Night In Hell At the Chelsea Hotel

One night a man is going to die---he picks up a prostitute and goes back to his apartment to consider his options.

Night in Hell at the Chelsea Hotel

The man was married, but not in any traditional sense. Morally speaking, he was getting off his original mark. The Chelsea stunk of perfume and opium. His trench coat was black and he was dirty. Dirty from drinking in a nearby dive, dirty from living wrong, from not being able to love. He brought Dolly with him, if this was his last night on earth, he might as well f**k. She was no w***e either; she had nice skin and a pretty smile. She told him the first time she got paid for it; she had been out all night and forgot where she was going. Something about a bus ticket home. She said she had a mental disturbance that made her forget every man she had since that first one. She was smart though and took to reciting Allen Ginsberg's Howl for entertainment every time things got too quiet.

Finally, he said, shut up, and he took her hand in his and they walked quietly up the stairs. From some of the rooms you could hear fighting and others you could hear the white noise of late night TV. He held her hand and then opened the door. They sat on the couch with a bottle of wine. He told her it was going to be a bad night after she was gone. “I don’t have to go.” She rested her head on his shoulder feeling the warmth of two people who needed something they couldn’t give the other one.  He had changed his mind when he got her inside. It seemed too sad somehow to have sex with someone he didn’t even really know except for drinking. Too ordinary. Too every other girl he’d every met-like.

“Don’t you want to?” Dolly said.

“Nope. I want you like this, if we do it, I won’t be remembered.”

“It could be fun,” Dolly said, but made a face that said otherwise.

“I’m not going to be every other guy to you. No way.”

After she fell asleep, the man told himself that he better listen to some music and he better do his drugs before morning.  He gently moved Dolly’s head off his shoulder and lowered her onto his couch.  He pulled the blanket off the chair and draped it over her.  He thought her face was pretty in a noble sort of way, the kind of face that seems wiser than anyone else, only appearances were false, that much he knew. It wasn’t like he thought it was going to be, he knew things he wasn’t supposed to know, he tried it out and he realized he was good at it though, so what the hell, he did it every chance he got.  Some would call it weakness, but others might say it was talent.

He poured more wine. He got the David Bowie album and put it on.  Dolly was asleep so he didn’t put it on too loud.

Ground Control to major Tom

Ground Control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills may god’s love be with you.

Ground Control to Major Tom.

He sat down and dialed hoping against hope she wouldn’t pick up. Why does it always have to be me that calls, he was thinking. She answered.

“I know, I know.  I don’t give a f**k who’s sleeping.”

“Really, is that so?  Do you fight with him like we did? I miss you.”

She didn’t say it back.

Later at four, he put a gun in his mouth and said goodbye for good.

Author's Note

Do you ever eat a beef jerky stick while waiting for someone to love you? I mean someone you actually like?