October 14
Radtke could be in deep kimchee. I was on patrol near Pit 5, right in front of the old Keno lounge, when two girls about his age approached me.
“Is Tim here?” one asked.
Being an idiot, I didn’t immediately know who they were talking about.
“Yeah, Tim,” one said. “Tall, blonde…”
“Oh, Radtke. No, he’s not here tonight.”
“He wasn’t called in?”
Here is where 13 years of Lutheran schooling hinders you because it didn’t occur to me until later that Radtke had been a tad deceptive, and, in the finest guy tradition, had fed these girls a line from here to Reno and told them he had to go to work. I shared this with Rich and he slapped me and said if I’d really been on the ball I would’ve told the chicks yeah, Radtke’s here, but he’s on a top-secret mission in the hotel or something. I certainly would have come up with something better than ‘no he’s not here’ and blowing his cover.
Here is your Henry lineup for tonight:
Henry 1 – Dougie Fresh
Henry 2 – Donovan
Henry 3 – moi
Henry 4 – White Sox Metzger
Note there are four Henry units, which we’ve been able to do on weekends for the past month or so.
Donovan is fairly new. He’s prior service here at MCSD. He’s pretty funny but never stops making noise. If he’s not talking, he’s chucking to himself or otherwise producing sound. It’s unreal. He is unable to go more than a few seconds without emitting noise.
Being sandwiched between him and White Sox Metzger could be tough. Rich said I should just shoot myself now and spare myself the disaster.
October 15
A great night in the hotel. Princess Daisy was due for her three-hour training stint and 77Rick knows MCSD trainees deserve top hotel training and even though I no longer work the hotel regularly I am still the go-to guy, goddammit. I mean, would you want White Sox Metzger training your son or daughter in the hotel? I thought not.
The fun actually started before we got to the hotel. We took the elevator to the second floor and were walking past PBX. The door was propped open so I walk in to say hi and introduce Daisy.
“GAYLON!!!!”
Sigh. It’s Princess Silvia, just the second time I’ve seen her since she left graveyard a couple of months ago. She is evidently pleased to see me because she immediately stops talking to her sister Angelica and runs over and hugs me and if you don’t think that got the night off to a great start, you got another thing coming.
Daisy got the whole nine yards, from the second floor to the roof. We did a tower check, worked a couple of noise complaints, a guest assist and even rolled on helping a guest open their safe. We covered locking out an elevator and, most importantly, when and where to put your feet up.
I even took her to a penthouse, 32-305. I called Melissa at the front desk and said I had a trainee and wanted to show her the high-rent district and she said 32-305 was vacant and we got a good 20 minutes in there, mainly sitting on a couple of really nice chairs in the living room.
And, of course, I instructed her how a Henry unit takes a proper 10-10. Don’t you worry about that.
Outside of duties as Hotel Trainer, it was a very leisurely night. I spent 482 in – and I know this will surprise you – PBX, where I made a fresh pot of coffee because the coffee in the EDR was old and Angelica had a cup and she put her usual half-pound of sugar and a quart of creamer in it (Maria does the same thing, and, in fact, neatly lines up her creamers on her desk). James promptly went on break, so Angelica chatted about this and that and I even stayed an extra ten minutes before heading back to the hotel.
My final 10-10 almost lasted the rest of the shift. I went about 0540 and didn’t leave the EDR till after 0630, which is a record, even for me. I sat down, with coffee, about the same time as the new guy, Jim, was cleared for his own 10-10. Princess Emma walks into the EDR about this time, too.
Jim’s a good guy and all that crap, but if he joins me the chances of Princess Emma joining me are about nil, but, as it was, Princess Emma must’ve been desperate for a Gaylon fix because she joins both of us. My 10-10 was just about over, but it would’ve been rude to leave Princess Emma by herself, so I graciously spent her entire lunch with her, as well as White Sox Metzger’s 10-10, and, I even summoned him over to my table to collect my scanner so he could take it down to the office.