The Carlyle Carafe

These things’ve gotta come out sometime.

We worked the Carlyle Hotel, but not too hard, considering the room rate.
We drove our Room Service server batty with our drinks orders. “I ain’t ever known two folks could pack it in like you two, and still look as good as you do.”

Carl was referring to the three dozen Old Fitzgerald Whisky Sours we’d order up of a day, but delivered parceled out from 5 a.m. until the cocktail hour. Thirty-six Sours. Twelve hours. Six Sours every two hours.
We spent four days in bed.
Doodling on soft Florentine vellum paper.
Reading the Times and it looked so bad.
Curling up with the curly-corded phone, making dinner reservations all over the island.
Peeing. Pooping. Copulating. Laughing and crying.

Carl arrived on time, every time, rolling his brass cocktail cart into our suite.
“Another six for you two,” he’d say, turning his head side-to-side. “I dunno,” he’d say as I’d sign the chit, adding his tip.

All told, those four days at the Carlyle yielded us ninety-four little glass carafes’d been fulla Old Fitz.

We told Carl we wanted to keep all the carafes until we left. No need to clear away the previous shake.
He shook his head. “I dunno,” was all he said.
We arranged the carafes in ten pin bowling fashion on the glasstop coffee table in the living room. Where we lived not much those four days and nights.

Carl asked what we planned to do with all those carafes when we checked out.
“We’ll steal two, for memory’s sake, and leave you the rest.” That settled well with Carl.

We checked out.
I have the bill still, forty-seven years on. She and I broke apart. I don’t know if she’s even still alive.
Or what she did with her carafe.
But I have mine.
And I’ll never forget . .

Time