The Hotel by the Train

This is a true story about ghosts. Maybe.  It takes place at the hotel where I worked after college.  No, I don’t mean motel.  Of course, a roadside motel with a flickering, light-up sign, loose railings strewn with cobwebs, room keys clipped to blocks of wood that require regular interaction with a one-armed front desk clerk would make a much better setting for a ghost story.  Remember, this is a true story.  I don’t get to pick the setting.  It takes place at a Marriott Residence Inn, one of seven in the greater Columbus metro area, with room keycards bearing advertisements for Buffalo Wild Wings.

I worked the front desk most evenings after substitute teaching during the day.  Sixteen straight hours of staring at a clock, begging its hands to skip a few beats, resolving to work on my grad school applications that night but knowing that I would drive through Wendy’s and end up falling asleep to Conan O’Brien.

“Thank you for calling the Marriott Residence Inn at the Shops of Worthington, just a stone’s throw from the Jiffy Lube off Highway 50, how may I direct your call?”

My one amusement at the hotel was finding ways to make my manager, Amanda, a 22 year-old senior at Ohio State, roll her eyes.

“Just answer the phone.”

I liked Amanda.  She once asked me to go with her to the new Olive Garden when they offered her a free meal for adding their name to the hotel’s restaurant listings.  Cluelessly, I wore my work clothes, minus the green vest, and met Amanda, who had taken the time to change into a low cut sweater and jeans, in the parking lot.  Neither of us mentioned the non-date at Olive Garden again.

Amanda was especially suited for dealing with customers who were angry about the train.  She had a look that communicated both empathy and resolve. I, on the other hand, lived in fear of the nights when we were close to full and I had no choice but to check people into “train” rooms along the back of the hotel where the train thundered by three or four times each night, rattling the fake flowers from the centers of the coffee tables.

We made a deal.  She would take over for me at the end of my shift,  the “hour of truth,” a name I coined for the moment when the unlucky final check-ins realized they were sleeping on top of an active train track.  And I would write her final term papers. A mutually beneficial arrangement, for she was a terrible writer, and I was terrible at people not liking me.

“Can I take out the part in your paper that talks about the racial dynamics in Friends?”

“That’s the whole paper.”

“Yes.  Can I take it out?  I’ll need more time.”

“Whatever.  I’ll work half your shift tomorrow, too.” We made a good team.  Still, I couldn’t completely avoid train inspired anger.

“Why would anyone in their right mind build a hotel on top of a train?”  I’d heard a form of the word “fuck” modify each word in that question. Some customers seemed to imply that I laid the tracks myself. 

It’s a reasonable question, one I still can’t answer.  We, the poor wage workers, had no control over the situation.  Customers made their reservations through a corporate call center in a far off land like Delhi or Des Moines.  We could have warned them when they checked in, but what would we say?

“Enjoy your stay and just so you know, you’ll be woken up four times tonight by the sound of absolute Terror.  No cancellations.  Can I offer you an extra hand towel?”

We mitigated the damage by assigning the worst ten rooms last, hoping late night check-ins were either too tired or too drunk to be bothered.   And we never, ever checked anyone into room 123. The train tracks ran toward the back of the hotel at a forty-five degree angle until a sharp bend brought them parallel.  Room 123 was positioned right at the vertex, so if you happened to be standing at the window, it would appear that a train was going to barrel right over you.  

Kelly, the former Amanda and now her boss, told stories about shrieking women running down the hall in nightgowns and red-faced men pounding on the front desk, speechless from fear, embarrassment, and anger after half a night in Room 123.  “She exaggerates,” said Amanda.

Hyperbole or not, you can imagine my modest surprise when I received a phone call requesting a weekly reservation in 123.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t take requests for specific rooms until check-in,” I said.  Amanda walked behind me and saw where I had scribbled the words “EVERY WED.  RM. 123.  DEAF.” on a Post-It note.

She slapped me on the arm and mouthed “You IDIOT.  Say YES.”

I dutifully made a reservation for two months worth of Wednesdays for Randall Baltz, a federal railroad inspector who also happened to be deaf.

“He won’t have an interpreter, and he doesn’t read lips, so if there are any issues, please contact me,” the woman on the phone said. I took her credit card information to prepay for all 9 nights.  She hung up before I could confirm.

The following Wednesday at 3 pm, the exact time his telephone handler specified, Mr. Baltz pulled into the parking lot in a cloud of smoke.  

“Tell your next guest that he’s been driving with his parking brake on,” said Stan, our maintenance guy, who had been outside spreading rubber mulch around the parking lot shrubs.

“He’s deaf,” I said.  Stan shrugged and kept walking.

Mr. Baltz approached the front desk, a picture of disheveled.  He had crooked, tinted glasses that tenuously rested on his sweaty nose.   A section of his belt slid up above the waistline of his khakis and rubbed the bare skin on his bulky abdomen. 

I gave him an exaggerated circular wave that I hoped wasn’t offensive.  I hoped we could have a brief written exchange, so I could ask him why he was insistent on Rm. 123. He just grabbed the keycards I had already laid out and kept walking, never looking me in the eye.

For the next month, Mr. Baltz reliably checked in every Wednesday five minutes after my shift started.  We never had any interaction until one afternoon when the contents of a crumpled manila file folder that had been tucked upside down under his arm slipped out and splashed onto the floor. Eager to demonstrate my usefulness, in part due to my curiosity about Randall Baltz but also part of my predominant need to be well regarded by everyone at all times, I sprinted around the desk in time to help collect the papers.

Down on the floor, our faces briefly met.  He paused for a moment, and I noticed how heavily he was breathing.  He tried to mask the panting by closing his mouth, but that created a syncopated whistling sound from the air straining through his nose. Behind his tinted glasses, I recognized sadness in his eyes.  He turned his head and waved me off. 

That night, I left the front desk to replace the batteries in Mr. Fulmer’s T.V. remote.  He accused me of liberal bias because the hotel’s televisions did not carry Fox News, a complaint he had already lodged on a prior stay.  I apologized and left before he could finish his sentence about media conspiracies.  The hotel was far from full and completely silent. Only Randall Baltz was booked in a train room.  Usually, in this final hour before my shift ended, I might hear the sound of the night security guard from across the hotel tapping his flashlight against his keys.  Not tonight. 

As I walked back down the deserted hallway toward the lobby, one of the doors rattled hard against its frame right at the moment I passed by. I jerked my body to face room 123 and felt a burst of air squeeze through the bottom of the door and press my pant cuffs against my shins. I froze to consider what could possibly create such a wind in a room with windows that did not open.  The air quickly changed directions and retreated back under the door like the backdraft of a house fire.

“Mr. Baltz.” I knocked on the door, but no one answered.  I continued knocking and calling his name for a while. Nothing.  I turned to go back to the lobby when the walls on either side of the door began to shake.  The train was approaching.  I kept my ear pressed against the door hard enough to get pushed back when the door bucked against its frame once more.  Another much stronger burst of air forced its way under the door; this time the receding air was so strong it pulled my feet out from under me.  I scrambled back to my knees and pressed my ear against the door once more.  Over the final rumbles of the passing train, I could hear a sustained, guttural wail too loud enough to be heard over the rumbling train but low enough to not be mistaken for the ear-piercing squeal of the train's brakes.  I knocked more aggressively this time despite knowing that the room’s occupant would never hear me.

As I contemplated using my master key to enter the room, the phone in the hotel lobby rang.  I was torn between racing to the front desk and checking on the gasping, possibly dying, Mr. Baltz.  The phone continued to ring, and I assumed an angry rant about the train waited for me on the other end of the line. I sprinted toward the desk and reached over the counter to grab the phone.

“Hello, Marriott Residence Inn, I’m very sorry about the train,” I said, panting.

“Hello. I’m calling regarding Mr. Baltz, the current occupant of Rm. 123.” I recognized the woman’s voice from the reservation. “He has requested that he not be disturbed any further tonight or any other night in the future.”  The woman on the other line spoke with a very soft but deliberate tone.

“But I heard a wail come from ---”

“Yes, we appreciate your concern,” the woman interrupted. “Mr. Baltz has a very rare form of sleep apnea.  He must not be awakened under any circumstance.”

“Yes, m’am,” I said. “Please let me know if he needs anything.”

“I surely will.  You have a nice evening now.”

I hung up unable to fully comprehend how she knew to call, why she sounded like she was reading from a script, what type of sleep apnea created door-rattling, gale force winds.

I didn’t mention any of this when Donnie showed up with his 12-pack of Dr. Pepper, which he carried under his arm like a running back, to work the overnight shift.  There was nothing to mention, and I knew Donnie wouldn’t bother Mr. Baltz anyway.  Donnie loathed all humans, especially the hotel guests.

I didn’t work at the hotel until the following Monday.

“Are you teaching everyday this week?” Amanda asked before I even had a chance to punch my time card. “I need you to work the day on Thursday. You can stay over since you’ll be working Wednesday night.”

I was getting requests to sub on most days at this point but had recently been ignoring the early morning phone calls.  I had begun to question if teaching, like engineering, journalism, and social work, was the right fit. On a recent week-long stint in a seventh grade drama class, I waited fifteen minutes after the tardy bell before starting class. I sat there at the desk watching the students shout and play fight with each other.  Others slept or read thick novels that I imagined they toted from class to class to escape from the chaos around them.  When I finally mustered the energy to call for their attention, a girl in the back shouted, “Where did this dude come from?”

“Sure.  No problem,” I responded to Amanda.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Amanda said.  “You were working last Wednesday, right?  Did you have any interaction with Mr. Baltz?”

Oh shit, I thought.  He’s dead.  I had left a man to die because a polite lady told me to.

“Um, no.  I don’t think so.  What happened?”

“Nothing happened.  He never checked out, and he left all his stuff in his room.  Even his hearing aids.”

“He has hearing aids?”

“And he left something for you. In the fridge,” Amanda said, tilting her head toward the break room.  “You didn’t tell him he could leave his stuff in that room all week, did you?” She was constantly suspicious that I was over accommodating.

“Of course, not.  You know I can’t even talk to him.”  I walked back to what management called the breakroom, a little table and mini-fridge crammed into the corner at the end of a line of industrial-sized dryers.  Inside the refrigerator was a six-pack of Staropramen beer and a note with PATRICK written in black Sharpie on the front.

After college, I fled to the Czech Republic for two years to hide from making decisions about my future.  There I learned to enjoy beer, mostly Staropramen. 

“Since you two are best buds, can you please call his people and tell them he can’t leave his shit here all week?” Amanda asked.

I paused for a moment to wonder if I’d ever heard Amanda curse.  I assumed she did off the clock; she was sarcastic, often exasperated, but her mannerisms always seemed tempered by an impressive veneer of professionalism.  “He’ll be back Wednesday,” I said.  “I’ll slip him a note when he picks up his key.” 

“Also, let me know if you need help finishing that beer sometime,” she said in a softer voice while averting her eyes toward the hotel lobby, a stark contrast to her normal deliberate way of speaking to me. 

“I just might,”  I said, suppressing a grin.  And I should have.  I would have been much happier spending the next day and a half thinking about asking Amanda out, obsessing over where we would go, convincing myself that she wasn’t actually interested in me.  But Amanda was too connected to the hotel, and this job, which I couldn’t bear to consider anything more than a temporary set of paychecks as I made my way toward a more substantive and fulfilling life. 

On Wednesday, I arranged Mr. Baltz’s room keys on the desk and placed a white business envelope beside them with his name on it.  On a piece of hotel letterhead,I wrote a description of what I’d heard the week before followed by a list of questions and “P.S. My manager says to not leave your shit belongings in the room when you leave tomorrow.” 

Mr. Baltz never checked in.  Not at 3:10 like usual, not at 5:30 when the guests, mostly men with large cell phones clipped to their belts, lurked quietly while waiting for the complimentary happy hour to begin.  Not while I stared at the second hand on the front desk clock from 9:02 until 9:08.  Not before Donnie shuffled in, gave me a taciturn head nod and slammed his case of Dr. Pepper on the desk.

I was exhausted and a bit disappointed.  I only wanted to check myself into one of the many empty hotel rooms, read my book, and sleep hard until I had to work again at 7 am.  I picked up a blank key card and inserted it into the machine to code it for a specific room.  Without hesitation, I typed “1 . . . 2 . . . 3.”

I paused to wonder why I had done what I had just done.

“What’s your deal?” Donnie mumbled from behind me. “You look like you never seen a computer before.”

“I’m just tired.  Have a good night.”  I grabbed my overnight bag and headed to my room.  I rationalized that I wanted to experience a night in a train room for myself.

I brushed my teeth and set an alarm for 6:30.  I stared out the window across the train tracks at the concrete landscape divided by a maze of barbed wire fence and unmarked brick buildings.  My khaki pants and hotel uniform were laid out on the chair next to me.  This is stupid, I thought, and turned to get in bed. 

I lay on my back and let my body grow uncomfortably warm under the stiff hotel sheets and heavy comforter pulled too tight over my body. Conversations from the past week ran through my mind in no discernible order or meaning.  I resolved to ask Amanda out.  To delay my plans to go to grad school. To look into MFA programs instead of teaching.  To join a writing group.  Build my portfolio. I flipped onto my side and let my leg rest on top of the covers as I resolved to decide what I wanted from life. Then, what seemed like moments later, I flipped onto my other side and resolved to live in the moment.  To try as many things as possible. To volunteer and learn how to cook Indian food.  Then I heard it.  The soft but unmistakable sound of grating steel in the distance.  At first I was grateful for a reason to get out of bed and focus on something outside my mind. I stood at the window and watched for a while before the smoke of the train became visible against the distant street lamps.  The rumbling of the train gradually increased in volume and intensity to the point where I thought I could start singing at the top of my lungs and no one would ever hear it.

A massive engine appeared, putting to rest the notion that any of the guests’ stories  were exaggerated.  It barrelled straight toward the spot where I stood.  The fake flowers on the coffee table behind me started to rattle.  A glass of water shimmied toward the edge of the night stand. I didn’t move to stop it.  I felt rooted in place.  Then there was no window, nothing at all between me and the train that was about to obliterate me. 

I can’t explain what happened next in a way that would make sense to you. Except that I saw myself driving the train.  Me, but different. Stronger, clear-eyed. And then I was on the train looking back at myself standing in the hotel wearing only boxer shorts, looking frightened and full of regret. The subtle ache pain in my back, which I’d had for all my life was suddenly gone. Something spoke to me while I drove the train. I don’t recall now any of what it said, but I remember how cool it’s breath felt in my ear.

My perspective kept shifting between the train and the hotel room until I woke up shivering in a pool of sweat on the floor next to the bed.  My body ached from head to toe.  More than physical pain, I felt the despair that something truly terrible had happened, but I couldn’t remember what.  I remembered the same vague feeling waking up from past nightmares, but this terror was laced with guilt, like every bad thing I had done, every time I had lied or cheated or failed to speak up or laughed along at someone else’s expense was waiting to be reckoned with.

I pulled myself up and kneeled beside the bed like a child reciting his goodnight prayers.  I closed my eyes to try to remember what I saw, or what had seen me.  Nothing. It was gone.

I scrambled out of my room, unshowered and unshaven, barely making the start of my shift.  The first two hours on duty were mercifully quiet.  I laid my head down on some freshly folded sheets behind the front desk and thought about when I could book another night in the train room. Nightfall was too far away.  I wanted to feel the train, see the other me, hear what the voice was trying to tell me.  I didn’t hear Amanda approach.

“You look like you got hit by a train.”

“What?” I lifted my head too quickly and the room started spinning.

“That was a joke. Go home.  You’re drooling on the clean sheets,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “I can cover today but you owe me.”

I started to protest but slurred my words. I went back to my apartment and slept for two days.

I never worked another shift at the hotel.  I never saw Amanda again.  After years of substitute teaching and other soul-crushing employment, I’ve settled into a teaching position at a community college in North Carolina. I return to Columbus once every few years to visit a college friend and always take the expressway around the city so I can pass by the hotel and the train tracks. 

Once I even pulled into the parking lot. I sat in my car for some time and considered booking a room.  I wonder if Amanda still works here, I thought. I’ll just ask if room 123 is available. If so, it’ll be a sign. I need to know if I should believe in signs. 

Pat Morris teaches English at Durham Technical Community College in Durham, NC. He also enjoys spending time with his family, coaching middle school track and field, and writing comics about his absurd dog, Argo. He has had a review published in Glint Literary Journal and resolves to submit more frequently this year.