"Night Shift" - short story

Sheldon has been on the night shift in the hotel for over thirty five years. It is after midnight when he passes through the deserted lobby and nears the front desk. Rose is the clerk on duty; she frequently works the 11pm to 7am shift. Whenever she isn’t busy greeting guests arriving for a late check in, Rose stares at her computer screen. She types frantically on her keyboard, as if she’s working to meet a deadline, and doesn’t look up as he continues on his rounds.

Sheldon started in the hotel when he was in college and looking for a way to make ends meet. It was a part-time job, standing at the main entrance to greet guests upon their arrival. The pay wasn’t good, but there were tips. Not enough to pay for tuition — he had a student loan for that — but certainly enough to allow him the occasional poker game with classmates. He would join them at the popular bars near campus, where he quickly discovered he couldn’t hold his alcohol. He enjoyed wearing a doorman’s uniform and didn’t mind the long hours or the weekend shifts. When offered a permanent position after graduation, Sheldon accepted.

At the entrance doors where Sheldon had been stationed decades before, Steve, the recently hired doorman, is smoking a cigarette. Before Sheldon gets close, Steve stamps his cigarette out in the white sand atop a trash can. A trash can that would need to be emptied and cleaned by Housekeeping later in the night. Steve shouldn’t be smoking while on duty — the doorman knows this is an offense which could cost him his job —but at this late hour, with no real duties to perform, he assumes no one is paying attention. Sheldon remembers well the boredom of the after-midnight shift. He approaches Steve, but a noise on the far side of the lobby leads him to the bank of elevators instead.

Read the rest of this story on Across the Margin.