The Open Door

Another bat attempted to bounce off the top of my head as I dropped to the dusty carpet.  Bats, specifically Little Brown Bats, fly like intoxicated birds.  They do not fly straight.  Instead they bounce from the ceiling to the floor, or at least they do in old hotels.  I jump back onto my feet and in a stooped-Igor form, took off down the hall again, only to have another bat charge at me as if I were a large beetle.

“Did you find it?”  My Dad calls from the floor below.

“No,” I say.  “I didn’t even know there was electricity on the fourth floor.”

With a lantern in hand, I race down the hall and turn the corner only to find two more bats.  Again I drop to the floor.  Dust springs out of the carpet.

I had been working on State Theatre Historic Tour preparations across the street that night.  When loading a few things into my Saturn trunk I notic that one of the fire escape doors on the Windsor Hotel’s second floor was open.  The door closed and opened as it attempted a waltz with the wind.  Closing my car trunk, I pull out my keys and dart across deserted Main Street.  After fumbling for my Windsor key, I swim through the shadows of the once-grand lobby, heading up the stairs.  I pause before reaching the top stair.  Lights are on.  Wind did not blow the fire escape door open.  Someone opened it.  Someone without a key was in the Windsor Hotel.

Acting as a stick bug in a willow tree, I find myself walking backward down the stairs.  Hide-and-seek is a game I will never outgrow.  Though, I like to know who is hiding.  On the safety of the Main Street sidewalk, I look up at the hotel.  No lights can be seen from the street, but the door on the second floor is still open.  Sliding open my cell phone, I find the name “Don” and press send.

“Hello Don, sorry for calling so late,” I say, knowing that the president of the Preservation Alliance would want to know about late night guests in the hotel, “but one of the fire escape doors on the Windsor is open and there are lights on.”

“On the upper floors?”  Don asks.

“A door on the second floor,” I say.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Don says.

Apparently, a Windsor Hotel enthusiast had borrowed a key that day to show the hotel to a friend.  Then someone forgot to shut the door—and turn off the lights.

“I’ll go ahead and get the lights turned off, Don.”

After sliding my phone shut, I find myself scrolling through my address book again.

“Dad, can you meet me at the Windsor?  Bring a flashlight.”

Back in the State Theatre lobby, I wait behind the glass doors and watch as the single door on the Windsor’s second story swings back and forth, back and forth.

Within fifteen minutes I find myself heading back up the stairs toward the hotel atrium with Dad’s lantern in hand.  Dad follows with his usual pocket flashlight.  If ever in need, Dad is always armed with a Maglite in his pocket and a band aid in his wallet.

After closing and locking the door in Steven’s Suite, we climb the stairs toward the fourth floor and begin a game of hide-and-seek—for light switches.