There was a hurricane on Groundhog Day. The entire hotel whistled and moaned as the wind blew through it. The skies were bruised gray and purple. Clouds were tight, thin strands of cotton candy that sped by like time-lapse photography.

I was in the kitchen scrambling eggs and listening to the radio to see if school was going to be canceled. I’d already showered and changed, but I was ready to head back to sleep if it was.

Two local school districts had already been closed so far, but not mine.

Oil splattered against the cuff of my polyester dress shirt. I’d inherited a number of the shirts my father used to wear when he was a civil engineer in New York City. They were thin and didn’t offer much warmth, but they made you sweat where the fabric touched your skin. My father now preferred wearing t-shirts, since his workshop was next to the boiler room. He was dressed like a kid all day while I was wearing a men’s shirt with a tag on the collar that read “14-28.”

Three more districts canceled school.

I shook some BacOs into the pan, stirred it a little, and turned off the heat. I slid the egg into my plate, but before I started eating, I washed off the spatula and pan. I opened the door to the toaster oven, stabbed both pieces of toast with my fork and dragged them onto my eggs.

I’d just finished eating and was washing my plate and fork when it was announced that my school would also be closed.

I went back to my bedroom and pulled off my clothes. I read a few letters in Mayfair, but I was feeling sleepy and couldn’t get hard. My stomach was warm, and fats and oils were seeping through my body, slowing everything down.

I knew I was dreaming right away because school was canceled, but there I was in class. I was in my seat, but the other students were gone. A figure was slumped over in the teacher’s seat. The hurricane roared on. Outside the classroom windows, bare trees in the school yard were pulled back like slingshots by the onslaught of wind and water.

The teacher sat up. It wasn’t Mr. Hendrickson.

It was my father.

He was wearing a t-shirt and briefs.

“You ready?” he asked me.

“Ready for what?”

“You like singing, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

“You like songs, don’t you?”

“Yes.” “You’re going to like this song. You already know the words!”

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree Merry merry king of the bush is he Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra Save some gum for me

It was a song I learned in third grade. What was a kookaburra? It was a bird. What was a gum tree? I still didn’t know.

“Sing it with me!” yelled my father. His accent was gone,

and he was strangely loose. I started to sing with him. “Kookaburra sits in the old…” “No!” “Kookaburra sits…” “No! No!” “Kooka…” “Stop! I start first! You wait until I hit the next line and

then you start. You know what that’s called? It’s called

singing in rows! I’ll start now, are you ready?” “Yes.” “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” He sang

“Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra,” when I sang,

“Merry merry king of the bush is he.” “That’s right,” he said as I finished up. “Do you get it?” “Yes, I understand.” “You sing the same exact song as me, word for word, only you’re one line behind. You’re always one line

behind me.”

“I know.”

“It’s the same song!” he yelled, picking up a hammer and throwing it at the window.

At the sound of the crash, I jumped out of bed. My window was wide open, and I stood on my night table and latched it shut. Raindrops splattered against the glass as if it were the windshield of a speeding car.

Even the johns stayed away from the hotel in February. Maybe something about Valentine’s Day and sticking with the one you love. Seeing storefronts with cut-out cupids and “Be Mine” and “Yours Always” banners at the gas stations was enough to guilt even the most unfaithful man into taking the right exit off the parkway into residential suburbia, far away from our hotel.

I was hoping to get laid on Valentine’s Day, which was a Saturday. My mother had dinner reservations for two at the local Italian place, Rizzuto’s. She and my dad would be gone for at least an hour. That ought to be long enough.

I wondered if I’d be able last long enough.

I kept an extra copy to the key to Room 54, which was near the end of the even-numbered wing. How could I get Lee Anderson there? She’d started letting me feeling her tits and ass in the teacher’s lounge if we were alone, but she wouldn’t touch my cock. I tried to press it against her hip, but she would just back up and giggle.

I was prepared, though. I had an emptied tissue box under my bed filled with unused condoms I’d found in the rooms. There were lubricated, non-lubricated, and ribbed varieties. The ribbed ones were also lubricated. I also had those Venus beads and an unopened tin of orgy butter. Not that I was expecting an orgy. One girl was enough for now.

I knew you could get a girl pregnant the first time both of you had sex. One Hustler reader thought that if the girl douched right after with Coca-Cola, the sperm wouldn’t be able to fertilize her eggs. How stupid.

Other kids weren’t having sex sex, but there was this girl in the grade below, Nancy Kellogg, who gave blow jobs for five dollars. I heard she swallowed and everything. Lee even told me. When you saw Nancy waiting by the gym supply closet after school, you knew she was going to give a blow job. She was okay looking, with bangs of light blonde hair around her face, but her neck still had a collar of baby fat. Her body wasn’t fat, and she was getting some nice tits, but that didn’t really make up for it. I thought I could do better than her. Lee Anderson was the centerfold in my book. Nancy was just a girl you’d see in the hard-core mags.

I called Lee’s house on the pay phone outside the closed

hamburger stand. Her father answered.

“Hullo?”

“Hi, yes, may I speak with Lee?”

“Yeah, wait a sec.” I could hear him yell, “Lee! Phone!”

“Hello?” asked Lee a few seconds later. She had answered on another extension.

“Lee, it’s me.”

“Hey!” she said a little too loud and then immediately added a softer, “Hey.” I heard the sharp click of her father hanging up his receiver.

“Are you going to be home on Valentine’s Day?”

“Are you going to send me flowers?”

“No, nothing like that,” I said, taken aback by her enthusiasm. Flowers? Never even thought of that. “No, I was thinking maybe you could come over or something.”

“I can’t, it’s also my mother’s birthday. I’ve got to be home all day.”

“You can’t sneak out around dinner or something, can you?”

“No, my uncles and aunts are coming and everything for dinner. It’s a big thing. Maybe I could see you some other weekend, okay? At that hotel, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, “yeah, some other weekend.” Hope jettisoned out an open hatch and into the void, tumbling over and over through silent space. Valentine’s Day was the only day I could be sure neither of my parents would be at home. Since I never had friends over, they sure as hell wouldn’t understand why I’d bring a girl over. Or maybe they’d know all too well.

“See you in school,” I said, feeling like a sucker. She made a kissing sound. “Okay,” I said.

I thought about what it was like having one of those big family dinners, and whether Lee’s mom and aunts were sexy or not. If they were, did they ever play around with each other?

The receiver started buzzing, and I became aware that I was still clutching it. I hung up and started the long walk back to the office. As I passed by the rooms, I thought about all the people who had fucked in them. My life was renting and cleaning those rooms, but there was no fucking for me. Just flipping the mattresses over.

Peter Fiorello was at the counter when I came in the office.

“Hey, look who’s here!” Heartiness shook through his heavy frame. “Hey, why so down?”

“Nothing.” I sauntered around the counter and sat down on the stool.

“I know you boys get moody when you’re this age. My boys were always grumpy, talking back. You should enjoy it when you’re young.” Mrs. Fiorello stepped in, holding a large tweed suitcase in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.

“Was that you riding your bicycle by the highway?” she asked me.

“When?”

“Last week! That was you riding with only one hand! And Peter thought it was a Chinese food-delivery man! You’re going to get in an accident! I should tell your mother.”

“There’s no Chinese delivery in this town,” I said. “What’s in the suitcase?”

“Oh, I’ve brought some presents for you and your mommy and daddy,” she said. She dumped the shopping bag on the counter, spilling little Chinese trinkets and candies. Tiny paper lamps. Rice-paper candies. Haw flakes. Honey noodle cakes. Even firecrackers. All strewn across the counter. What was this cheap Chinese stuff doing here, out in front for any customer to see? For me to see? How was I supposed to rent out rooms with all this chinkiness on display? It was a mockery of my authority. Of my status as an American. I was horrified.

“I stopped at the oriental store!” Mrs. Fiorello said. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“Is this any good?” asked Peter Fiorello, picking up a small packet of dried sour plums.

“You tell me,” I said, backing out of the office and into the kitchen to get a glass of milk.

“Looks like a bunch of shrunken heads…” he muttered.

The next weekend, Peter Fiorello was dead from a heart attack. I got a phone call from his son because his family found a key from our hotel in Peter’s vest pocket. They wanted to know if Peter had any stuff stored down here.

I found out that Peter and the woman we thought was Mrs. Fiorello weren’t married. Peter’s real wife had died five years before. He’d re-met his childhood sweetheart at the funeral. Peter’s kids, who were in their 20s and living at home, hated the woman, so the two of them had decided to come down to New Jersey on the weekends to be alone. She became Mrs. Fiorello. And, of course, Fiorello wasn’t his real name.