Your Part In Buffoonery
You awake in fetal position, shivering, woefully naked. This is how John Connor must have felt after time-traveling in the original
Terminator
. Crumpled beneath sunlight slanting through a big, arched window, you hear the occasional ding of a bell, like you might hear at an historic hotel's front desk. That's because you're suddenly aware that you are in the corner of a mezzanine in an historic hotel, somewhere above the front desk. The Seelbach in downtown Louisville. Where Fitzgerald would carouse in the mahogany-walled, basement Rathskeller. Where Capone would bootleg in clandestine chambers, and eventually swear the place is haunted.
It takes you a minute to unravel yourself and get to your knees. No one around--thank God. But time travel cannot explain this, because it doesn't exist. This is more like a disorienting bout of somnambulism. This must be the case, because last night you were the Best Man at Kenny's wedding.
You
do
remember going to bed, your room lined with leftover bottles of Maker's Mark and cases of Miller Lite from the reception. You remember Lisa, the Maid of Honor, comatose on the pillow next to you.
First, you army-crawl toward the mezzanine rail to peek down into the lobby. A pretty girl answers phones at the black granite countertop twenty feet below. An elevator bell chimes. A man in a tailored suit and shiny shoes clops across the marbled floor, a newspaper tucked under his arm. The pristine chandeliers mock you.
No choice but to slink like an octopus back to your room. Room 605. You know you passed out in that room, and Lisa will surely let you back in. But what if she thinks you ditched the room as she slept and won't let you back in? Worry about that later. You're still four floors away.
You scan the area for an EXIT sign above a stairwell because elevators often have people in them....Idiotically, you can't find a stairwell. Now standing at the elevator doors, you sigh, covering your junk. Push the button: see what happens. Empty. So far so good. The coast is clear all the way to room 605 where you knock gently, shout-whispering, "Lisa!"
Nothing. Your inconspicuous knocks escalate into muted pounds, but this goes on fruitlessly for a long three minutes and you start to wonder if you have the wrong room. You rubberneck the deserted hallway. You consider knocking on random doors... then you reconsider. Near a stairwell, you find an in-house phone. Oh--
there's
the stairwell.
The phone is only good for ringing the lobby, so you ask the pretty girl at the front desk to call room 605 and tell Lisa to let the Best Man back in. Pretty Girl says she will; crisis averted. You thank her and head back to the door of 605... which Lisa does not open. Is she a heavy sleeper? Is she even in there?
Back to the in-house phone you go. This process of phone-to-door skulking repeats twice and by the third time you buzz the front desk, Pretty Girl is annoyed with you.
"Sir, there's still no answer. She's either asleep, or the room is vacant. We can send someone up--"
"Oh no that's ok!" you sputter.
Hanging up, you dredge your mind for the newlyweds' suite... yes, number 708. But the seventh floor is inaccessible without a special elevator key for the Concierge Club, and you don't have that. You have nothing, in fact, except your hands to cover your chilled and shrunken giblets. Back on the elevator, you try the seventh floor anyway. Maybe you can outsmart the elevator by pushing the 7 button repeatedly.
