Sweet Chattanooga

I flew to Chattanooga awhile back for a Bat Mitzvah for my girlfriends niece. I’m not Jewish but my girlfriend R is. Her brother’s daughter had just become a teenager. It always amazes me when ever I leave New York how the world changes. Everyone becomes friendly and considerate. I’ve grown to expect that, but Chattanooga is a whole new experience. It’s the “Big Gulp” of friendly places.

The first thing we did when we landed was to go to the Enterprise Car Rental counter. Smiles all around. Two men waited on us. One was shooting the breeze with me asking about our flight and showing legitimate concern when I said it was a tad rough. He took hold of my girlfriends hand and rubbed it gently and showed deep concern for her well being. The other took care of the paper work and interjected his thoughts when needed. They were so nice I started to feel a little woozy. I’m accustomed to nasty looks and snide remarks. One of the men carried our luggage to our rental car so I offered him a tip. He truly looked insulted; the way an old friend would be if you offered him money. No need for that sir he said with a smile, have a great day and drive safely. My girlfriend and I looked at each other apprehensively. This wasn’t normal. Were we in the..... Twilight Zone?

When we checked into the hotel the woman behind the counter said to me “my but you have a great smile”. I said “ I didn’t realize I was smiling” She said “ I guess you just have a friendly face” I said “ You must have had a rough day if you think my face is friendly”. She agreed and began to cry. My girlfriend and I looked at each other again. The façade was cracking. We went up to our room to rest and repair after the five hour trip. On the way up in the elevator a little blonde boy was cursing out his mother. She tried to ignore him apparently embarrassed at the words he was calling her in front of us. I reached over him to push the number ten floor button. The little boy swung around to confront me. He said “get out of the way”. I could have sworn I heard the F word in there somewhere. He glared at me, his tiny red eyes filled with loathing for me. His mother said “now peanut, say you’re sorry to the nice man”. Then I’m sure I heard the F word. He said “go F yourself”. I think he was talking to his mother even though he was still glaring at me. I tried to stare him down. I’m usually pretty good at it. He began to scratch his forehead where the beginning of a miniature horn was starting to protrude. I hadn’t noticed that before. The elevator doors opened and he slithered out still holding his glare. He was very determined. As the doors closed I pictured my size ten Addidas traveling up past his colon and just narrowly missing his tonsils.

We reached our floor and walked out of the elevator. The corridor was long and of course our room was at the end of it thanks to R insisting on being in a quiet area. There was a young girl maybe eighteen or so sitting on the floor next to our room. She was talking on her cell phone. We past her and I put my card in the slot in the door. She paid no attention to us and continued rambling on to someone named Brillo. We entered the room and R said to me “is she going to be out there all night?” I said “we just got here; she’ll probably leave in a few minutes”. R replied “well if she doesn’t leave soon you’ll have to talk to her because I won’t be able to sleep with that racket. I felt a shooting pain in the rear of my head. I put my hand to the back of my neck and squeezed. Ahh that felt good. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror at my beady bloodshot eyes and thought how did this happen. This is the worst I’ve ever looked. I said that the last time I looked in a mirror. When I came out of the bathroom R was sitting up in bed staring at me with her big brown un-red eyes. She said, “I can’t sleep with that noise, you have to do something”. I said, “I don’t hear anything, I think she’s gone”. R got out of bed, went to the door and put her ear to it. Listen she said, she’s still out there and I can hear her. Put your ear right here, do you hear her? The pain I felt in the back of my head had just moved around to the front. I squeezed my forehead. Ahh that felt good.

I reluctantly opened the door just a crack because I was in my underwear and peaked out. I said pssst. No response. Pssst again. Nothing. I looked back at R and shrugged my shoulders. R said, “put some pants on and confront her and tell her to go somewhere else”. So I did what I was told, put my pants on and went out in the corridor. I stood directly in front of the young girl. She had short blonde hair that looked as though someone had made a terrible mistake when they cut it. Her chubby legs were crossed in front of her and in the crevice between them was a bottle of Amstel Lite. I said. “Excuse me miss, I was wondering if you could move to another part of the corridor. My girlfriend has to get up early tomorrow morning for a Bat Mitzvah and she can’t get to sleep with you talking outside the door”. She looked up at me with makeup smudged all around her swollen red eyes and said, “I ain’t movin no where”. I thought to myself, why isn’t anything easy? I said do you have a room on this floor? She responded. “Mind your own business”. I said. “What happened to that Chattanooga hospitality? She said, “I’m from New York. I felt eyes on me and I turned my head. R was peaking out the door giving me moral support. I replied to the girl, “If you don’t move I’ll have to call management. I peered back at R, she looked happy. The young girl said, ‘call who ever you want, call the Mounties for all I care”. I scratched my head, the Chattanooga Mounties? I went back into the room and R asked. “What did she say”? I answered. “She said I should call the Mounties”.

I didn’t sleep well during the night. The mattress was too hard just the way R liked it. We had to be at the temple before 9am so thankfully I didn’t have to stay on it too long. As we entered the temple R grabbed my hand and hustled me up to the front row of seats exactly where I didn’t want to be. I resisted but she is quite strong. The seating was configured in a U shape so that every one could see me and believe me they were all looking. Somebody must have told them that I was Catholic. I hadn’t felt that alone since my wedding. A person behind me was nice enough to tap me on the shoulder and hand me a yarmulke. I shot R a dirty look as I put it on my head. She reached over and moved it to the back of my head. I sneaked a peak at the people across from us to see if they were looking. They were. My face got so hot I thought my head would explode off my neck. When she finally got it in the proper area of my head, everyone redirected there attention to the Rabbi who was patiently waiting for R to finish the yarmulke adjustment. I folded my hands in front of me and tried to think happy thoughts. Every one now seemed to be totally involved in the ceremony all reading from a prayer book made available as we walked in. I didn’t take one of course. I’m too stubborn. I’m Catholic. They all know I’m Catholic. I’m not going to pretend to read words I don’t understand. The Rabbi paused and looked at me, again everyone did likewise. He turned and picked up a prayer book from behind him and strolled over to where I was standing holding the book out toward me and gesturing for me to take it. I had become the center of attention again. My first instinct was to take it from him as any normal person would, but I couldn’t get my arm to reach out to him. My hands were clasped together in front of me and that’s where they were staying. The stubbornness was astounding. I definitely was not taking that book. The Rabbi kept his arm out waving the prayer book at me as if I were a blind person. R finally nudged me into action. I cleared my throat and in a load whisper said. “I’m sorry but I don’t have my glasses with me”. He turned on his heels and walked away still holding the book. My devious mind had come to the rescue. It was a weak excuse but the best I could do with everyone staring at me.

When the ceremony ended I went to the parking lot and drove the car around to the front of the temple to pick up R and her sister L. Since I was driving it was my job to follow the rest of the family back to the hotel just as I had done to get to the temple. R and L had a lot of talking to do so I wasn’t going to get any help from them anyway. I waited until I saw the grey Toyota Camry that I had followed from the hotel pull out of the parking lot. I pulled in behind it and began the trip back to the hotel. So far easy peezy. I heard laughter in the back seat so things were going along pretty good until I heard, “Where are you going?” I looked in my rear view mirror first at R, then at L. They were both staring at the back of my head. “To the hotel” I proclaimed bravely. “This is not the way to the hotel” L insisted. R gasped and put her hand to her mouth while searching out the windows for something recognizable. Well I said confidently as I pointed my finger toward the windshield, if I’m going wrong then so is your uncle in the grey Camry. Then L said. “My uncle is going to the airport not the hotel you fool”. She didn’t call me a fool but that’s what she was thinking, and I believe I detected a tiny bit of delight in her voice. I’m not really on her short list of preferred friends. You’re supposed to be following my brother in the red Cherokee she continued. Why didn’t you follow the red Cherokee she continued some more? Now we’ll never find the hotel. I slowed the car down because traffic was beginning to build. Now look L persisted, we’re stuck in airport traffic. I pulled the car over to the side of the highway and got out. I opened the back door of the car. I reached my arm in and grabbed L by the back of her collar. I yanked her out and put her in the driver’s seat. When I awoke from my fantasy I was still driving and her mouth was still going.

I managed to find my way back to the hotel by using the cell phone R had in her purse. The hotel clerk on the other end of the line guided me back from the airport where I had ended up directly behind uncle Moishe. It wasn’t a total loss; we got to wave goodbye to him and his family at the air terminal. Back at the hotel as we were waiting for the elevator, the girl from New York with bad hair and Brillo as a friend ambled up next to me. We exchanged glances as I pressed the button to summon the elevator. She waited two seconds, then reached her little fist out and pounded on the button four or five times while looking back at me as if showing me the proper way to do it. I said. “Patience is a virtue”. She said. “People that live in glass houses”. I guess she was referring to me not having the patience to wait until she finished her phone conversation in the hallway the night before. I was impressed with her quick comeback but that was the extent of my knowledge of proverbs so I withdrew back into my shell. She quickly punched the button a few more times and the elevator doors opened. We all entered, I pressed ten and she pressed it again, very hard. Silence surrounded us until the doors opened on the tenth floor. The Satan child and his mother were waiting there for us. I let the girl exit the elevator first and I hid behind her. The girl bent over and hugged the beastly child. The little boys’ tiny red eyes had spotted me. We glared at each other. Nothing was said as I backed my way down the corridor. R said to me. “They must be related, they sort of look alike” Yeah I said, and they’re all from New York.

That evening after R had gone to bed I was sitting in a chair watching the beautiful plasma TV that comes in each of the rooms in this particular hotel. I couldn’t get the full pleasure of the experience because R is a light sleeper and I had to watch the TV without the usual audio accompaniment. I’ve been through this with her before so I’m becoming quite adept at reading lips. It will come in handy as I grow old and pathetic. I improvised a partition around me and the TV with a heavy blanket so as not to disturb R with the light from the plasma screen. I had been watching TV for about an hour when the phone rang. I jumped up, scrambled over the blanket partition and managed to grab the receiver before the second ring. The call was for R the desk clerk said. I told him that she was in bed asleep and I didn’t want to disturb her. I asked who was calling and he said it was her sister L and for me to hold on. I waited there in the dark staring down at R sleeping there so peacefully. After a few minutes I heard a couple of clicks and then a dial tone so I hung up the receiver. I resumed my position in front of the plasma TV after meticulously wrapping the blanket around it and myself. Quite a sight and not easily done. After a short time there came a vigorous pounding on the door. I attained lift off as my body shot seven or eight feet above the chair and my heart took a left turn in my chest. The first thing I thought was fire. I lifted the blanket partition up in time to see R sit bolt upright in bed. She said “who is it”? A voice from the other side of the door proclaimed. “Its L open up”! I leaped through my blanket partition directly into bed and pulled the sheet over my head. R got out of bed, threw a robe on and opened the door. I heard L say something about glasses and then she said,” tell Lee he has to get up and go down to the garage with me”. I heard the door close, then a corner of the sheet lifted and R’s face appeared. My sister says you have to get up and go to the car. She left her sunglasses on the seat. I said, “Tell her I’ll do it in the morning”. Then I heard a voice from the other end of the sheet say, “you have to do it now, I’m leaving for the airport at 6am. I swiveled my head around and saw L’s face peeking under the other end of the sheet. Is this what they mean by a ménage a trois? If it is, I can do without it.

It wasn’t long before I found myself down in the bowels of the hotel searching for where I had parked the rental car a few hours earlier. L said. “There are letters on the poles; did you forget the lettered section you left the car in? I replied, “Yes I did”. In my mind I replied, did you forget to take your glasses out of the car? In reality I never saw the letters or the poles. I suggested that we split up, so she went toward section A and I went in the opposite direction. Best idea I ever had. I meandered in and out of the rows of cars looking for a silver Malibu and thinking that if I find it first it will save me the grief of listening to her incessant complaints. My thoughts were interrupted by a loud shrieking echo from the other end of the garage. “Lee, Lee I found it.” Damn, why wasn’t anything easy. I had to serpentine my way through the rows of cars from the Y section all the way to BB. When I got there she was already in the car sitting in the back seat leering at me. I said,” did you find your glasses”? She said, “do you always leave the doors unlocked”? I said, “I think I locked them”. Well she said, if you did I wouldn’t be sitting here would I? Now my sunglasses are gone. I suggested going to a drug store and buying a new pair. I would even pay for them I generously added. She said, “do you have three hundred dollars? I doubt it she mumbled. I may be wrong but that seemed a little harsh. She exited the car and walked off in a huff yelling back at me,” don’t forget to lock the car”. The knife goes in.

©2012 Lee Zett