14. Eli Makes Believe.

Oct 14, 2020

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Room 489

Eli did as he was told and made himself busy.

His dad had important calls to make, as he had over the past two nights since they’d checked in at the Palmer. And one of the biggest lessons that Eli had learned during his seven years was that when Dad said to keep himself busy, well, he’d better. Or else.

Eli walked to the window and tucked his small frame behind the white curtains so that from the bed it looked like someone had clumsily tried to hide a barstool. His straight brown hair drooped down over his forehead. He pressed his nose against the glass and felt the cool of the night against its tip. The sun had just set and the windows across the courtyard were slowly lighting up as the guests inside gave in to the day’s death.

The show had begun.

He’d come to enjoy watching the rooms come to life. It was comforting, like the windows of that Christmas advent calendar he’d get all excited about. The first December week was joyous, the second even more wonderful, but nothing matched the anticipation of Christmas spoils over those final days.

Eli saw movement a few floors down across the way. Inside was the old woman he’d named Grannie Jo.

Eli had a grandma himself, his mom’s mom who was named Ruth. But to Eli this stranger seemed like a Jo, and so she got that name. Her hair had a sheen like snow, but like the kind that’d been plowed into the gutters, speckled with dirt and grime.

Grannie Jo was all alone again tonight. She continued to knit something that Eli couldn’t see. He thought it must have been a sweater for her grandson or granddaughter. The TV flickered blue light against her face. Now and then, she’d pause to watch the screen before returning to her knitting rhythm.

“You have to get rid of him,” Eli heard his dad say into the phone. “This isn’t the plan that we worked out.”

Dad made phone calls every night since they’d left home a month ago. They’d spent a few nights in some shady motel here, another few in some other there. Dad always had important business to do, especially at night. When the sun set, it was “business time,” he’d told Eli. “Time to punch the clock.”

Eli liked the Palmer most of all the places they’d been to. The others had smelled like cleaning solution, and their furniture was sharp and weird. But the Palmer reminded him of the nights he’d spent at Grannie Ruth’s. Comfortable and tended to. Familiar.

Plus, here, he had a view.

Grannie Jo was the first person Eli had noticed. She’d stood at her window smoking a cigarette. “Pee-ew,” Eli had whispered to himself the first time. But he’d gotten used to her bad habit since. When he’d first seen her, she was talking to herself, as if trying to work out some puzzle. Eli imagined she was deciding which of her grandkids she liked the most, and therefore, who’d get the best Christmas present that year.

“I already got the passports, and they cost me everything I had,” Dad said into the phone. “What we’re talking about now is something where there’s no going back.”

Dad’s voice began to rise. This was Eli’s cue to put his fingers into his ears.

He didn’t like hearing Dad on business calls. He wished Mom was around so they could go to the playground or something while he was working, but she didn’t come on this trip. It was “a father-son vacation,” Dad had kept saying. “It was something special, only for the boys. A secret getaway.”

Another window across the courtyard lit up, and the curtains parted. Inside was a thin woman with short brown hair and a pale face. She scanned the courtyard breezily, like she was just getting a lay of the land. She saw something in another window near Eli, and she quickly backed away. But then Eli saw a crack open in her curtains again. It looked like she was giggling.

“I can see you,” Eli whispered so softly he couldn’t even hear himself.

Eli thought this new woman looked like a school teacher. Named Mrs. Brown. She’d get her students to name all the dinosaurs, list off what kind of food they ate, then some of their famous features, like spikes or tiny arms or speed. But whenever the students would get it wrong, she wouldn’t yell at them, she wouldn’t make them feel bad. No, not like Mrs. Turner, not like her. Mrs. Brown would give the class a few hints, and if that didn’t work, she’d tell them the dinosaur’s name and then give them a few tips to remember it by.

“You can’t do this to me!” Dad screamed loud enough that Eli’s ear-plugging didn’t work anymore.

He started humming instead. Quietly. Just enough to block out the sounds, but definitely not enough to disturb Dad’s work. No, never that.

He looked across the courtyard again. This time he saw a window that was blurry from condensation on the inside. Still, he made out the shape of man in a chair. The man sat, staring.

Eli thought maybe he was watching TV, but there was no light shining onto him. Maybe he’s just thinking to himself, Eli thought. And then the man’s arm moved, and Eli saw a metal object in his hand. Something small, shiny and silver. The man brought it to the side of his head.

Eli thought it best to close his eyes. He made believe that the man was a toymaker named Eugene, and the metal object was just some tool he was going to use to make an amazing toy. Probably for his son back home, Eugene Junior.

“You bitch!” Dad said.

Eli realized he’d stopped humming, so he began again.

A loud boom erupted. Eli kept his eyes slammed shut and his fingers in his ears. But then his curiosity got the better of him so he opened an eye.

Eugene the toymaker was now at the window, staring out through an arc of glass cleared of the vapor inside.

He had short brown hair and thick eyebrows like Dad. “You’ll get ‘em one day too,” Dad had once told him. The toymaker’s curious metal object was now down at his side, still grasped in his hand. He was searching for the origin of the booming sound, and when he saw Eli, he offered a faint wave. Eli waved back.

As he did, he took his finger from his ear and heard the sounds of a struggle—behind him.

In their hotel room.

Dad was yelling, telling someone to let him go. A mean new voice said “Shut up!” Another one said “Where is he?” before a bunch of bad words that Eli knew he wasn’t allowed to say. And then loud footsteps, and Dad’s yells got further and further away, out of the room and down the hallway.

Eli closed his eyes and put his fingers into his ears again.

He waited for what seemed like forever. When all seemed quiet behind him, he delicately took one finger out. Silence. He removed the other and there was no noise at all. So he opened his eyes.

On the other side of the courtyard, on the floor across from him, each window was now filled by a figure: all women.

They were young, but looked old-fashioned. Like actresses in a play. Chalky with black lips and quivering eyes. None of them smiled, and they all stared back at Eli.

The one directly across looked kind of like Mom, but her eyes were different. Sunken but alert. Wide-open. Like she was past being tired and was now into lunacy. Like she hadn’t slept in months.

Eli tried to make up a story about her, but couldn’t think of one that made sense, so he just waved. As he did, the woman who looked like Mom opened her mouth, and then Eli noticed that the entire row of women in the windows were all mimicking her movements, as if they were one. They opened their mouths in synchronicity, as if they were trying to scream, but nothing came out.

Suddenly, the windowpane in front of Eli’s face rattled with tremendous force. Like a sonic boom. He heard their screams, all at once. They were in pain, they needed help.

Eli yelped in surprise and shut his eyes and crammed his fingers back into his ears and began to hum, louder than ever. But their screams still came through, rattling the insides of his head.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and Eli yelped again.

The hand gave a light squeeze of comfort and pulled away.

Eli stopped humming, turned around, and opened his eyes. There was an old man in a bellhop’s uniform, funny hat and all. Eli had seen him earlier downstairs, during their comings and goings. He seemed nice. Eli started to make up a story about him—the hotel was his home, and everyone inside was his family.

“We’ve been looking for you, little buddy,” the bellhop said. “It’s all going to be alright.”

The bellhop took Eli’s hand, and Eli let him guide him out from his curtain sanctuary. And then Eli turned back over his shoulder for one last glimpse into the courtyard.

The women were still there, standing in the row of rooms across his own. Eli saw that while their mouths were now shut and their screaming had stopped, their eyes remained angry, like their thirst for vengeance had been left unsatisfied.

Artwork by Tiffany Silver Braun.