Yellow (A Hotel In New York)

Short Story.

YELLOW (A HOTEL IN NEW YORK)

     The airport was cramped, jammed, but alive. Clashing colors swept past me, I was too displaced with excitement to care for faces. New York, here I was and here it was. Isla was flustered, “Where do we go?” I heard her say.
I bounded ahead like a child in a toy shop. Through the glass paneling of the terminal, I could see an endless row of cars, a huge runway to the left and at the entrance... Yellow taxis. It was eleven at night and the lights illuminating these iconic yellow automobiles set my heart racing. I had stupidly left Isla struggling to keep up behind me. I paused the bounding. “Your walking too fast for me! Stop it!!”
Isla made her demand with a venomous tone. I allowed her to continue... “we need to get out of here right now and find the hotel. Stop acting like a Dick!”
Isla was normally a girl of few words, something I welcomed and respected. In the three years we had been in our relationship, she had never once spoken to me like this. I knew it was nerves. I knew she needed me to act the sensible tourist and protective guide. Isla had never been abroad during her Twenty-One years of life, I could see she was daunted. Like a brat, I asked her in what way exactly was I being a Dick?
“Your just rushing off ahead without me.” She sounded like herself again, worried.
After I had reassured her and explained with a lie that I was only trying to find the exit and taxi rank, we moved on. Isla dragged an over-sized suitcase. I offered endlessly to pull it along for her, finally I took it with frustrating force. Despite her best efforts to resist and the following barrage of complaints, I knew secretly, she was pleased by my chivalry.
Approaching the entrance to the terminal my mind switched focus to the surrounding air and atmosphere. Instantly familiar and all together new. I still have to figure out how the mind performs this trick upon arrival in a foreign land. All my senses were drawn outwards to claim what they could. There was an electricity in the air, the rain had fallen that day in a beautiful heat, the humidity, the breeze, the smells, the yellow taxis and the American garbage pouring from a near-by trash can. All of this had augmented my already heightened excitement. I turned my excessive grin towards Isla, she was very unimpressed, “How much will a taxi to Manhattan be?” Her only response. The fares were written in black ink on the side of the cars. I read the appropriate line...
- JFK - MANHATTAN TRIP UP $7 TO $52 -  
I informed Isla of the cost, “That is really expensive, we should look at shuttle buses.” She instructed me. I glanced over at the queue for the shuttle bus, it was stacked with middle-aged tourists, over crowded families and a few lost souls. I thought to myself that Isla would fit right in, with her overgrown suitcase and nervous disposition. I said good-bye to the yellow car and began the march over to the bulky shuttle bus.


Isla seemed to be leading now as I slugged behind with the heavy and gigantic suitcase.
The entrance to the airport was naturally swamped with streams of travelers, my navigation skills were offbeat with the constant pausing and starting. I could make out Isla up ahead at the shuttle bus waiting, her venomous look said it all. I tugged at the suitcase.
“Watch it!! You coulda break mya foot, god damn!”, the outcry came from a man stood behind me. I told him sorry and that it was a stupidly heavy suitcase. “Youa need taxi?”, the man asked excitedly, he must be a desperate cab driver. I politely replied that the taxi fare was too expensive and we would be taking the shuttle bus to Manhattan. “I am cheap, I will do you a good price, dollars you will afford!”
To look at him I would say the man was in his early Forties, his accent Middle Eastern, he wore a huge bushy beard on his chin, smartly dressed, realistically a gangster and by the size of his pupils, most likely on an ecstasy trip.
I knew when the thought of ecstasy came to me I was being a coward and I knew I was being a coward when I let the man take the suitcase from me, “My taxi isa over here, come!”.
I marched to the mans side and grabbed the handle, he dropped the suitcase, I explained I had to get my girlfriend over at the shuttle bus.
This was unnecessary though, as Isla had marched over to us, clearly panicked.
I explained to her that the guy who had been walking away with her belongings was a taxi driver and that he was willing to do us a cheap ride straight to the hotel.
“Are you sure about this?” Isla asked me with the most honest and innocently scared voice imaginable...
The man carried the suitcase and lead Isla and myself towards the yellow taxis, I began to relax, my nerves and cowardice had embarrassed me. Isla was now smiling and holding my hand, I couldn’t wait to get away from the airport and to the hotel.
It was when the man leading us walked straight past the yellow taxis and off into the car park that I got a funny feeling...
I asked the man where we were going, “My car is overa here!”, he called back, leading us past row, after row, after row, after row of cars and trucks. Finally he stopped at a black, stretched, hearse shaped car. Isla tugged on my arm, motioning for me to say something. I couldn’t, I had froze myself with astonishment. The man placed the suitcase down on the ground and opened the back door of the car. Isla was staring at me with alarmed eyes, I stared back with an equally stunned pair.
“Excusa all this...” The man had began to lift what appeared to be a stack of suits and dresses from the backseat of the car. My mind raced, what was all this? Is this his own personal hearse? He just drives it around New York picking up lost and scared tourists? Does he take their belongings? Their money? Clothes? Worse?!
The man opened the boot of the car and threw the clothes in without care, “Justa climb in thee back.”
Isla and myself were stuck to our spot beside the hearse, the man closed the boot and with a flurry, gestured at the open back door for us to enter.
I got into the hearse first. I was baffled to be greeted with the décor of a limousine... What was going on?
There was three leather seats opposite another three leather seats. Isla sat next to me, although, far from me.
The man entered the driver seat and wound down the glass partition separating us from him. “So, Iya take you to the Bronx?” I laughed a nervous laugh and explained no, we were not going to the Bronx, the man seemed to react badly to this, angrily he snapped, “Where are youa going huh?!”
I told him our hotel was on East Fourteenth street, Manhattan, it would be great if he could take us there. “Okay, Iya got ya!”, I leaned back and tried to grab Islas hand, she was looking out of the window, a plane was taking off and my gesture went unnoticed.

A few minutes later, the hearse had made its way out of the airport and onto the freeway, I tried to relax my mind... “Youa see those two towers overa there?!”, the driver was shouting about two tall skinny, silhouetted towers in a park to our left as we drove past them. It was dark, but the two monuments made themselves noticeable. I knew them to be two towers left over from the Nineteen-Sixty-Four World Fair. I told the driver I could see them and even though I knew, I asked if the park they were in was Flushing Meadows? “They were ina Men Ina Black! At thee end!”, he seemed delighted at this piece of trivia and so was I. Yes, so they were! The driver and I laughed at this, his laughter extinguished any flames of doubt I had, this guy was no gangster. I glanced over to Isla, she seemed to be daydreaming, unaware of this revelation. I decided she was a lost cause, I was going to absorb as much of this experience as possible. “Flushing Meadows, yes, do youa want some music?!”, without waiting for a reply, the driver blasted some abrasive Arabic sounding trance. “Youa like theese music?”, I couldn’t tell him the truth, so I told him it was interesting. While the noise played, I looked out my window at the rushing traffic on the American highway, illuminated by each passing cars headlights, New York, I was here. I took out my wallet and counted my money, I had forty dollars on me, I knew Isla had at least the same. Hopefully this ride would be affordable, I wanted change to buy some real American grub. Isla grabbed at my hand, “Look!”, her face seemed full of wonderment as she spoke and as I glanced out the window, I saw why...
Manhattan. The New York skyline I knew so well from cinema and television, it was there on a beautiful blackened canvas, just for me, lit up in all it’s brilliance, pouring out all of it’s energy, all of it’s mystic myth, promises and spectacle, just to welcome me like an old friend. This was one to take to the graveyard. My moment of awe was interrupted by the driver, “I willa put on some COOL music!”, the song New York, I think it’s called, by Alicia Keyes and Jay-Z came on the speakers full blast. I couldn’t help but be taken in by the cliche, a huge grin had surreptitiously been slapped on my face. Isla too had succumbed to the ridiculousness and awe of the entire scene, she was giggling to herself, this caused me too laugh also. I listened and took in the beautiful picture before my eyes. “Yeah, thisa is a COOL one!”, The driver was shouting at the top of his lungs over the pop song. As we cruised over the neon-lit Brooklyn Bridge, Jay-Z was starting a new verse and I thought to myself... It’s at least a lot better than Turkish trance.

We took a left onto a narrow spillway when we came off the bridge. The driver turned the music off abruptly, I made a jesting complaint that I was only just getting into it. There was no reply... The incredible levity and joy felt going over the bridge seemed to evaporate as quickly as the music had ended. The spectacle of Manhattan had now transformed into a grubby, dilapidated and claustrophobic street. I could make out burned windows, graffiti tarnished walls, not even nice or interesting looking graffiti. There was hot air rising from sewers like a sickening steam and I could feel the gutlessness I possessed creeping back. I asked the driver if the hotel was much further from here, there was still no reply. The driver had a stern and concentrated look upon his face. The hearse came to a sudden halt and the driver cut the ignition, got out of the car and slammed his door shut. This was it, gangster time, the ruse of the honest, simple taxi driver was up. I heard him go to the boot, in my head I saw all of our clothes and belongings being emptied over the dank New York street, he would come for our money and passports next... The boot slammed shut with a force that shook the whole hearse. I hadn’t realized it, but throughout this whole thought process, I had been staring straight into Isla's face. “What’s going on, why have we stopped?!”, Isla was scared, I told her to relax. As I said this the driver appeared at the front windscreen, in his hand were a cloth and spray-bottle, he was just cleaning the windshield. The windshield was dirty. The driver worked on his maintenance problem for a few more moments before jumping back into his seat. “Iya sorry. It getsa so... dirtee... Not long, a fewa more blucks.”
Isla let me take her hand this time and graced me with a slight smile, a real smile would be too much apparently.

True to his words, the driver drove three more blocks and we were there. I jumped out of the hearse, eager to see my surroundings. It was a small and perfectly lit New York city block. The awning to the hotel and the diner at the end of the street, which was still open, confirmed to me it really was like the films. Isla was being handed her cumbersome suitcase by the driver, she made her way towards me as he closed the boot. “Thanks for getting my stuff out the car.”, the venomous look was becoming her. I apologized half-hearted and went to pay the driver. “That isa Fifty doller.” I gave him my forty and thanks, I also let him know I appreciated a cheap deal. Isla went over to pay the final Ten while I guarded the suitcases, I could see her fumble with the money. Outside the hotel stood a black woman with a baby in her arms. “Hey! Evening!”, she spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent and in a highly upbeat fashion, there was a genuine warmness to the greeting, I said hey back, turning my attention to Isla. The driver was thanking her in his broken English and then climbed inside his hearse. We had made it, New York, there was a comfortable dead heat to the night and I embraced it. “You have beautiful hair girl!” The woman was now speaking to Isla, Isla looked at her but did not respond, I placed it down to shyness. I replied in her stead, I told the woman I couldn’t believe how warm it was for eleven at night and I couldn’t wait to explore the city in the morning, I was interrupted. “Excusa me!”
It was the driver, he had walked from the hearse up to the curb. “Youa gave me too mucha money, this is ten back fora you.”, He handed Isla a ten dollar note and without a goodbye, turned around, climbed into his vehicle, started the Turkish trance and drove his hearse off into the night. What a character I said to Isla, she agreed but insisted on getting inside as she was tired.
“That guy seemed nice, was reeeaaall good of him to do that for you, give you back your money.”, The woman with the baby seemed eager to chat. I told her the driver was a crazy and great guy but quite the character, she responded with a “Welcome to New York!” As she said this the baby began to cry and yell, the woman tended to it and I turned to go inside.

The Hotel had quite a few steps to climb before reaching the entrance, being the gentleman I went first with all the luggage. “This place is full of weirdos...” Isla was saying, I told her that was nonsense, people out here just look for connections, they are open and that is great thing. Isla seemed agitated at tmy statement as we got up to the hotel door. Then, out of nowhere, the feeling I had gotten back at the airport and again in the stationary hearse had violently returned to my being. Through the glass door of the hotel I could see the reception area and at the reception desk I could see a black man violently smashing his fists against the counter. The man wore a baseball cap and was dressed like he was ready for a rap video shoot, he was yelling loudly and frantically at the receptionist. “I just want a f*****g room! A room! Just one room, one room, just one f*****g room!! I got my girl and baby out there, where we sleeping? Huh? Hey! I asked you, where we sleeping?” The man stood back from the desk, as he did I saw his sports jacket fly back to reveal a handgun tucked in his jeans. I paused at the door in a moment of dread before I took the handle and walked in. My entrance was not driven by bravery, Isla was telling me to “Get a move on!” As I entered the angry man with the handgun turned to me, “Hey man! You just getting here huh? Have you got a room for this place?!” Before I answered, I was entirely ready to allow him to have our room, we could find somewhere else, I’m sure. The receptionist, a middle-aged Latino woman with a Californian drawl leaned over her desk and spoke as calm as could be, “Evening folks! You got a reservation?” I spoke as confident as I could, I told her we did and explained I just needed to get the paper work from my bag, the man turned to me and marched over... “Yeah, you get your paperwork out, welcome to the big city.”, He then turned his attention back to the receptionist, “Anywhere else I can go?!”, The receptionist smiled arrogantly, “You could try East and Third, they got a few places...”. The man walked past Isla and myself, shouting on his way out, “You people all have a good night now! Somebody has to!”.
The receptionist sat back down and shot the swinging door a disapproving look as I handed her our paperwork.
I felt relaxed, finally, but it had come with a certain realization. Something I had not realized before and would not again. Isla was dealing with our room, smiling now and telling the receptionist about how excited she was to see Fifth Avenue tomorrow.

I looked out the front of the hotel and could see the man and woman with their child walk off down the street. The couple were arguing and the cries of the baby echoed out. I relived in my mind the Taxi driver and all of my cowardly and compromising thoughts. This is what it felt like to be meek, to be untrue, this is what it was like to be Yellow, Yellow like the cabs of this inspiring city. Yellow...
Never again, not here, not anywhere would I jump to that color in my mind.
New York, here I was and here it was...