It was called the Excelsior – the kind of hotel that had begun like a faded memory and aged from there. A uniformed security guard stood at the entrance. He looked a lot like Fred Ward. Do you remember Fred Ward? Remo Williams? It doesn’t much matter. I’m sure the security guard didn’t know him either.

He had his sleeves rolled up over his hairy wrists, the security guard, not Fred Ward, though I began to think of them as the same. He held the door open for me and nodded. All business this guy. No smile. His nod seemed like a salute.

I stepped into the lobby and felt like I’d stepped into an old photograph. The light was a jaundiced yellow, the kind of light I remembered from my grandmother’s cellar – old filament bulbs that don’t so much chase the darkness away as give the shadows a place to play.

There was a man sitting behind the reception desk. He looked up through wire rimmed glasses, but didn’t stand. He was bald. If the light were and stronger his scalp would have gleamed. As it was, all his skull could muster was a dull glow.

He smiled at me, and the combination of his missing teeth and bald head made him appear older than he probably was. I didn’t see any wrinkles. Maybe they were waiting somewhere with his teeth and hair. There were enough shadows here to hide any number of things. Maybe if he bought brighter bulbs he’d find them all together, huddled under a credenza, biding their time.

I shook my head. Travel and lack of sleep always do funny things to my thoughts.

“Welcome to the Hotel Excelsior,” said the man. He extended his hand but didn’t rise. His fingers were short, smooth – child like. We shook. His palms were soft and warm, the kind of hand that Fred Ward could have snapped.

“Checking in?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He tilted his head and looked at me over his glasses. I wondered if I looked different without a prescription between us.

“Do you have a reservation?” he asked.

“Do I need one?”

He pushed his glasses up and regarded me through new focus. “No.” he said. “Only you?”

“Only me,” I said.

“It’s thirty dollars a night.” He pushed a paper towards me and handed me a pen. “Name and passport number,” he said. The pen was crooked and had been chewed at the end.

He watched me as I wrote and I tried not to imagine the pen in his mouth. Or maybe, I thought, it was the teeth in the shadows, the ones hiding with the hair and wrinkles. Maybe they were in the back of the drawer, nibbling on old pens and pencils? What was my passport number? I had to concentrate to find it through all the teeth and chewed pens. A nap. That was what I needed.

I put the pen down and the man turned to a bank of cubbyholes. He reached into one and pulled out an old key on a wooden key-chain. “Room 202,” he said, and handed me the key.

I turned and Fred Ward was there, waiting with my bag. If I were less tired I would have been startled. As it was, the fight or flight signal got lost somewhere between my brain and body. Maybe it went off to join the teeth and hair? I shook my head again and followed Fred.

He led me to an elevator. There were fluorescent lights inside the lift and it gleamed like an open refrigerator. How do you put an elephant in a fridge? Open door, insert elephant, close door. How do you put a tourist in a fridge? Open door, remove elephant, insert tourist.

The door closed. I chuckled. I love elephant jokes.

There were two little postcard sized windows in the elevator doors. I could see hinges and old metal, and then the jaundiced lobby light.

Fred pushed a button. It crunched and the lift shuddered. The lobby crept away as we rose. I counted a full 13 seconds to reach the second floor. If my room had been on the fourth floor I would have lost 52 seconds of my life. I counted myself lucky and vowed to use the stairs.

The doors opened and the same light from the lobby spilled in. Maybe it had followed us up? Or maybe the whole hotel had been built around this soupy light. Maybe this light was what filled the hotel and kept it from collapsing in upon itself. It made my skin itch.

Fred led me down a corridor. He stopped outside a door with ‘202’ painted across it in sloppy white numbers. There was a broken wooden bed frame on one side of the door and a mop bucket on the other. The city mumbled in through an open window, telling of engines and exhaust.

Fred unlocked the door and instead of jaundiced light spilling in, gray shadows leaked out. He tossed my bag on one of two twin beds and opened the curtains. Weak sunlight filtered in from two walls. I had a corner room. Swanky.

I opened the windows, Fred went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Below my room was an empty lot turned garden. Pomelo trees rose from broken concrete and corrugated tin. An old chair sat alone beneath the trees. The seat had fallen through and it was just a frame now – a skeleton of a chair. The scene had all the right pieces to be quaint, but it seemed that they were all from different puzzles, all of them mismatched and faded.

I could hear Fred splashing in the bathroom.

Why was the chair out there? Had someone sat there before, sipping tea in pomelo shadows? Where was he now? Had he died and taken the chair’s purpose when he left? Maybe the chair was simply broken and had been tossed where it wouldn’t get in the way. Perhaps the bed base from the corridor would join it soon. They could sit in shadows and swap stories of the weight they’d borne before. Pomelos would flower and fruit and the old furniture would let weather take its course… like two old friends on an autumn porch swing.

Fred was still splashing in the bathroom. I kicked my shoes off and asked him if everything was ok? He smiled, grunted, and kept splashing in the sink. Only then did it occur to me that he was waiting for a tip. He’d continue splashing until I paid him to leave. I made a mental inventory of my wallet. I had four neatly folded fifties, a credit card, and an ATM card. Sorry Fred, I thought. No tip for you. He kept smiling and splashing. All of his teeth were still neatly rooted in his head, none lurking in shadows from him.

I went back to the window. I stared at the chair and wondered about its stories. Maybe the concrete and tin had been from a house? Another hotel? Maybe the chair was an artifact from a place before. A place where jaundiced light played with shadows and concrete was there to wrap up the whole. Maybe I could refurbish the chair? The wood still looked strong. I could strip what was left of the finish, sand the wood back to its original shape, and give the chair purpose again.

Nepal mumbled through engines and exhaust. How would I take an old chair home on an airplane? Would I be able to take it as a carry-on, or would I need to buy it a seat? A chair for a chair. Why was I even thinking about it? Fatigue crept into my eyes as shadows had crept from the room. Sorry, chair, I thought. I’ll find one like you when I get home.

I heard the door slam. I realized that the city was mumbling because the faucet had stopped. Fred was gone.

Sorry, Fred, I thought. I’ll pay you to leave next time.