Business did make a noticeable upswing after the window was installed.
It wasn't much of an inconvenience for one of us to be in the office,
reading or writing, until quite late every night, and the very visible
presence of either of us seemed to act as a magnet to undecided drivers.
Grant's idea factory, however, was still producing; it was never slowed
down by success. "Why don't we get a big picture of a man," he
suggested, "life size, and hang it behind the office desk once? People
will see it from the highway, and I'll bet a horned toad they'll think
it's a real man. We could have a little calendar at the bottom, as an
excuse for hanging it there. After the people ring the bell and we get
up and let them inside the office, they'll see their mistake--but by
that time we'll have them, so it won't matter."
He mulled over that a while, grinning, and then came up with something
even better.
"Grandma's dress form!" he exclaimed. "Have her quick send it to us,
and we'll put some kind of a head or hat on top of it and stand it
behind the office desk." (Grandma's dress form has been through so much
already that a little more wouldn't hurt it. Every few weeks its bolts
and screws are loosened and Grant hammers it from a size forty down to
a size twelve--or vice versa--depending on whether it's Grandma or I
who wants to make a dress.)
"I know what we could do that would be a lot less trouble," I said.
"Every night late, when all the motel owners around here are asleep,
why not sneak out and take the covers off the "no" on each of their
signs? Then this will be apparently the only motel that has a vacancy,
and all the cars will come here. Then, after we have filled up, you can
sneak out again and put the covers back on the signs, so that in the
morning the other owners won't know they have been tampered with."
During the winter rush season, whenever we invited friends from Los
Angeles to stay overnight at our motel, we always stipulated that they
must come on a Sunday night, since even during the height of the
busiest season there were almost always vacancies on Sunday nights. For
most of our friends it was difficult or impossible to be away from home
over Sunday night, since work, school, and the regular routine of
living must begin again on Monday morning. As a result, very few of our
personal friends had been to see us, except the several who came out
the first summer. Now, though, with at least one vacancy every night
except Saturday, we let them know that we would be "at home" any night
except Saturday, and that they could have the use of a spotless,
modern, new and well-furnished cabin--on the house! On an average of
one couple or one family per week, our friends began making the
pleasant, just-far-enough trip out to see us. This was very nice, but I
couldn't pretend that it lifted the monotony or relieved the boredom,
because around a motel there isn't any of either.
For months I had been resisting the mercenary advances of men who
wanted to install coin-operated radios in our cabins. Grant and I had
agreed that the commercial, cheapening effect of such radios would not
be justified by the small revenue they would bring in.
One day, though, one of the salesmen whom I had turned away tackled
Grant while I was downtown. For all his caginess and shrewdness, Grant
becomes as limp and compliant as gelatin under the pressure of a good
sales talk. And this man, a short, wiry creature with very intriguing
mannerisms, was hard to ignore.
When I drove into the driveway the radio man was installing the last
radio. He lifted his cap to me and wiggled his ears mockingly as I
stalked past the cabin where he was working and into the house.
I sat down, seething, and mentally prepared some blistering hot coals
to rake Grant over.
Having the radios installed turned out to be a pretty good idea,
though. Our customers seemed to be pleased with the convenience of
them, in spite of the fact that reception is poor in Banning because of
the surrounding mountains.
The radios were attractive, with a walnut finish that blended with the
maple furniture in the cabins. Each radio had a slot in the top where
the noise-hungry customer could put his quarter for one hour of music,
drama, comedy, quiz program, news or soap opera. Every two weeks the
owner of the machines would come around with his keys, take off the
backs of the radios, and unlock the coin boxes inside. Three fourths of
the money he would keep; twenty-five per cent of it--"enough to pay
mosta yer utilities"--would be ours.
As it turned out, our share of the take--about twenty dollars a
month--was barely enough to pay for one utility, the electricity. But
that, as Grant pointed out, with more spirit of self-defense than
originality, was something.
And the customers did like having the radios in their cabins. We always
gave them their change in quarters now instead of in fifty-cent pieces,
so that if they wanted to play the radios they'd have the proper coins.
And often a customer would come to the office and ask us to give him
quarters in exchange for a fifty-cent piece or a dollar.
Our own little radio, that we had been renting out for fifty cents a
night, was no longer in demand. And sometimes I pointed out acidly to
Grant that eight separate quarters, for eight full hours of playing
time, had to be dropped into the slots of the coin-operated radios
before we'd make as much as by renting our own radio once.
The man who installed the radios in our cabins and came every other
week to get the money out of them, became simply "the radio man" to us.
I suppose he had a name, but if he did, I never discovered what it was.
"That radio man's the funniest guy I ever saw," Grant remarked, after
the first time he had come to get his money. "He points his finger at
you, with his thumb up in the air; then he quick bends his thumb, and
the knuckle cracks, and it's just as if he's shooting at you."
"I know," I said. "He did that to me several times, to emphasize his
arguments when he was first trying to make me let him install the
radios. But," I added pointedly, "I didn't fall for it."
"And," Grant hurried on, "did you notice there are hinges tattooed on
the insides of his elbows?"
"Mm-hm. I wouldn't be surprised if he had hinges tattooed on the backs
of his knees, too. He's just the type."
The small cement block building that was being erected across the
highway from us, west of the bar and the Blue Bonnet motel, turned out
to be a bakery. "Purtel and Purtel" announced their big neon sign.
"Doughnuts, pies, and pastry."
Grant went over to buy a pie the first day they opened. After talking
to the Purtel brothers an hour--his absolute minimum for a
conversation--he came back and reported that they had a nice place,
that they were old men with beards, and that he had promised them that
I would come over soon and meet them.
We demolished the pie at dinner time, and after I had washed the dishes
I decided to return the tin.
The front part of the bakery was clean and delicious-smelling. One of
the Purtel brothers was putting things away, getting ready to close for
the night. When I introduced myself he dashed away to call his brother,
who was in the rear part of the building.
The brothers confronted me together then, the first beaming with
friendliness and a tail-wagging anxiety to please, the second smiling
in the manner of a movie actor meeting the president of one of his fan
clubs. They were almost identical in appearance, and looked as though
they had been cut off a cough drop box.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause then, while we all tried to think
of appropriate remarks. I felt an insane impulse to murmur, "What nice
big beards you have," and an equally insane fear that they would reply
"All the better to tickle you with, my dear."