Finn and I took an impromptu trip back to the seaside for the weekend, just the two of us. Sunday we lived a whole month in a day. It was glorious, but not without its challenges. Travelling on the cheap has its advantages and, I for one, would not change that. I’ll stay at a hostel over a hotel anytime. I used to travel solo a bit, and I’ve found that hostel staff are simply more engaged and interesting than hotel staff. Besides, I haven’t learned much staying in a luxury accommodation yet, except a continued appreciation for big towels and a quiet, private, sleep. Hostels are like television programs; each guest is their own main character having their own comedy or drama, so there’s plenty for the armchair anthropologist to observe.
When we arrived, hot and salty from the beach, there were already some of these characters set up on the sofas. It was almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit and humid, and the hostel did not have air conditioning. A largeish woman in a hospital-type gown occupied the sofa nearest the desk. She had her edematous legs up on the coffee table, splayed wide, with a box fan trained directly up the middle. A pair of crutches were to her right. I wondered if I had misread the website perhaps and that this was some specialised hostel for convalescents, but the other people looked whole and healthy, if catatonic.
A pleasant, matronly woman checked us in. She is a type that I’ve encountered in life before: not an angle to her, all soft breasts and belly, plump limbs and a warm, gentle smile, sun-weathered skin, reddish bob and owlish glasses. Personable and kind, yet I would not call it out of character for her to say fuck or bum a cigarette from someone; to smoke in private later. She showed us our beds and where the bathrooms were, and left us.
This was Finn’s first hostel and his bed was in the basement in the men’s dorm. He was managing his apprehension about it well and only compared it to prison films twice. We both took showers, stowed our bags, and left for dinner. When we came back the woman with the crutches was still there on her sofa. I reckoned she would be staying somewhere on the first floor with a mobility issue like that. We sat on the lovely porch to write and draw and stayed up until the midges started to bite. We reluctantly said goodnight and went to our dorms.
Thus begins the night in hell. I grabbed my night shirt and went down the hall to the community restroom to change. I stepped over the towel on the floor and locked myself in a stall. From the other stall, a woman was interrogating the poor gal who’d just stepped out of the shower. Shower girl was from Canada and very polite, and I felt for her; trying to dry off in the humidity while being grilled for personal details by some faceless, shitting fiend. What baffled me was how the person in the stall could defecate openly while carrying on a conversation like that. The meme about establishing dominance applies here, because she asked the poor naked Canadian to pull down paper towels and get out of her way; she was coming out of the stall. I aborted my mission to undress and abandoned my stall so I could quickly leave but she opened the stall door and hit me with it. Then she asked the Canadian gal to flush the toilet for her, which she obediently– or obsequiously, half-nakedly, did! Then, I heard them. The crutches clicked on the floor. She turned and made eye contact with me. Her eyes, a light brown, almost yellow, sized me up and challenged me to defy her all at once. A wave of relief flickered over her face and she dismissed me after perhaps seeing my pale eyes, glasses, and blonde hair. I was sure I didn’t see any light in her that hadn’t been consumed by the demons of the seven deadly sins. She wore wrath, gluttony, envy, and avarice right on her face.
“I’ll be right out of your way, two minutes!” Her tone was flat to me, despite the cadence of studied courtesy.
“No problem, I need to change anyway,” I said, and ducked back into my stall. Hell’s bells! I changed, and waited till I heard her crutches leave and hump down the stairs. Good, I thought. She’s going down to bed. I was exhausted. On my way out I apologised to the poor Canadian, because I didn’t know what else to do.
I went straight to the bed, and my bunkie was up top, a young gal, sweet, or so it seemed. I asked if she was in for the night, and she said she was. “Me too!” I exclaimed, and flopped down into what might well have been a broiler pan. I had tilted the box fan on the floor to blow slightly more in my direction but I could barely catch the slightest stir or draft. Still I was exhausted, and knew I could sleep if I just shut my mind off. There was an early morning planned on the bicycles. I texted Finn a hug and drifted, thinking that it might have been a good idea to bring a headset or ear plugs.
10 minutes later I awoke with a start. Missy up top was suddenly talking. I picked up my phone and scrolled a little, five, ten, then 20 minutes passed with no end in sight. She carried on. She’d had a breakup. She cried and laughed. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. With each passing increment it took more effort to keep anger at bay. I flopped over. Then she stopped short.
“Wait, MacKenzie, wait.” There was an expectant pause. “OH MY GOD I’m not alone!” She climbed down the ladder. And away she ran with great noise, tripping over the box fan.
“Hell’s bells,” I said, and got up and fixed the fan. Again I flopped. It was only 1015, and within minutes, I had steadied my breathing, closed my eyes, and, focusing on the wisp of cool breeze on my left ankle, I slept, until…
Click, thump. Click, thump, click, bang! The sound of the woman crutching down the hall and hitting the door woke me. She clattered back and forth in the room and hunkered down on the lower bunk right across from me. Thank heavens I’d had the presence of mind to roll toward the wall earlier. She would probably talk to me if she saw the whites of my eyes. Missy was close on her tail and climbed up the bunk. Oh great, a slumber party. They chattered away like old friends. Crutches lady belched noisily and crunched cellophane from a packet of snack cakes. Did they not see that I had been asleep? Were they oblivious to the exhausted blonde lady in the bed, or just plain rude? I groaned, hopefully audibly. The noise continued. Then some video or advertisement started blaring from her cell phone.
My better self took over, sound coming from deep within my abdomen: “Could you possibly turn that down?” I boomed.
“I’m sure I’m sorry,” she snapped.
“I’m sure you are,” I said with great resign, but it stopped, and after a few minutes the two of them settled down, and I was satisfied that I’d at least made my presence matter to them. I woke up around 2am nauseous. I tried to wait it out and cool off by focusing on my breath but it was even hotter than it had been. I rolled onto my left side. In the dim I could see– she had moved the fan so that it was blowing on her. She was under the window and in the direct breeze of a window fan already. I could see her hair ruffling in the breeze as she snored. I reached into my emergency kit and took a prescription strength anti-nausea pill. After about an hour of fuming, I went back to sleep, waking up each hour. Finally it was time to rise and I practically ran to meet Finn. I almost leapt into his lap. I’d missed him! He said that none of the men even spoke and it was like sharing a room with six ghosts. He had written a poem while waiting for me to come down.
Lying in bunkbeds/Men number seven
A slice of summer camp/the seaside is heaven
The farting, the snoring, guys shuffling around
The coughing, the breathing, the weird snorting sounds
440am and no sleep for me
I’ve started to cry and I have to go pee.
He said it really wasn’t bad and he did sleep soundly once he was able to assimilate the concept of sleeping in a room with strangers. I shared my night. I tried not to bring venom to it and just report facts. The woman is obviously suffering, if not from her injury then from something emotional/spiritual. It wasn’t the last of her, though, not by a damn sight.
Our morning was wild fun. Instead of waiting for doughnuts in line we went to a restaurant where they had paper table cloths and we drew pictures on them. Then we biked 20 easy miles, ending at the tide inlet where we swam into the current to let the tide carry us in, almost to the shore, and then we rode it out as it receded.
I love the bike rides, though. It makes me feel like I’m about twelve and that our folks don’t know where we are; and I have just enough money in my sock to buy a cold Coke when we get wherever we’re going, and we crack jokes and talk about important things like ideas, memories, and dreams. We notice the smells and see the world flying by as we pump the cranks, zooming through shade and sun. It feels absolutely possible and could even be the truth that I am twelve then, because my knees don’t hurt, my back doesn’t ache, and I’ve never known a broken heart because I haven’t loved a soul quite like I love my friend.