One Night at the Clown Hotel
If there is one thing about me that has changed since starting this job as a hotel handyman, it’s that people no longer surprise me. My day-to-day looks pretty much how you would expect it. Sure, I’m the one who gets called to assemble new furniture or wood glue the old stuff. I fix leaky sinks and unclog toilets, but I still have to call in professionals when the job calls for anything more complicated than a plunger or a new coat of paint. I’m a handyman, not a miracle worker. For the most part, my job is to show the older guests how to work the televisions in their rooms.
It’s my philosophy that half our problems could be fixed with a little bit of thinking or 30 minutes of work. The rest are too complicated to be solved by anyone without special training. If I’m any different, it’s because I’m one of the few people who exists in that liminal space. I fix little problems and call in the big guns for the major stuff.
Guests are pretty much the same too. Sure, people have different skin colors, genders, lifestyles, or fashion senses. But for the most part, people are people. They come through our doors because they need a place to sleep for the night, a private bathroom to relieve themselves in peace, and to shower off the sweat and stink of the day. That’s not to say that no one stands out, but the times that stick in my memory are the days when some big event brings in party after party of the same special cases.
If I had to point out one time that stands out as a real head-scratcher, it has to be clown day. Ask anyone in the hotel, and they’ll immediately know what you’re talking about. It’s a different day every year. I’m sure a memo or something makes the rounds a few days in advance, but I don’t really ever check my email, so it’s always a surprise to me when it happens.
I remember my first clown day. I had no idea what was coming. I was still shadowing the guy whose job I would one day take over. I hadn’t been working at the hotel for more than a couple weeks at that point. They had me behind the front desk changing ink cartridges . Well, there I am, just finishing up when I get that feeling that someone is looking at me. When I turn around, there’s a man standing at the desk, clearly road weary and ready for a hot bath and a warm bed, but he has a big red smile painted across his face. Now this would be surprising enough as it is, but behind him is beginning to gather a crowd of similarly dressed individuals. The front desk people get to work checking in clown after clown, some on their own, some in pairs, some in big fat clown families. Neither of them so much as mentions the strange dress of our guests.
Eventually I sneak off and find the guy I’m shadowing as he’s resetting a dresser drawer on its tracks. I tell him about the people in the lobby, and he just grunts about how it’s clown day. Apparently, every year there’s some big event at the convention center just a few blocks away. We get them by the busload, sweaty and tired, and dressed every one of them like a clown. My mind goes to the Joker and John Wayne Gacy; it seems like no reasonable person would live their life in colorful suits and greasy face paint. I’m lost in thought when my radio lets me know that a guest needs help. My trainer nods at me as if giving the go ahead, and before I know it, I’m knocking at 306.
“Maintenance,” I say to announce myself, and the door is opened by a rather large clown. The paint suggests a smile, but to me it exaggerates his true expression. His face underneath seems cranky and distraught. I’m ready to apologize or defend myself, but he just moves out of the way to let me in.
“I’m embarrassed to have to call you in for something silly like this, but we cannot for the life of us figure out how this TV works.”
I let out a sigh as I settle into the comfortable task of explaining how the remote works, how to aim for the sensor, use the guide function, all that. There are two small children, also dressed in bright clothes and make-up, behind us the whole time jumping from one bed to the other as the first clown’s partner tries in vain to get them to behave themselves. I mostly ignore the noise as I give the same customer service spiel that I give every other guest. Eventually, I leave the room behind me, and I’m not halfway down the hall when my radio calls me to another room to help another clown, and just like that, it’s like any other day.
