I can only assume I’m not fit for the role of night auditor at the Econo Lodge Airport Inn. That is, I’m not ideal for the role of night auditor at the Econo Lodge Airport Inn. I’m likely fit for the role, but there’s someone better-suited to it than me, someone possessing experience which eludes me, a pedigree of loyal service, alert to the hums and rumblings of nocturnal ecosystems, ready to sniff out and extinguish conflict or discomfort seconds earlier than my own dull senses would permit me to. Certainly there’s a friendly sparkle in his mien which I lack; a note of consummate reassurance in his inflection where mine instills but the slightest hint of doubt, a subtle strength in his posture representing a character superior to my own. He will learn the property management software in three days, where it would take me a week. Where I would be a mere steward of the building, a quaking, obsequious agent of Choice Hotels International, he will be its unwavering Captain for eight hours a night, guiding it through the murky blackness of the witching hour and onto dawn.

I’m not ideal for this position, just as I’m evidently not ideal for any position in what I’d consider my vocation, the biomedical sciences, due to the unfortunate conjunction of my meager résumé with a contracting market. Three years ago today I left my employment at Gensys Health, friendly peddler of medical sensing equipment, as fifty thousand of my colleagues nationwide were laid off in a concerted reorganization effort intended to streamline the bloated industry. The most devoted, the most sycophantic, were funneled into senior-level positions to do the work of ten men for the pay of five. The rest of us now fight like pelicans over the scraps. 

It’s a fight I can’t win, possessing as I do no fondness for those scorpions who spurned me. If beggars are what they’re looking for, then prideful folk like me need not apply. After all, I’m a clever and resourceful person who’s heard so many times that this resourcefulness, along with the various credentials I’ve acquired, are said to assure a man success even in the most flaccid economy. After three years in the fray, though, I’m starting to question this conventional wisdom. 

Now, I’m not a picky man. I hardly see any job as beneath me. I’ve fancied myself, and submitted myself for consideration accordingly, as a bartender, a plumber, a wastewater treatment operator, a custodian, a landscaper, a flight attendant, and so on. I say there’s pride to be found in all honest work, even work which renders my studies and prior career development, to put it bluntly, a total waste of time. What I’ve come to realize, however, is that even those “menial” occupations require a level of specialization and commitment beyond what I’m willing to give. After all, I’ve got my own specialization already — it feels unfair to make me start over from square one. I just need something to tide me over till the biosciences’ inevitable rejuvenation. Yet I’ve been informed, through an unending series of politely patronizing automated emails, that I’m no longer under consideration for those roles of bartender, plumber, wastewater treatment operator, etc. because I lack the special training and passion for the work that they require. It’s completely understandable: no respectable establishment should hire an unqualified man when a better model waits around the corner. It’s not my fault my credentials in my own field have suddenly become worthless, but what am I supposed to do? Lay down and die? I can’t say I’m ready for that yet, but the market clearly is. 

These skilled positions being out of reach to me, it seems I’m only good for those requiring no talents but a smiling face and a warm demeanor. I think of the treatment I’ve received from the human faces of countless corporate entities, ranging from exquisite deference to total indifference. Surely there’s a place for me within these ranks. I know how to make a person feel special. What more can a company ask for? Well, after putting my name in at all thirty or so hotels within an hour’s drive, I’m still not sure what more a company can ask for, but it’s apparently more than can I offer. Only one, the Econo Lodge, deigned to interview me, the rest wished me well and terminated our contact. 

The manager of the Econo Lodge, a haggard, jittery man called Rick Felton, seemed thrilled to meet me, in stark contrast to the calculated insouciance of my thousands of rejection emails. His quivering voice echoed off the walls of the vacant conference room as he explained that while the position was ideal for night owls, it had become more and more difficult to keep filled due to an uptick in rambunctious guests and petty crime, along with a pay rate which seemed wholly unconcerned with inflation. I assured him I would gladly suffer any indignities and would never lament the wage. “This is a perfect opportunity for me,” I said. “No harsh conditions, no hard labor, a chance to help travelers get a much needed good night’s sleep. If it’s not here, it’ll be a minimum-wage graveyard shift somewhere else. I need a change of pace. I’ve found my calling in hospitality.” 

“Well, you’re everything we’re looking for in a night audit,” Felton told me. “I’ve got a few other candidates to talk to, but you’ll have an answer by the end of Thursday.” The next few days I passed in an anxious state. A sudden sense of humiliation was creeping over me: where earlier I’d refused to beg for readmittance to the corporate world, it was now undeniable that here I was groveling for deliverance in the form of a job which could be performed by anyone with a pulse. It seemed the final challenge to my utility as a human being. My savings were nearly depleted, my rent payments were unending. A rejection here would send me off to the farm. 

Yet Thursday came, then Friday. There was no word from Rick Felton or the hotel’s human resources staff. At first I panicked, wondering if I’d given the wrong contact number, if Rick’s shaking hands had misquoted it. There must have been a communication breakdown somewhere. But they’d contacted me in the first place! Surely they’d have no problem doing it again, if it were in their interest. I made calls and sent emails in vain, begging for some update on my status. Now, as this dismal cloud-streaked sunset sends me tumbling unwillingly into the weekend’s clutches, I can only assume that on top of the thousands of positions for which I’ve been deemed unqualified, on top of the thousands more for which I was qualified but not quite the right man for the job, I am furthermore not ideal for the position of night auditor at the Econo Lodge Airport Inn. 

Well, then, who is? Always present, but seldom considered till recently, are the shadows, my betters, possessors of some more appropriate qualification, or else the right je nais se quoi, who don the various occupational vestments I fancifully fashion and tramp around in, once I’ve been forced to hand them over to their rightful owners. These shadows have begun to take on a mythic quality: whether they’re superhuman or I’m subhuman hardly makes a difference, what matters is that there’s an ontological gap between us which I’m incapable of bridging. In my comings and goings to the supermarket, the movie theater, the liquor store, I see them wearing the skin of a terse middle-aged lady who must have won the hospital receptionist title I coveted, a dapper new graduate who surely beat me out for an entry-level sales position. A shadow cuts me off in traffic and I’m certain he’s racing to an audio-visual house which denied me. I’m fascinated by the lives of these shadows. It eludes me what they’ve done to reach that quotidian plane of existence which is no longer so quotidian: gainful employment, general usefulness.

My friends, too, are shadows. “How did you get your job?” I ask James, laid off months ago from his job as a computer programmer, now an administrative assistant in a law firm. 

“It wasn’t easy,” he says. “I must have applied to over a hundred places. Eventually I got lucky.”

Martin lived in his parents’ basement well into his late twenties, painting gauche reproductions of Instagram posts in some sort of vague sociological statement. After a month of searching he was brought on as a spa attendant downtown. “I may have misrepresented my experience to them,” he tells me. 

Everyone is so kind to me. They continue to remind me that I’m clever and resourceful and would be a valuable asset to any employer who would have me. “But that’s the problem: none will have me!” I lament.

My friends tell me I’m just unlucky. They remind that all bad luck turns around. They revise my résumé and my letters of intent, streamlining them, bulletproofing them, preparing them for combat with the proletariat masses. But they’re no match for the shadows.

Now it’s three o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. An empty tub of ice cream and a bottle of cheap California champagne sit before me on the coffee table next to a phonograph spinning hopelessly around the final groove of an Ella Fitzgerald record. A western baseball game I watched three hours ago is being re-aired for the second shifters just returning home. I call the balls and strikes before they happen, attempting to convince myself in my soupy exhaustion that it’s thanks to some clairvoyant facility. I possess no clairvoyance, I possess no facility. I’ve applied to ten jobs tonight but there’s no hope for a response till the weekend’s over. There’s really no hope for a response at all. A shadow sits at the desk that was once my last best hope, in the Econo Lodge Airport Inn. It’s been two weeks since I saw it in person. 

He leans back in his chair, head cocked in satisfaction, lazily scanning a novel, something by John le Carré. His free hand forms an “L” shape against his prominent cheekbone. He’s older than me by ten years, but otherwise not so different in appearance. There’s nothing about him which immediately suggests he’s so much more ideal for the role than I am. Then I look closer:

In the desk there’s a slight curvature. The wood swells outward toward the end opposite the register, suggesting a pen of sorts for the occupant. My rival, here, sits with his left ankle crossed over his right knee, causing his back to lean rightward as it rises up the chair. It’s a subtle effect, but a profound one. The curve of his body flows into the contour of the desk as though he was built for it and sold separately, as though it’s been waiting its whole life for him to come along and complete it. From a wider perspective it’s apparent his torso is pleasantly perpendicular to the grains of wood in the lobby’s Doric columns, tilted so the recessed lights emphasize the paternal prominence of his nose, the taper of his jaw. Yes, it’s like a Hopper painting, the angles are all there, passing into and out of an ideal subject selected and positioned by an expert hand. 

I look down at my own legs. My right ankle crosses over my left knee, as it’s done naturally since adolescence. My back tilts to the left. Were I in that chair at the Econo Lodge, my figure would plunge into the desk with all the grace of a crowbar, jarringly misaligned with the wood grain in the columns. The lighting, I realize, would emphasize all that’s bulbous and frightening about my facial features. In short, I’d cut so alarmingly inharmonious a form in the lobby environs that any guest unfortunate enough to enter for a late check-in would no doubt be overcome by nausea. This would reflect poorly on the Econo Lodge, and on Choice Hotels International. I can see now what Rick Felton must have noticed immediately, a perfectly good reason I’m not ideal for the position of night auditor.

Did it cross my shadow’s mind, as he sat in the same conference room I did, that his selection of leg to cross would be the difference between dignity and humiliation, prosperity and starvation, life and death? Was it a conscious action, made after a careful survey of the hotel’s grounds, or was it something genetic, a serendipitous alignment of his own magnetic field with the Econo Lodge’s, which induced him to unwittingly make the right choice? He fascinates me to no end. It’s a scientific fixation, spurred on by my own background in the biomedical field. The comparative physiology of elect and untouchable has long held little merit in academic communities, but after finding myself in the latter category I’m beginning to believe in it. 

I’m at the bank downtown, depositing an unemployment check, surrounded by innumerable shadows cashing the paychecks, winning the mortgages, opening the credit lines of which I’m no longer worthy. We stand a species apart from each other. The burden of my own impotence is growing too heavy to bear. That night I go on a date, my first in months, with a cheerful shadow I met online. She’s a nuclear scientist by training, now an insurance adjuster. She lends an empathetic ear to my situation. 

“It won’t be long,” she says. “The unemployment rate is so low, something is bound to come up. I could even recommend you for a position at my company.”

“That’s too kind of you. I hardly think I’m qualified to be in insurance.”

“Neither was I, or anyone else, when we started. Half of my coworkers were in biomedical, same as you. We have a very good training program.”

“Well, are you hiring?”

“We haven’t had an opening in a few months, come to think of it. But when we do, I’ll keep you in mind.” 

I remain silent. For all the compassion they offer, for all the pity or disgust they feel, the shadows will never admit that I may in fact be cut from a fundamentally different cloth than them. That there’s a weakness in my manner, or a deficiency in my physical bearing, or some anomaly following me around in the cosmic providence background, which has selected my kind for extinction. It’s been a year and I’ve been interviewed once, for a minimum wage position I was eventually denied. Something is terribly wrong.

The damage from the evening sets me back a quarter of my monthly allowance. I decide to spend the remainder on a little vacation to ease my nerves. Flying anywhere is out of the question, but luckily there’s a hotel next to the airport which will adequately simulate the experience. Make no mistake, I know what I’m about to do. It’s nothing more than a pang of playful curiosity, necessitated by these long months of unrelenting boredom. If I’m to live at society’s edge, then I’ll live too at the edge of social convention, of maturity itself. Where I’m headed there will be no rules.

I pull up to the Econo Lodge at nine o’clock. Where in the day it cut a squat, rather pathetic shape, at night it’s a fortress, impenetrable. Only a few rooms are lit, and those that are have closed curtains. Harsh blue lamps flicker and pop overhead. Jet engines roar in the distance as a stray cat dashes behind a garbage can. The stench of my own transience is overpowering. I’m here not as a steward, but as an intruder.

The evening desk clerk, all too keen, asks if I’m checking in even before my miniature suitcase enters her field of vision. She knows I’m not coming as one of her own kind. “Yes,” I say, “I’d like a room for one night only.” She finds me one on the third floor, in the rear of the hotel, and I thank her. 

“Are you here all night?”

“Only till eleven,” she replies. I know this, of course. The night auditor begins his tasks at eleven and finishes them at seven. There are no other employees in the building during his shift. He is responsible for balancing the daily sales report, recording all property receipts, and preparing computer systems for the following day, in addition to servicing whichever guests should happen to enter the lobby in those sleepy hours. Though very little is typically asked of him, it’s evidently more than I can give.

In my room I watch airplanes take off through the picture window. The decor is spartan, passé. There are curly hairs and a pareidoliac stain in the bathtub which, if I ever get too pressed for cash, I plan to report to the press as an apparition of the Holy Virgin. The bed is too hard and the pillows are too soft for reading, so I turn on a baseball game and pace around, plotting. After two hours’ deliberation I’m still questioning the rationality of my plan, the soundness of my overvexed mind. Somewhere beneath me the changing of the guard has occurred. My shadow sits behind the desk I once thought my own, unaware of his heinous overindulgence. I must know him. I must know the man who bested me, who sent me back to the captivity of my tormentous impotence. With a composure like his, he ought to be working the Ritz-Carlton or the downtown Omni, not mired in this dump. The lack of propriety toward one’s fellow laborer, the gall of taking a job for which one is so hideously overqualified, appalls me.

And when I know him, what then? I could spook him, give him a little taste of life on the outskirts. With the right suggestion of menace, the flash of a blade, perhaps a bit of tastefully applied vehicular vandalism or burglary, I’ll have him questioning just what he’s gotten himself into. Because this is the thing with shadows: they don’t question. They receive, perhaps they’re thankful, perhaps they put on airs of false modesty, but never do they honestly question if a mistake was made. I was no different from them till this last year, when I learned to interrogate myself relentlessly, questioning the validity of every qualification, every merit, every molecule, every piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis of my humanity. It’s a skill everyone should have, but which has been deemed necessary only for those on the outskirts. I wish to offer an apprenticeship.

At midnight I slink to the lobby. My movement is relaxed, my magnetic fields aligned with the hallway axes, the chevron patterns in the carpet, the peaks and cols of mountains depicted in kitschy sunlit relief on the walls. I’ve triangulated my inadequacy and rectified it. When my shadow sees me he’ll know who I am. Examining myself in the elevator mirror I adjust my shirt cuffs and my hair. The light falls radiantly across me. Soon the issue will be all but put to bed. My mood softening, I suppose that if it comes to it, I’ll beg. I’ll get down on my knees weeping and plead, “Tell me how you did it!” 

The elevator door opens and I peek around the corner. The lobby, still brilliantly lit, is empty. The desk is unmanned. I enter the space tensely, trespassing on holy ground. There’s not a soul in sight. My shadow, it seems, is shirking his duties, or perhaps using the restroom. I set up camp in the corner of the room under an oil painting of a flowering chestnut tree which a plaque indicates used to grow where the front desk now stands. With as little movement as possible I open my book and leaf through it without reading. There’s no sound but the hum of the heating and the faint rumble of traffic and the airport. 

A half hour passes and I begin to read in earnest, hindered only by my mounting anticipation. By two o’clock I finish the story. My shadow has yet to make an appearance. The desk sits forlornly under a pale spotlight. Abandoning my pretense of innocent insomnia, I creep over to the vacant post. The register and payment systems are on, the computer is logged in to the property management system. Behind the desk is a break room whose door is slightly ajar. I press inside and flick the lights on. The room is unoccupied. My stomach flutters, and in a moment of weakness I sprint across the lobby to the restrooms to perform a thorough examination. No one in the men’s, no one in the women’s. It begins to dawn on me that we, the guests of the Econo Lodge, are likely left entirely to our own devices. 

Returning to the lobby from the bathrooms, my heart nearly stops. A man in a sport jacket stands before the front desk, his back to me. My shadow? No, next to him: a suitcase. He’s looking around impatiently. Breathless, I approach, the words drawn out of me as if by siphon. “Good morning, sir. Will you be checking in or out?” My face is already smiling, my demeanor unflaggingly positive.

The man turns around, startled. “Checking out, please. I’ve got an early flight to catch.” He’s old, gruff, and I gather from his appearance that he has a discerning, uncharitable eye for what constitutes adequate customer service. He looks me up and down. Well, I’m not in uniform, but thanks to my date I’m dressed decently and cleaned up well enough. I take the seat behind the desk, wasting a precious second in recalling which leg to cross. Then I’m all business. “Your room number, sir?”

“Three-nineteen.” (“What a coincidence,” I’ve got half a mind to say, “I’m in three-twenty!”)

“Let me get you on the road.” I wrangle with the computer a few moments, trying not to seem flustered. Eventually the process for checking out a guest becomes more or less clear. I follow it. The balance is settled. He’s more than on time. Everything goes as seamlessly as it can. “You’re all set, Mr. Malo. Have a wonderful flight.” Mr. Malo nods. It’s a nod of recognition, the first drop of validation I’ve been allowed in God knows how long. I drink it in with relish. Mr. Malo is out the door, and I’m alone again.

In a mad fury I rush to the break room and find, as I’d hoped to, the vest, button-down, bow tie and khakis which serve as industry-standard signifiers of competence, arrayed as though they were waiting for me to come along. Donning them without a second thought, I return to the desk to commence my training, studying the property management system and register, the balance sheets posted on a corkboard. It’s all so attainable, always was so attainable. I could spend all morning wondering why it’s been denied to me for so long but I’m already on my way to being my own shadow, no longer questioning, only accepting and going with the flow.

More guests trickle through and I handle them with all the care and professionalism they’re owed as customers of Choice Hotels International. I balance the outstanding accounts and restock the snack bar. During lulls in the action, I even wash and fold the nightly laundry. How wonderful it feels to be useful again! And no one will ever know…

When seven o’clock rolls around, I’m still itching for more to do. But the sun is rising, the morning workers will be here any minute. I wisely scurry back to my room. Checkout is in four hours, and I need to be getting some sleep.

I return the next night at eleven-thirty sharp, and the night after that. I’d arrive earlier, but I don’t need that evening lady asking any questions. There’s no point in renting a room now, of course. I’m free to come in with the moon and vanish with the daylight, free to do as I wish in all aspects of my life, to once again go about my business as a merry shadow on liberty, because I’m finally providing a useful service to the people of this city, to our nation, to our global community. The thought that a vacant desk waits beyond the sunset, a desk which only I can fill, is enough to satisfy me that things are taking a turn for the better. 

It’s only my third night on the job and already I feel like I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’m fully in tune with the rhythms of the hotel, the sounds of a budding disturbance in the upper floors portending a noise complaint, the whir of a rolling suitcase from a certain direction indicating exactly which room is about to check out. The cadence of my service-voice is improving, the words becoming at once more personal and more instinctive. All in all I feel that I’m fashioning myself into an ideal representative of the Choice Hotels brand. They’re lucky to have me on board.

I persist in my masquerade for four days, after which I give myself a break. Monday and Tuesday are the full-time night auditor’s days off at the Econo Lodge, when a part-time counterpart is brought in to relieve him at a slightly higher hourly rate. Not wishing to cross paths with this obscure fellow, I accept the recommended weekend. Then I’m back to the Econo Lodge on Wednesday, reinvigorated, ready for action. It’s action I get: at two in the morning a disturbance upstairs broils over into a commotion. The phone is ringing off the hook. I rush up the staircase to the source of the ruckus. 

In the second floor hallway is a party of four carousing, beer bottles in hand, stumbling around and slapping their hands on the walls. One of them is stripped to his bare boxers. An older Hispanic-looking woman pokes her head fearfully out her door. There’s no questioning what I have to do. “That’s enough, folks,” I say with all the authority I can muster. “Take it back to your room and quiet down.” I’m ignored, and the tomfoolery carries on. They’re goading the man in boxers to go through with something, not hard to imagine what. I approach. “If you don’t stop bothering our other guests, I’ll have to get the police involved.” My voice is unwavering, my stance unassailable. In my uniform I’m invincible. 

Amid a chorus of boos, the stripped man acknowledges me with fluttering eyes. “Hey man, don’t you know it’s my birthday?” he says. “Don’t you want to see my birthday suit?”

“I don’t, nor does anyone else in this hotel,” I assure him. “Get in your room now or I’ll be on the phone to the cops.”

The jeers continue and my adversary stares me down defiantly. He rips his boxers from his waist and races away, to shrieks of exhilaration from his companions. They follow him to a room at the far end of the hall, unlock it, and barricade themselves inside. That’s fine by me: the disturbance is snuffed out. I’m victorious. I’ve retained my mastery over the hotel and its environs. Let the party drag on, as long as it’s away from our paying customers. I take the stairs back to the lobby.

As I sit down at my desk, the elevator rings and a man steps out tentatively. He’s wearing a pressed dress shirt tucked into black jeans above Chelsea boots. “Good morning, sir,” I say with a smile. Hotel employees are required to greet all guests with a smile, according to a flyer posted in the break room. The man nods, regards me curiously, and obliquely approaches the desk before veering off toward that painting of the chestnut tree. He examines it, his back to me, rocking to and fro on the balls of his feet. He looks to be around thirty, with a neatly trimmed beard and an impeccable swept-back blonde hairdo. Something about him makes me uneasy.

“Do you need any help, sir?” I ask.

He spins around. “None, thanks.” The expression on his face is indiscernible. “How long have you worked here?”

Who does he think he is, asking that? “Only a week,” I respond. Suddenly self-conscious, I realize I’m crossing the wrong leg over the other. I adjust accordingly, praying he hasn’t noticed.

His face remains terse and he nods again, heading for the elevator. “Have a nice morning,” he says. The doors close before him and the mechanism whirs to life. It stops on the third floor and I hear the footsteps thumping, barely audible, to the end of the hall. He’s in either three-nineteen or three-twenty. I consult the computer, seeing only three-twenty is taken. Its occupant is listed as a Daniel Troiano who checked in today for two weeks at a nightly rate of sixty dollars. Who stays two weeks in a place like this? I suppose it won’t be the first time we run into each other.

Another two days pass without incident, though the same sense of uneasiness hangs over the lobby. Mr. Troiano’s presence makes itself felt through the walls and floorboards as his indeterminate purpose weighs on me. Well, so what if he’s with management, sent here to test me? I’ll pass any test with flying colors, as I’ve been doing all along. And all with no training! What was he doing, dressed so smartly at two in the morning, just for a jaunt down to the lobby? It’s nothing for me to worry about — I’m not breaking any laws, anyway. Choice Hotels International ought to be kissing my boots for picking up their slack.

I wake up early on Saturday, at five in the evening, for a second date with the woman from last week. She asks about my job search and I proudly tell her that I’ve cracked it, that I’m now the night auditor at a respectable airport hotel. I can see the shock in her eyes, but she congratulates me nonetheless. We have a nice enough time and she’s so gracious as to pay for her half of the meal. Later on she sends me a message indicating she thinks we’re a good fit for each other, but not ideal. I tend to agree.

That night my boarder makes another appearance, this time around four. By this point my newly nocturnal lifestyle is beginning to catch up to me. It’s not really something I’m cut out for, I’m beginning to see. The sunbeams streaming in my window, the periodic choruses of children on their way to school, the delivery trucks and street sweepers and, Lord help me, the garbage trucks and their incessant screeching as I attempt to doze off are hazards I’d heedlessly dismissed in accepting the position. I have vivid dreams in which the hotel lights begin to flicker and I realize, to my horror, that I have no idea where the switches are. Often in falling asleep or waking I find myself in a sudden state of unguarded awareness, awareness that the past is not just memory but material, tangible and present and entirely inaccessible. Awareness of a cliff’s edge somewhere nearby, shrouded in shifting mist. It’s a nervous thing, having to keep deadly secrets from one’s self. The elevator noise jolts me to alertness.

Mr. Troiano steps out and I smile and wish him a good morning. “Your stay is going well, I hope?”

He pauses in his path toward the door as though considering something. Today he’s dressed more modestly, in sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. “Great, thanks,” he murmurs distantly. “I’m heading out to get some food.”

“Something’s open at this time?”

“I know a place.”

The doors open automatically as he approaches and a burst of cold wind knocks him back. I offer a chuckle of sympathy. “Nippy out,” he says, finally offering a hint of a smile. Then he’s gone and I’m back in the predawn silence. I’m too exhausted to give the matter its due interest. My mind is preoccupied trying to piece together the complete sequence of those peculiar dreams. Certainly there’s a perverse rationality to them, as there is to a Möbius strip, but it’s beyond my grasp. I attempt to reach a sort of deeper understanding through a meditation session which eats up an hour, then two. But clarity is too dangerous for me at the moment. It’s a nervous thing indeed.

Before I know it the sun’s rising. Mr. Troiano has yet to return. At quarter of seven I depart my post, still in uniform. I’ll take it home and throw it in the wash before bed.

Outside the hotel the air is crisp, restless. I’m not halfway to my car when I spy trouble. A heavy limb, its great trunk forking into a maze of fractal twigs, has come down on my windshield in the night, shattering it into a patchwork of icy frosting. My first thought is of stuttering Rick Felton, in my interview, asking if I had reliable transportation to the hotel. “Yes,” I told him, “I have a car.” I suppose I still have a car, but it’s unrecognizable from the one I was imagining during that interview, not serviceable transit by any measure, a material reason I’m not ideal for the role. Nonetheless, it’s all I’ve got at the moment, and I’m all this hotel has got. I clear the branch away and head for home to the anxious tune of the wind whistling through cracked glass.

I’ve been putting it off, but I need to see someone in management about my wages. It should be quick and painless. I’ll wait around till the day clerk shows up and ask for the corporate human resources contact. Then I’ll call, give my bank account information, and have a direct deposit set up. They’ll never have to hear from me again. I’m confident that I can handle any incident that should arise during my shift without the need for escalation. And what about when I’m told there’s no record of my employment? “Well,” I’ll say, “do you have a record of anyone working the position? Or are you telling me your hotel’s been unstaffed at night for nearly three weeks? Surely Choice Hotels wouldn’t make such a catastrophic error. It must be something simpler, something clerical.” 

I drive my wounded car back to work, not letting the occasional concerned honk perturb me. In the quiet of the lobby I try to steel myself for that imminent series of delicate conversations. But it’s a busy night. There’s a youth soccer tournament in town whose participants’ flights are coming in delayed as Hurricane Imogen trudges across the South. Amid this unexpected flurry of activity, catastrophe strikes. A family of four arrives to check into a room they’ve held for two weeks only to find the careless night man’s already given it to a particularly arresting stewardess. I manage to cover for myself, stashing them in a less desirable room next to the elevator, but it’s a blunder I won’t soon forget. 

That I’d even entertained the idea of asking to be put on the payroll now seems risibly absurd. I’m as much a night auditor as Howard Stern is the Pope. To make matters worse, I realize as the dust settles that Mr. Troiano came down sometime during the rush of check-ins and now sits reading his book in a far corner of the lobby, in full earshot of my stuttered apologies. What’s he doing here? I’m in a state of agitation and want to be left alone. Why can’t he read in his room? With my eyes on him he seems to be absorbed in his book, but the second I turn away, to the computer or to the evening paperwork, I feel his gaze penetrating me. I haven’t yet ruled out the possibility that he’s an agent of the corporation, and this thought sends me into a paranoid spiral. I’ve made it clear that I’m no stranger to the antagonism of the modern hiring squad, the calculated, sociopathic indifference to mankind’s common struggle designed to coerce the collective spirit into accepting a marginally discounted rate, but to engage in the psychological torture of someone who only wants to help, to feel human for the first time in so long… have we really stooped this low? 

I’ve got half a mind to walk out now, to concede victory to this nation of shadows, take my rightful place among the legions who’ve slipped between its final crack. But to what would I return? My life is an eternity: how can I stand to spend it in a bed, in a room still redolent with the scent of former glory, or else on a street, a street I once walked as a satisfied man, how can I face it now from below…

Mr. Troiano closes his book and heads for the elevator. On his way past he gives me a slight, sympathetic nod, as though he’s been hearing my thoughts, and that’s all it takes to shatter my delusions. Suddenly I’m overcome with such a delirious sense of kinship for my nocturnal companion that my eyes begin to well up with tears. I recognize at last the sad, benevolent lines in his face, lines which have only just begun to appear in my own. I can see that whatever he’s chasing in an airport motel, in a deserted lobby, in wee-small-hours runs for food or in his John Grisham novel, he’s still far from catching. “Have a good night, sir,” I call after him, wishing only for him to understand that I speak to him not as an employee, but as a fellow fallen man. 

This gesture of recognition empowers me to remain at my post until the morning manager shows up at seven on the dot. It’s not Rick Felton but a silver-haired woman with an air of stern authority about her. She asks why she hasn’t seen me before and I tell her I’d been under the impression that the shift ran from ten to six, that no one from management has been in touch with me since I started, that as far as I’m aware I’m not even on the payroll. “Good Lord,” she mutters. She tells me that the hotel’s been going through a reorganization, that when she started her job two weeks ago she found it in a state of chaos. Then she gives me the number for the new general manager so I can sort things out. “And in the future, don’t leave before I get here,” she tells me. “It’s unacceptable for the building to be unattended.”

I return home and call the number she gave me, but get a busy signal. Repeated attempts at various intervals throughout the day yield the same result. I try to sleep but I’m too nervous. Here, on the cusp of normalcy, is when my sense of the arrangement’s precariousness is at its most acute. A notice to vacate sits on my counter. It’s over five years since I last shared my bed with another soul: the woman I still love has fled for good. In a fit of passion I quit a perfectly good job. My friends no longer understand me, nor do they wish to. My parents were in the ground before I could tell them what they meant to me.

Drifting hazily in and out of consciousness I find myself in that same state of frightening acuity, faced with the awareness that I’ve ignored or squandered those blessings I had in my life, blessings which I ought to have cherished and nurtured. It’s easy to pretend, in my waking hours, that the memories of these blessings are merely a founding myth, an edenic image supplied to my present self so that I might invoke it in idle conversation around a water cooler or use it as inspiration as I craft an uncertain future one shift at a time. But in these vivid swirling fugues the garden is all too real and I’m overwhelmed by the knowledge that I’ve been irrevocably cast out, and furthermore that it was I and I alone who cast myself out, not some primordial ancestor. 

I return to the Econo Lodge after a bout of fitful sleep, my failures once again receded into memory. I remind myself of the facts: I’ve worked at this hotel my whole life. Somewhere there’s a general manager who knows what he or she’s doing, who’s confident in my ability to run a tight ship, who’s invested in my success, who will never fail to answer the phone when I call. Someday I’ll have full dominion over all the grounds and all the guests whensoever I’m on the clock.

It’s a slow night. A man whose flight was rerouted stumbles in, pleading for a place to sleep, and I regret that I have send him away since we’re booked solid. I complete the auditing tasks quickly and set down to draft a letter to my district representative, about the untenable state of the labor market and its deleterious effects on the mental well-being of the average stiff. Something needs to be done, I assert, to breathe a bit of humanity into the process, to force these arbiters of life and death to come out from behind their masks and confront the victims of their brutality. They’re sowing this hopelessness into our fields for a reason. It’s time, I think, to come out and tell it like it is — what we have is too many people and not enough work. The powers that be have realized we’re past the point of driving the wages down: they’re actively engaging in a campaign of mass coerced suicide to thin out the surplus. Well, I won’t sit idly by and watch it happen. If there’s going to be a culling, I’d like to know who’s deciding which heads are going to roll.

I’m interrupted from my task by the elevator’s racket. The doors open and Mr. Troiano steps out. To my surprise I notice he’s carrying a suitcase with him. “Good morning, sir!” I call to him. “Checking out?”

“I am. Room three-twenty.” He seems to be in a somber mood, the creases on his face blooming and receding as he passes under the lights.

“Awfully late for a flight, no?” I ask.

“Oh, I’m not flying anywhere.”

“I see. Well, just give me a minute and I’ll get you all settled.”

I check his reservation in confusion. Sure enough, he’s still booked for another four days. “Was everything alright with your stay?” I ask.

“It was excellent,” he says. “I’ve just decided it’s time to move on.”

As I total up his expenses he meanders over to the wall where the chestnut painting hangs. In the corner of my eye I see him reach out a hand and gently caress its canvas, tracing a line down the trunk of the tree, a doleful expression on his face.

“You’re all set, Mr. Troiano,” I call to him.

He returns to the desk to retrieve his suitcase. Turning to leave, he suddenly swings back around. “I have to ask,” he says, “how did you get your job?”

Taken aback, I say, “The same way as anyone. I applied online and sat for an interview.”

“Had you worked in hospitality before?”

“No, sir, this is my first time.”

“Of course. And, if you don’t mind telling me, what exactly did they say when they told you you’d been hired?”

Fear floods back into me as the delicate charade hangs in the balance. “Well, I don’t remember exactly… the manager called me on the phone, congratulated me, and asked when I could start.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

I fight to remain professional, a consummate representative of the Choice Hotels brand. “Wonderful, sir. It’s an excellent hotel and I’m proud to work here.”

“Of course, of course. I was only wondering because a few weeks ago I applied for the same position, sat through two interviews, and didn’t hear a word back.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

“I tried emailing, calling, and got nothing. Like squeezing water from a stone. It’s not a big surprise. I didn’t have any experience, either. I was a touring musician till my health went down the tubes. It’s not so easy starting over at thirty. But I really thought, even after hundreds, thousands, of rejections, that this would be the place.”

“It’s a terrible market now.”

“Something like that.” He leans his elbows on the desk and cradles his chin. “See, I’ve started getting this paranoid idea that most of the job listings you see online aren’t real. That they’re fucking with us, if that makes sense. I don’t know why they would. But it eats at me — I don’t mean to offend, but if you weren’t here right now, if they up and decided to leave your position vacant, would anyone notice? Sure, there might be a few issues, but not enough to really put a dent in the bottom line, if you know what I mean. So why hire someone at all?”

“You’re right,” I concede, “it’s light work. That could be said about a lot of jobs.”

“I was convinced I was right a week after my last interview, when I saw a new listing for the same position. A few days after you say you started, for your information. It didn’t make sense. After they told me, both interviewers, that someone with my enthusiasm, with my eagerness to learn, would be ideal for the job, they abandoned me and started searching for someone else?”

“Absurd.”

“I thought, it’s one thing for these companies to hide behind a computer screen, but these were people, real people who shook my hand and smiled and told me I was worth something, then proceeded to cast me off like some sort of untouchable. What do you make of that?”

“Devastating. It’s happened to me before.”

“It’s antisocial behavior is what it is. Anyway, that first night I came down here, I was sure beyond a doubt there was going to be no one sitting at this desk. When I looked at you it was like seeing a ghost.” He chuckles. “I guess I was being delusional after all. It’s just a hard pill to swallow, you know? Some people out there are so good they can make a fortune doing nothing at all, while people like me aren’t even good enough to make a living at the night shift. I don’t know what they saw in you that I didn’t have, but I’m sure they had a good reason.”

“Don’t say that,” I protest. “I applied over a hundred places. This time I got lucky. Send me your résumé if you’d like and I’ll look over it.”

“Much appreciated, but I wouldn’t want to waste your time. I’ve already given you my sob story.”

“It was my pleasure. I hope things turn around for you.”

“You take care now.”

“You as well.”

He rolls his suitcase out the door and into the fresh midnight air. I return to my letter, completing it, then settle in with my le Carré. My left ankle crosses over my right knee, so natural that I don’t even have to think about it anymore. No one else comes to the lobby all night. In the morning I wait for the manager to arrive as I was told to do, but she’s late. It’s quarter past seven and no one has come to relieve me. I make a call to the general manager’s number only to find it’s still busy. Where’s the morning desk agent who was here when I first interviewed? At last a guest comes through to check out. “Do you offer breakfast?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, but we haven’t since the pandemic.”

“Isn’t that a convenient excuse?”

Eight o’clock rolls by and there’s no sign of the manager, the clerk, or the housekeeping staff. The lobby lights flicker and go out, but I hardly notice with the sunlight streaming through the windows. Something about driving home now, fighting the morning rush, the cold air assailing me through my cracked windshield, sounds woefully unappealing compared to all the warmth and comfort I have here. Sighing blissfully, I rise to my feet and head to the laundry room to run the towels and linens. I don’t think I’ll be returning to the Econo Lodge tonight or ever again, so I want to drink it in, let it become a part of my living past, a legend beyond language. Soon I’ll be home, putting in applications to the new packing warehouse in Johnston, but before that, it will feel nice to have done something with the day. 

☉