October 4
Here was your Henry lineup – yes, your Henry lineup! – for last night:
Henry 1 – moi
Henry 2 – X-Ray
Henry 3 – White Sox Metzger
I am not making that up, I was Henry 1 last night, my first Henry 1 assignment in ages! Since it was Monday for me, I had called to see what my assignment was and 77Charles said Dougie Fresh had just called off and would I like to be Henry 1?
It was a very slow night, not really conducive to a chronological accounting, but it could be said this diary isn’t really conducive to anything at all, so here goes:
2205 – Arrive in the EDR to grab a beverage before heading to the hotel. There are no pretty girls to talk with, so I exit through a side door and head to the guest elevators.
2206 – Run into Mike S., who is swing shift’s Henry 3. He was in the defensive tactics class I taught Monday and we talked about that, how slow the hotel was tonight and the water level in Lake Mead.
2215 – Arrive 31st floor. Everything appears to be code four up here.
2225 – Arrive 30th-floor maids’ room. There are no bands to herald my return to one of my favorite sitting places, and, out of habit I sit down behind the desk and put my feet up.
2235 – My first call! I am directed to report to 11-301 for a guest complaint. The eleventh floor isn’t usual Henry 1 territory, of course, but swing shift gets relieved here in a bit, so I catch the squeal.
I get there and a woman named Bonnie answers the door and she says over the weekend some people had banged on her door. She and her husband had called PBX to whine and they were told security would be sent up, but she said an officer never came and she was wondering why. Her husband arrived presently and expressed the same concern.
Well, I told them, officers probably did respond, but when they got to the floor they may not have found anything, but that was just speculation and I told Tim and Bonnie that I would look into the matter for them and call them back.
I leave and go to the maid’s room, sit down, and call Junior. I give him the date and the time and a couple of minutes later he gets back to me and says officers were dispatched at 0443 and at 0448 they reported that everything was gone on arrival.
So I go back to Tim and Bonnie’s room and explain what happened and Bonnie smiles while Tim nods significantly and says OK and we chat for a bit and then I leave. They seemed happy I had gone through the trouble of finding out what had happened for them, although I really did was listen to them, go and sit down, which I would’ve been doing anyway, and make and receive a phone call.
2320 – Poignantly, I arrive at my favorite sitting spot on the planet, the storeroom at what would normally be room 29-336. It’s been two long, hard months since I’ve had this pleasure, and, while there are more boxes in here than I remember, my two chairs are still here and that’s what matters. From here I have a great view of the west side of town, including the Orleans Hotel and Casino off-strip, and New York, New York, Luxor, Excalibur and Mandalay Bay on the Strip to the south.
I start looking forward to my first 10-10.
2330 – For reasons I am not entirely prepared to explain, I want to get a couple of more floors in before 10-10, so I can get a full round in.
0005 – 10-10! My first ten-minute break of the night and a dealer named Mike is in the employee dining room (EDR) enjoying a hot dog. He puts a ton of ketchup on it, and I do mean a ton.
“You need a little more ketchup there, Mike,” I said.
“I need it to hold all the onions in place,” he said between bites. There is also relish on there and the whole thing is a complete mess. He doesn’t spill an onion, however.
0020 – Done with 10-10, I arrive at the 32nd-floor maid’s room. I sit for a while before doing tower checks and making sure the high rent district is code four. I would really like to go and sit in a penthouse for a while, but I don’t want to go through the bother of calling the front desk to find out if one is vacant.
0040 – Tower checks triumphantly concluded, I radio X-Ray and ask him where I can meet him and he says the 14th floor. There is no particular point to this meeting, except that I wanted to see X-Ray, and we spend a while sitting in a storeroom and catching up. We both agree it’s good to have the founding members of the International Henry Units working together again.
0105 – I head to PBX for 482 (lunch), where Maria and James are on duty. Maria reports she had a Talk with her boyfriend this week. It was an official Talk, too – the type women are good at and which can be referred to at need later in the relationship – and as a result Maria reported said boyfriend is now behaving himself which he wasn’t for a while.
Frankly, it’s not surprising an official Talk produced results; Maria is foxy enough so that such a Talk would generate a high degree of compliance from a boyfriend.
After a few minutes, James announces he is going on break and I nap for a bit.
0205 – Back in the hotel, and since I got over a round in before 482, it is time for some major sitting. For the next three (3) hours, taking time out only for a guest assist and a welfare check, I am either sitting or walking to someplace to sit. I do scan every 15 minutes, more or less, but it is a very leisurely three (3) hours. I go on my final 10-10 at 0505 and then take my scanner to the office before setting up a command center in the EDR for the rest of my shift and Bi-Bob even joins me while he takes his own 10-10.
Back outside tonight, manning the New York, New York gate, the only possible way I could do less than I did tonight and still earn money.
September 30 & October 1
October 6
Backstairs Homepage (Includes two months of complimentary entries.)
