The following represents something that I used to think about as a kid (and as I got older) if we went to stay at a hotel. It is simply disguised as a short story to help bring out the flavor.
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I never take much from a given person… only ever just one thing. It might be a watch (which is of course many pieces, but still only one thing), occasionally cash if I’m feeling uninspired (maybe several bills at one shot, but still just one medium of value), and then there are certain drugs (but still only just one bottleful at a time). Sometimes it’s a stretch, figuring out just one thing (and of appropriate value as well), but it always works out one way or another.
Naturally, it depends largely on what’s available. And over time there have always been old reliables, like jewelry, but there are also occasional surprises (like that wonderful comic book). And when it comes right down to it, the finder makes all the difference in the world; after all, I (as the loser at that point) rely exclusively on what the finder values, and what they think of as just one thing… even when they don’t know.
Surprisingly few people are finders, though, never looking around at all, much less pulling open the treasure drawer. So, yeah, plenty of patience on my part. There’s a lot of time spent listening to the TV. Or to the sex. Or both. Compared to the sex, which seems like it’s been around forever, the TV is a much more recent thing. But now it’s everywhere. (Makes me wonder what’ll be next.) And, frankly, if they don’t look around in the first few minutes it’s a virtual guarantee that they never will, not for their entire stay.
But those first few minutes? Pure magic.
I live for those moments, in hope. How intense? All in all, hard to say, but yeah, fervent isn’t far off.
Sometimes it’s a kid who wants to check every single switch and drawer in the place, as soon as the door opens. Fewer adults are like that, but still, some… usually the ones who haven’t traveled much, so the novelty hasn’t worn off. It’s almost never the habitual traveler, the ones who’ve gotten used to nothing ever being in here (not even a Gideon). Pretty high rate with the paranoids and compulsives, though, particularly the clean freaks… you know what I mean, stripping the comforter, making a path on the floor with the towels, and so on.
Staff members and their families are ineligible, as you know, so the drawer remains hidden. Stands to reason: only guests can be finders. Once upon a time, quite an elderly woman, having come to feel like no more than a guest in her own home, received a lovely surprise as she wandered about her house poking through long-forgotten drawers and reminiscing. But just that once.
But no matter who opens the drawer, the understanding is suddenly there for everyone in the room, clear and trustworthy. No questioning. Fair is fair. And business is business: look through the treasure; leave it and lose nothing; but take it (any or all of it) and lose just one thing from among the personal treasures you brought into the room. At sometime in your life of my choosing.
The loser-to-be is the keeper, then, of these taken possessions, at least until there is a finder down the road. Less the gleaning, to be sure, which goes without saying (or rather would have, but, you know, I ramble a bit since I don’t have company very often… not the kind I can talk with, anyway).
So what was I saying? Oh yes.
There are the minor understandings, equally clear, but arrayed in the background, the whispered subcognitive fine print: it has to fit, that one thing… after all, the drawer is only so big. Be reasonable.
And with every exchange, I move on, and onward. Never around. Never across. Most certainly never back, nor backward. And only in space; clearly, moving unnaturally in time would be disturbing, not to mention unreasonable.
So, for example…
Found: an enameled lipstick case (new in the box); a few hundred dollars’ worth of alkaloid (unused); $80 in twenties (quite well circulated); a miniDV (recently shot in the room); and assorted jewelry (of various ages and ownerships, all of which sparkly items tend to make excellent bait).
Lost: one rather large gold crown (old style, abused).
One guest tried to game the system, leaving the treasure untouched on his first visit, only to return soon thereafter naked, ten cents up his nose (in the form of a dime… makes you wonder), confident that he was otherwise without possessions to be lost in exchange. He fancied himself a clever man (that is to say, that he was one, not wanted one), something of an expert in mystical things… and, while clever enough at that time, like the rest of his kind he was more like just a hobbyist. A fan.
Found: that comic book (which he took); a small, unframed early Picasso (fake); one envelope containing three uncut diamonds (genuine); and, as usual, jewelry (mixed).
Lost: his cleverness, two years later, when he needed it badly enough to balance against the value of what he found.
Just so.
I always try to be gracious, and eminently fair, taking as good as I give.
It’s a living.
Anyway, when I had time to reflect on his loss (later, in another room, trying to ignore the sex and the, you know, the TV) I imagined that this loser had begged, and wept, and perhaps had even dropped a dime (in a manner of speaking, or rather not so). I was able to feel for him, having once previously found a lost sign of compassion. I decided then that this particular treasure, this empathy, would not be made available for future finding.
You see, profit is often marginal, when not negligible, albeit the house always ekes out a win over time… just enough to pay off the interest, plus a bit of the principal. You know how it is.
What? Oh yes, I do know regret. Or is it remorse? I have lost that distinction. Or think I have.
When I think. Mercifully, I am only awake when guests are in the room.
And sometimes not always then.
Anyway, thanks for listening. It’s not often I come across someone in our line of work.
Meet again? Sure thing. I can always find the time.
[The New Genetics] <>in progress