February 2009

A few months ago, I went to visit my friend Phase, who was staying in Boston. Originally my trip was supposed to be only one night, but given that it had been almost three years ago, if ever, that I had spent an entire weekend away from the city, I decided to make it a traditional full weekend journey. Given that I could only stay with Phase one night, and had no alternative places to stay, I was forced to go to online travel websites and ask them to give me their cheapest last minute deals. I ended up booking a place that, unbeknownst to me, is notorious for being one of the biggest pieces of shit in the US. Here are some of the reviews of the place, posted verbatim from TripAdvisor.com:

• "The owner was very odd and used to lurk the corridors waiting outside the bathroom at odd hours of the night but that was mild compared to the fellow guests in particular one man in his 50s who used to appear everytime me or my friends went to use the bathroom even if that meant pretending to use the bathroom every 5 mins. He would try to corner you or if you had already made it safely into the bathroom he would be working on the lock outside trying to get the door open. It got so bad we would have to go to the bathroom in pairs while the others watched from the little crack at the side of our door. Late at night we could hear his voice as he banged on our door manically and when we finally left the hostel for the bus station at 7am one morning he emerged from his room and glared at us holding his crotch and watched us from the top of the stairs while we lugged our luggage down the stairs."
• "The beds looked nasty, the sheets were stained and cig burned, the TV had no remote, the A/C barely worked, the door lock was nearly busted, etc. Worse than the dirtiest dorm room or trailer I've even seen. I would have preferred camping in a public park."
• "Avoid (name of hotel) like the plague, or you might just get it."
• "My husband and I were reminiscing about our worst hotel experience ever. By far, after 28 years of extensive traveling, (name of hotel) is the worst, scariest place still not condemned and still tricking visitors into staying there (where IS the health department, by the way? Who has jurisdiction?). To describe it as the Bates Motel from Psycho is a start."

So there you go. Bates Motel meets Rapist City meets Haunted House. For one night? Sounded like a wager to me. After five months in job-recession hell, I was in desperate need of a real adventure. If only I had known what kind of horror story this house had waiting for me.

After a long, uncomfortable and heavily trafficked bus ride, I arrived at this shithole. Old and dilapidated it was, to the point of almost falling apart. i was escorted up to my room by the maitre'd, a "New England redneck" who was almost as quaintly creepy as the reviews describe, and even physically resembled Norman Bates from "Psycho". My room came with asbestos-filled exposed brick walls, an 1800s-model push-button phone which did not work, and a 1950s-model TV which only picked up a single channel, a bizarre public-service station that looked like it was produced in the 70s' or before. The bedside desk contained a Christian Holy Bible, which most people would desperately need for any chance of surviving a night here. I'm surprised there was not a coke needle or a gun in there as well. This place was already giving me the willies. After settling into my room and changing for the night, I gave myself a quick tug to relieve my travel anxiety (Drama from Entourage is right, it works wonders).

Then I realized that the Burger King lunch I had on the rest stop of the bus ride was not fully out of my system. And my room did not even come equipped with its own restroom- I would have to walk out of my room and down a long hallway to get to it. So I pulled and turned the doorknob hard to leave my room, and the doorknob fell off the door! I tried wedging my finger into the doorknob frame to get it open. Then used my key. Both did not reach. I was trapped.

I took a deep breath, looked carefully at the walls to make sure they were not closing in on me in a Dr. Evil-type trap, or that this was not a bizarre Scare Tactics prank that one of my friends was pulling on me. After five minutes of paranoid staring around the room, I determined that neither was the case, and I really was stuck.

Then I looked to my phone. I considered calling Phase, who was 15 minutes away, to see if he would be of any help. Then I realized that he is cruel in nature, and that would be pretty much be like feeding myself to the wolves. He would most likely laugh in my face and tell me he hopes I get stuck in there for the whole weekend. I wisely decided against. But as I took out my phone to consider calling someone, I realized that my phone had long since died. My phone has a tendency to fuck with me and die at the worst possible moment, doesn't it? And since the hotel was so old, there was not a single electrical outlet that I could plug in to charge it. And naturally, no wi-fi network or landline. I opened my computer, and with what little juice I had on it, tried to jump on "Rick's Sandy Vagina", and other similarly named wireless networks from the college student housing located nearby. All required passwords. That was not an option.

At this moment, I looked back to any book I had read on Basic Survival 101 and any Worst-Case Scenario-type thing I have ever seen. I considered my options:

-I could use all the strength I have to try and bust down the door. There is very little chance of this succeeding, for there could be a metal coating directly behind the frame. And even if I do succeed, there is likely a multi-thousand dollar fine awaiting me for destruction of property, and possibly another date with a judge. No go

-I could jump out the window. Upon looking out though, I see that there is a three-story drop if I choose that option. Which would result in me breaking every bone in my body, thus costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgery to repair.

-I could scream my head off until someone hears me. If I choose this option then there is a chance I could be arrested for disturbing the peace, verbally abused for disturbing someone, or maybe there just won't be anyone out there to respond or give a shit that I'm locked in my room. After all, I come from New York City, where no one gives a crap about you, talks to you, smiles at you, or even acknowledges your presence if you're in such a situation. But considering that it could potentially save harm to both my wallet and my body, I consider this to be the best option

Well Kitty Genovese may have been killed in New York because no one heard her tortured screams, but I put my hope and faith in the fact that someone in Massachusetts would be compassionate enough to respond to my cries for help. I opened the window as wide and I could and let loose at the top of my lungs: "HELLO! HELP! SOMEONE! IS ANYONE THERE!

Three floors below, cars passed, music blared from distant parties, car doors slammed, but no one heard me. I waited five minutes, conserved my breath, and tried again. No answer from outside the window. Then I went up to the busted door and hoped that someone in this madhouse of a hotel would have the piece of mind to respond.: I walked right up to the door and let loose: "HELLO! SOMEONE! ANYONE! PLEASE! PLEASE! HELLLOOOOO! 5 minutes of that, and no response. 5 minutes later, with my lungs burning from all the screaming, I tried again, with the hopes there would not be police nearby to suspect a murder: HELLO! SOMEONE! Then just for the fact that I may be stuck in there for awhile, I started to mix up the things I screamed, even throwing in a quote from Will Ferrell in "Talladega Nights" at one point: "HELP ME GOD! HELP ME JESUS! HELP ME TOM CRUISE!" Nothing.

And then, with my throat burning from screaming so hard, one last-gasp "HELLLLOOOOOOOOOO!" Then, like an answer from the Gods, I heard a response "Hello" from the other side of the door!

Me: Yes! Yes! God are you there? Hello.

Older Female voice: Hello.

Me: Yes, Thank you.

Female Voice: What in God's tarnation is all that racked about in there? I'm tryin' to sleep goshdarnit!

Me: I am trapped in my fucking room. The door handle fell off. Please get whoever is at the front desk to come up here with a key to this room immediately

Female voice: I'll see what I can do.

Me: Thank God.

At this point I crossed my fingers and said a prayer, one of the few times in my life I was reduced to prayer and desperation. This woman seemed like she was in no mood to show any kind of compassion. But five minutes later, I heard someone coming up the stairs, and then after what seemed like an eternity, saw the empty door handle frame turn, and a covered-in-sweat Norman Bates open the door and enter the room.

Norman: What in God's name is the problem here?

Me (pointing to door handle on the floor) Um, that.

Norman: Oh, damn that's the third door handle I've had to fix today. Why don't you just open the door with the lock handle from now on, and I'll see if I can fix 'er in the mornin'.

Me: Um, thanks then. I'll do my best.

Norman: Happy sleepins'.

I don't think I have ever been as relieved to see a redneck as I was there at that second. That kind of physical relief was a good pick-me-up after a half hour of genuine fear. I then decided that for me to have any chance of getting sleep in such an awful place, I would have to get as drunk as physically possible. I went out to all my old favorite bars from college for and did exactly that for the next five hours, drinking as much as I could, as fast as I could, and not giving a shit about money spent. This night culminated in me getting kicked out of one of my all-time favorite bars, exactly at the moment three of my old best friends from college were coming in, leaving them to all ask themselves the question "What the hell happened to Sherm?" Read this story and you will see why I was in such a badly wasted state.

After surviving the night and checking out of the hotel the next morning without any other catastrophes or the ghosts of rape victims past showing up in my room, I realized that a survival-seeking adventure was exactly what I had needed. In the months since, I realized that I have not felt any sense of joy as real and palpable as when I saw that door frame open. As a matter of fact, with their affordable nightly rates and reputation for danger, I think I might have to rent the Bates Hotel out for a residency. Haunted House 2009 maybe? Who's ready to get scurred?