Er-Ee, Er-Ee

Go back in time with me thirty-five plus years. It’s1982 and America has almost a half million military and civilian personnel stationed throughout Europe. I work as the European Advisor of an obscure DOD activity, while my headquarters and boss are stateside, 5,000 miles and seven time zones distant from my office in Heidelberg. I like my job. I keep my nose to the grindstone and give the taxpayers their money’s worth.

On this particular night I am in a third floor room in the American Arms Hotel in Wiesbaden. Built in the fifties, the hotel is a five-story, mega-barracks incongruously situated amid vine-covered homes built in the previous century. In contrast to their old world opulence, my room is stark. A few landscape prints, too small for their placement, hang on the walls in lonely isolation, and the room’s furniture suffers from a military feng shui influence.

Beyond the hotel, all nearby cites—Darmstadt, Mannheim, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt—are speckled with military installations housing tens of thousands of soldiers and airman. This night, most of them seem within earshot of my room; it’s the hotel’s weekly club-event for single Servicemembers. I remember lonely days in the desert as a young airman, and I applaud this dance floor speed-dating. I attempt to sleep, but my deep-breathing snarks are interspersed with the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the music—there is no typical German noise abatement at the American Arms. 

It doesn’t matter that I’m scheduled for a morning presentation to Education Officers from U.S. Army posts throughout Europe. The BOOM-BOOM-BOOM continues. Its effect is foundational, a bed-shaking vibration that penetrates man and building. Worse yet are musical lolls when a high-pitched doo-doo-dee-dee-doo-doo-dee-dee seeps through the concrete floor and the windows. No auditory void is left unfilled. I envelop my head with my pillow, but my efforts are fruitless. My room is directly over the space that holds all of the hotel’s slot machines and electronic gambling devices.  Created in Hell, the doo-doo-dee-dee machine trumps the boom of the ballroom’s tribal dancing. “Doo-doo-dee-dee-doo-doo-dee-dee.” My pillow muffling fails, so I try to mask the noise with heavy breathing. No help.

“Goshfrappingmotherlessfatherlessmiscreants, anyway!”

Of course there is no air conditioning, and the game room windows are open, inviting in every doo-dee-doo into my ears. I curse the players, the morale and welfare staff, and the architects who designed the hotel. I wish all of them incurable cancers. Ignoring the heat, I close my windows and attempt to sleep.

Around 11:15 I leap out of bed and call the front desk.  “I’m in a room above some kind of infernal device going “doo-doo-dee-dee-doo-doo-dee-dee”.

“Oh, that must be the game room,” answers the desk clerk, who had refers to himself as “Mister Somebody” when he picks up the phone. I prickle.  I want subservience but receive disinterest mixed with self-importance, and I mentally vow to slit his tires and release a skunk in his car.

“Listen, this isn’t right. I’m trying to sleep here. I have to work tomorrow. What can you do about it?”

“Nothing.  The game room is open 24 hours a day.” I’m not surprised. The machines are a sedative for the troops and a morale-and-welfare cash cow. After I find that skunk, I’ll put gum in the coin-slot of the doo-doo-dee-dee machine.

Pretending to feel sympathy, Somebody offers to move me to another room.  I glance at my possessions and tally the trips required to gather and move my clothes, bathroom clutter, radio, alarm clock, briefcase, handouts, and computer.  “Thanks anyway,” I reply.  “I have all my gear spread out here. I’ll try to tough it out.”

I shape my pillow into Minnesota-grade earmuffs, strap them to my head with a belt, and reengage my heavy breathing. Just as I drift away, a woman’s voice penetrates the pillow from the room above me. “It really makes me mad when you something something.” Her volume diminishes.

A man answers, “I was only trying to… indistinguishable blah, blah…you know, baby.”

“I don’t care. Blah, blah.”

Their verbal exchange eventually subsides, and the doo-doo-dee-dee machine kindly grows quiet. I’m cautiously optimistic but wrap my arms into a slipknot around my ears. Two minutes pass. I hear only my heartbeat. But replenished with quarters, the doo-doo-dee-dee machine begins again. This time I scream into my pillow, and like 1980’s Olympian Władysław Kozakiewicz, I vault across the bed to the phone. I’m so angry I don’t even bother to remove the floral nightcap my wife made for me.

            Somewhere, three floors below me, a phone is answered. “Front Desk, Mister Somebody.”

            I’m in full snarl. “Mister Somebody, this is Mister Schram again. I give up. You said you have another room.”

            “Let me see.” I hear papers moving, drawers opening, keys jangling. “Room 352 in Wing E.”

            I shed my pajamas—I don’t care that they don’t match my hat—and I stuff myself into pants, shirt, and shoes. Minutes later, armed with the new key, I return and shovel a jumble of bathroom and other items into my suitcase and schlep my goods to Wing E, Room 352. But chaos reigns; the key doesn’t work! I’m raging and exhausted. There won’t be enough coffee in all of Wiesbaden to keep me awake for my meeting. I again examine the key tag through blurry eyes: 352 on the tag, 352 on the door. Another attempt fails.

Defeated, I Quasimodo my load back to my room and trudge down launch a nuclear strike. The clock behind Somebody is well into the A.M. hours, but there are nonetheless two people standing in front of me to check in, and I wonder if Boom-Boom is turning into Bang-Bang. No, they have suitcases and look more frazzled that I do. Three minutes pass while Mr. Somebody mumble-shuffles their IDs, orders, and room keys.

            My head hangs lower than a trail-weary dog’s when he finally waits on me. “Yes, sir?”

            “Key doesn’t work, but I know I went to the correct room. Bad key,” is all I can utter. Boom-Boom and doo-doo-dee-dee have weakened my voice to geriatric reediness. I doubt I have the strength to hunt for a skunk.

            “Just a moment,” he says as a phone rings across the room, behind a divider.  I sway in weariness, not caring if my hair is styled by a pillow. Turning my head, I believe I’m receiving AFN Radio. That, or there’s a speaker behind the counter. Too tired to be sure, my head drops lower. 

            When Somebody at last returns, I grasp the moment. “Listen, game machine’s quiet now. I’ll keep my room.” I can only manage short sentences. “Here’s the 352 key.  It’s wrong.” I don’t wait for a response, nor is one offered.

         In the room I trade shirt, pants, and shoes for pajamas and cap and collapse into bed, quickly schnarshing my heavy breathing in coordination with all the other sounds in the building, and I’m unconscious until about 2A.M. when something wakes me. I hear it but am barely alive. It’s a new, sharper noise: “Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee.” A pause. “Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee.” Another pause. Once more with more speed: “Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee. I finally realize it’s the bed of the arguing couple above me; they are obviously reconciled. Ain't love grand? I think, and I roll over to snuggle deeper in my pillow.

“Er-Ee, Er-Ee Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee, Er-Ee . . .”   I fall back asleep.

The End

© Richard Schram 2014 & 2017