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Ed HamitonTHE RELEVATORY WORKI found a purse in the shared bathroom one morning. It contained the usual junk that women carry around, and a wallet with an ID and forty dollars in it. From the picture on the ID, I could tell that it wasn’t anybody who had any business using our bathroom.  I suspected the worst, that she was a junkie who had broken in to shoot up, and that made me feel like taking the money and throwing her purse in the trash just to teach her a lesson. But really I had no evidence of that, and I’d seen her around the hotel, so I asked for her room number and took the purse up to where she lived on the fifth floor. The woman who answered the door was tall, middle-aged, with long, dyed-red hair. She wore bracelets and a flowing, robe-like, Turkish hippie shirt. She had apparently been sleeping, or otherwise indisposed, and at first she didn’t understand what the hell I was saying, but when she caught on she was really grateful: “Oh my God! I didn’t even know that was gone. Oh thank you so much. Let me give you a reward.” “That’s OK.” ...I just wanted to give you something for your trouble... “No, no. I should give you something for your trouble. I’m so scatterbrained!” She checked her wallet, then said, “Oh, I’m afraid I’m kind of short right now. I’m unemployed at the moment.” “Don’t worry about it.” “Actually,” she said, “I’m a poetess. At the moment I’m composing a long revelatory work of scope and vision that I believe will open the eyes of a great many people around the world.” “Wow,” I said, and then, mercenary son of a bitch that I am, asked, “You think you’ll get some money for that?” “Perhaps,” she said, with a touch of condescension. “Certainly I’m not in it solely for the money.” “Of course not.” “Cynthia Blair, by the way,” she said, extending a long, thin hand. I didn’t hear anything more from Cynthia for a few weeks after that, but apparently it had been bothering her that she couldn’t give me a reward, because one day she showed up at my door. “I still don’t have any money,” she said, “but I have this coffee pot. It’s a nice coffee pot, don’t you think?” There was nothing nice about it whatsoever. It was an old, used coffee pot. I must have looked rather bewildered, because she clarified her offer: “You can have it if you want.” I took the pot. “Thanks,” I said. “I just wanted to give you something for your trouble.” Now the strange thing about it was, it was a very small coffee pot, apparently for espresso. I had never seen one before. “Uh, how do you use it,” I asked “I don’t know. I’ve never used it before,” Cynthia said. “I think you just put it on the burner.” “Hmmm.” “It needs a basket or something to go inside, but maybe you can find one of those.” “Oh yeah, I’m sure that’ll be no problem,” I said, unable, despite myself, to suppress a hint of sarcasm. “Thanks. It looks real good.” We stood there in the doorway for a moment, not knowing what more to say to each other. Finally, I asked, “How’s the revelatory work coming?” “What? Oh, very well, thank you. I believe it’s being well received.” “Good.” “However, as I’m sure you must realize, these things take time to be resolved, and in the meantime the mold is growing thick all around us.” Cynthia turned to go. But then she thought of something and turned back and said, “Oh, by the way, I’d rinse that pot out if I were you. I had bleach in it.” I wondered, but I didn’t ask. Something for the trash after all. Ed Hamilton has lived at the Chelsea Hotel for nearly 10 years. His fiction has appeared in Modern Drunkard, The River Walk Journal, SoMa Literary Review, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Exquisite Corpse, Southern Ocean Review, Lumpen Times, and Limestone. His short stories are forthcoming in No Umbrella. Ed’s fiction has also appeared in dozens of online publications, including Pif, Eclectica and 3a.m.magazine. His story “Goddamn Watermelon,” which appeared in Eclectica, was voted best new fiction on the web by Michael Longo, the former fiction editor of About.com. Ed contributes the weekly “Slice of Life” column to Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog Coffee Pot photo by Leo Reynolds 10:03 PM - 17/5/2006 - post comment
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