “Take your pick sir, but don't take too long about it.” he added as he tapped the dial of his gold wristwatch.
The slump-shouldered women wore a drawn glazed look. They looked about thirty-something, but I guessed that they were actually in their late twenties. Each wore a dressing gown and slippers, and all of them bore a kind of red rash on their cheeks and forehead. Since I wasn't actually going to have sexual intercourse with any of them, it didn't really matter which one I picked, but I decided I didn't want the obese one with the pronounced underbite and fat lower lip, or the big nose anorexic-looking girl with wide shoulders and a protruding collarbone bone. I pointed at the shortest one with black hair, bushy eyebrows and dry scaly lips beneath a thin moustache.
“Ah, you have made an excellent choice, sir.” He sent the other girls back up into the darkness where they came from. He returned my credit card with a receipt, gave a set of keys to the remaining girl and issued a set of instructions to her, she nodded, “Wana will take you up to your room.”
She turned to me, “Come this way, sir.” she said in a lacklustre tone. She dragged her slippered feet along the red carpet. I followed her up two flights of stairs to a dimly lit corridor where a light fixture flickered against a faded damask wallpaper pattern. There were two doors to the side and a room at the end. The air smelt damp. Slapping and moaning could be heard from behind one of the doors we passed. We reached my room at the end of the corridor. She fumbled the key into the hole, and made a grunt, “Funny, it – is – not - locked.” She opened the door and gasped, a naked fat man was sleeping on the bed. “One minute sir,” she said to me and she entered the room to wake the guy up. A few words exchanged, and the guy looking embarrassed, grabbed his clothes and left, profusely apologizing to me on his way out.
Wana straightened out the bed sheets and the pungent scent of damp sweat wafted into the air. An aluminium ashtray sat on the bedside table with a couple of bent cigarette butts in it. There was another room off to the side with just a shower and a basin, some wet towels lay on the floor.
“The toilet is outside, in the corridor on the left.” said Wana. When I turned to face her, she was already lying in bed under the covers. I excused myself.
I didn't trust Wana and I needed to empty my bowels, so I took my suitcase into the toilet with me. The space was lit with a low wattage bulb that hung naked from a rusty watermarked ceiling. Once inside, I realized that I couldn't turn around with the suitcase that I was holding on it's side, so I backed out, and reversed into the lavatory with the luggage. Getting my trousers and pants off involved resting the suitcase on my knees and against the door (which fortunately opened outwards). It was the late afternoon already, and my stomach growled angrily for skipping a step in my daily routine … food, I needed to get my teeth into some, before the natural instinct for self-preservation kicked in and drove me to procreate with an ugly prostitute so that I could ensure the survival of the human race, or, at least, salvage my genetic information from starvation. Time to hunt, lunchtime.
to be continued ...
1 comment:
hmm, food! yummy food!!
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