Friday, July 22, 2011

Toronto, July 22.


I know I missed Ottawa, and the rest of Montreal. This one was easy to write first.
Had I slept at all, it would have been a horrifying way to wake up.
The guy above me has rolled over a few times. It's about 10am. "I'll kill you. Fuck you. Oh, I'll kill you." After rolling and sweating all night, and sleeping just long enough to have instantaneous nightmares just long enough to tap my greatest hopes and fears at the same time, I'm listening to someone with a German accent utter death threats.
I was going to give hostels another chance. My last experience was in Victoria where I didn't sleep at all in a giant dormroom with 20 or more assholes who all came in after 2am. I laid almost face down with my wallet in one hand, and my knife in the other hand. I was up by seven.
Last night, I thought this Toronto place, that I won't name because it's not their fault, was OK. I laid back in a clean, quiet room in a hostel on College and St. Streetcar. This is what I wrote last night: "There's one other guy in this six-person room right now, and he's sleeping. There's an electrical hum that sounds like the beginning of Back To The Future, when Marty McFly is turning Doc Brown's pointless giant amp all the way up to 10. Water is always running, and you can feel the building shake when the streetcar goes by. I'm on a bottom bunk. Someone is going to go up above me and wake me up at some point tonight."
They did. He was mumbling. It didn't wake me up; I hadn't fallen to sleep at that point.
"The bathroom is full of other people's shit. Shampoo, toothbrushes, cologne with German writing on it. It's all weird."
I'd never packed as fast as I did this morning after the psychopath started muttering. There's actually a pair of underwear in my laptop bag. And a pen. And a sweat-soaked shirt. I stripped my bed without standing up, and I never once made eye contact. I came downstairs in a bit of a state; I asked if I could leave my stuff somewhere while I tried to go to the bathroom, and had some breakfast for free.
That's him. he just came down. He has short brown hair, a fanny pack, navy blue flipflops, blue plaid shorts, and a small, mean face. I don't want him here. I don't want to be here. I'm getting a different room to have a shower. I told the lady at the desk I didn't feel safe in my room, and explained the situation. There's an angry, damaged man here, and I don't want any part of this shit.
Hostels are a surreal place. I wish it wasn't three times the price to get a private room.

No comments: