Rogers attended a business convention. The gathering was held in a coastal city, one of those places with a charming inner harbor but no actual sea shore. Rogers, who was said to be a good father and family man, made a detour to his mother-in-law’s home to drop off his two children. With his wife, who was six months pregnant, he drove to the town and registered at the convention hotel, a skyscraper with green fluted glass walls and a restaurant well-known for its seafood at its apex.
The convention began with a plenary session, scheduled for the morning after his arrival. Then, there were “networking” and “break-out” sessions after lunch. A dance in the grand ballroom was appointed for that night and, then, there was another meeting of the entire group scheduled for the next morning, commencing at an hour decently late because it was anticipated that most of the participants would be hungover. A famous figure in the Administration had been hired to address inspirational remarks to the assembly. Then, there were to be farewells and the convention would be adjourned a little before the noon hour. Although the ostensible purpose for the assembly was educational, in fact, the proceedings were designed to allow business representatives maximum access to their customers so that they could buy them drinks and expensive meals and, otherwise, bestow small favors in order to ingratiate themselves. The convention was deemed important, but not too important, by Rogers’ boss – he was vacationing in the Cayman Islands with his new wife and said that he would “catch-up” with Rogers while the assembly was under way.
On the first night, Rogers skipped the welcome banquet. He met a customer quite by accident while waiting for elevator and said that his pregnant wife was too tired from traveling to attend the banquet. But, in fact, his wife had made reservations at a famous restaurant locating in a renovated warehouse on one of the quays. The inner harbor had narrow cobblestone streets lined with expensive boutiques and small picturesque bars, some of them said to date back to the previous century. There was a small contretemps when Rogers sighted the customer to whom he had lied on the other side of the bar waiting for his table and, when Rogers’ reservation was announced, the maitre de said his name in a loud, even brazen, tone. But the two men pretended not to see one another and all went well. The other fellow seemed to be with a woman who was not his wife and, so, it was best to avoid an encounter that night.
The sessions the next day were tedious but by mid-afternoon everyone was half-drunk and the seminar rooms were mostly empty, only young people were there still earnestly listening to the speakers. Most of the more experienced attendees were in the corridors or clustered around the stations selling drinks. Rogers thought things were going rather well and made some new business contacts. An important customer asked Rogers if they might leave the convention hotel and continue drinking in one of the ancient inner harbor taverns. Rogers said that this was a fine idea. The customer wanted to pick up women. He had come “stag” to the convention and was planning to avoid the dance – “you know, I’m not much of a dancer myself,” Rogers replied to him. Of course, Rogers said that the drinks and dinner would be his treat.
At the tavern, they drank a pitcher of grog made with Bacardi rum and other cordials. The drink was named after one of the hurricanes that vexed this part of the coast and it was a powerful decoction. For some reason, Rogers hadn’t had occasion to drink during the last six months and so the booze had a disastrous effect on him. He felt sick and went into the toilet to vomit. Then, the customer said that he wanted to smoke a cigar and, so, Rogers used his credit card to buy two Dominican cigars. The customer smoked his cigar in a wet alleyway between sinister walls of crumbling brikc and mortar. A light drizzle was falling. Rogers put his own cigar in his breast pocket, discovering in that way a bone from the barbecued ribs they had eaten a few hours earlier. They went from bar to bar. On one side-street, they watched several men mugging a tourist. The tourist fell onto the wet cobblestones and the muggers kicked him in the head. Rogers found himself groping a fat blonde who smelled of patchouli. He had lost his customer somewhere.
The inner city streets were an intricate maze and Rogers had difficulty finding his way back to the hotel. Sometimes, he could see the tower of green glass, a slippery-looking shard embedded in the dark rainy sky, but there seemed to be no way to reach the place.
At last, Rogers stumbled into the lobby of the hotel. An elevator with glass sides whisked two men falling all over one another up to the rooms above. Rogers’ boss and his new wife were checking in at the reception desk. They seemed bedraggled and worn. Rogers’ boss said to him: “Long night I guess.” “Looks the same for you too,” Rogers said, immediately regretting that he had, perhaps, insulted his boss’ wife who was ordinarily quite glamorous. A softly purring escalator lifted them up to the mezzanine where the ballroom was located. The debris from the party was scattered across the big room and some music stands were still located on a dais at the head of the hall. Confetti and streamers were strewn about and there were smashed glasses on the floor and some chairs knocked over. “Looks like quite a brawl,” Rogers’ boss said. His wife smiled. She asked Rogers if he had received the little gift that they had sent to his room. “I don’t think so,” Rogers said, but he wasn’t certain.
The corridors in the hotel were broad and people were still padding about, reeking of booze and barefoot. Rogers’ suddenly recalled that his wife had come to the convention with him. Presumably, she was enraged at having been abandoned. Rogers couldn’t recall the room number. He walked slowly up and down the hallways hoping that one of the doors would trigger something in his memory. A door was ajar and seemed familiar to him – he pushed it open and saw a woman sitting on a bed with dark, accusing eyes. She seemed startled by him. Rogers didn’t think that she was his wife, but wasn’t wholly sure and, so, raising his hand to show that he meant no harm, he stepped across the threshold. The woman muttered at him and gestured toward the telephone as if she were about to summon aid. Rogers backed out of the chamber and stood in the hall.
Perhaps, he was on the wrong floor. He found a stair-well. Up or down? Rogers wondered. He went down – the stairwell wasn’t air-conditioned and it was warm and stank of spilled booze. The floor below seemed somehow more familiar to Rogers although, in fact, it looked exactly like the corridor and rows of locked doors above. Rogers thought that he should call his wife and ask her for the room number, but, then, he remembered that this had all happened many years ago, before cell-phones were invented. So there was no way to place a call and, in any event, he expected his wife to be distraught with anger at him.
At last, he found his room. His luggage was on the floor beside the bed. There was no trace of his wife. Someone had spilled some red fluid on the floor by the toilet. The patch of liquid was about four feet square and a pale color, like diluted tomato juice. Rogers wondered whether it was cranberry juice or, possibly, red wine.
It was pretty apparent that Rogers’ wife had fled to her mother’s house. Rogers knew that his marriage was wrecked and that this was the beginning of the many years of catastrophes that would afflict him. On the pillow of the unmade bed, a tin of sugar cookies from the Cayman Islands sat unopened. The tin was decorated with small, smiling alligators. The cookies hadn’t yet been opened. The stain on the floor near the toilet troubled Rogers. He moved the cookies to the night-stand and lay down in the bed, fully clothed. His head ached and, when he shut his eyes, he saw the puddle of red glowing as if it were radioactive. Someone would have to clean up that mess.
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