2003-11-14

Acoustic Bicycle Stories

#4

There was a man named Harry at the EconoLodge in Groton, Connecticut. He works the late shift, from 9 pm or so to 8 in the morning. He takes final customers in looking for a bed to sleep in for the night. Many times he tells them that the Lodge is booked, that all of the inns in the town and the neighboring town of New London are also booked. Indeed it may be 40 miles before you find a place available for the night. He is the peddler of vacancies for weary-eyed travelers. The doorman to comfort on the road, gatekeeper for those who have their reservations.

Harry is a white haired man, in his 50�s, I�d say. He rolls his own cigarettes, and stands outside of the lobby to have a smoke. He is friendly enough, always quick to give his considerations on a variety of topics. He seems hopelessly embedded in his midnight shift routine, but ready to give his opinion on any number of topics to demonstrate he�s still sharp, viable, significant.

I arrive in Groton (pronounced Grah-ten) around 7:30 pm. I had been on the road since noon or so, biking south from the town of Danielson, along the East Coast of the state. I left later than I had expected to, and was planned to have a show in New London at 8.

Earlier in the day I had discovered that there was literally no money in my checking account; a check from an employer was taking a long time to clear, and I had used up the credit line that Citibank gives me. This came to me in a realization at a gas station; I stopped to get some food for the road and came up with nothing on the screen at an ATM.

This was the second such delay in money on the road. I ran into the problem also in Hartford, a few days earlier. Its funny how both times I immediately took the problem to be with the particular machines, I would try to withdraw money, at a roadside bank, at a drug store cash register, and get some sort of failure. �Well�, I would say to myself, �this machine is screwed up.� And take my money-needing self somewhere else. It�s astonishing how accustomed I was to taking out cash, and how accustomed I was to having a surplus.

As I said I arrive in Groton, and feel a hurried need to get to Mugz, the coffee shop I was to play at. Mugz is actually located in New London, but the two towns are separated by a River feeding out into the Long Island Sound.

Trying to find a way across the river in time for the upcoming show, I pulled into the Econolodge and asked the man behind the desk how to get my bike across the river. And he told me, a bit gruff, but nice enough.

As it turned out, I missed the show I was supposed to do by 2 hours, and the coffee shop was cleaning up.

Stuck in New London with no money, I decided to go back to the EconoLodge. Kelli had offered me over the phone to use her credit card to find a place to stay for the night. I figured I should give business to the guy who helped me get over the bridge. It was only fair.

Well, he was curious to see me pull in to his lot again around 11 pm, with my bike and guitar trailer. I presented my plight to him, that I had no cash, but a credit card. First he told me that there were no other rooms available in town, or for miles in any direction. He said I could take the Jacuzzi suite (the only room left) and he would charge me regular room price if I promised to not get into the Jacuzzi and dirty it up. Well this was fine with me, so I agreed, a little desperate for a room.

So I tell him that I have to use my girlfriend�s card, that she will call in a validate it; he was awestruck. �You just have to make it difficult, don�t you,� he said. It was impossible for him to take a credit card over the phone from a 3rd party. Completely unverifiable.

But, he said, �Since I like what you�re doing, I want to help you. Look, if you want to, you can stay on the lot. If you have a sleeping bag, and camping gear . . .� I acquiesced.

So I slept that night in the EconoLodge lawn, behind the garbage dumpsters so as to hide myself from the occupants. And because it was safer to have the consent of a landowner, I gave up trying to find a place to sleep anywhere else outdoors.

And so, for that night and the following two nights, I would come into the Econolodge around 11 pm, talk to Harry for a bit, and set up my sleeping arrangements on the lawn behind the garbage platform. And in the morning he would invite me into his room (he slept there during the day) to get a shower. I couldn�t help but enjoy it being free of charge. And no, he was not a pervert of some sort.

One night I got yelled at by a park patrol officer who told me to move over a few feet � the lines between the inn and the neighboring park were fuzzy. Another night I was wakened by a terribly huge crash, but I soon recognized it as the garbage dumpsters being picked up and dropped by a waste truck.

Harry was a kind guy, he liked talking to anyone who dropped by looking for a room, or rang his phone. He gave me a few cigarettes, hand rolled, and plenty of advice about attractions to see in Groton. There was, for instance, the Nuclear Submarine facility just down the road, that had been building and launching fully capable subs since their inception in WWI. There was a beautiful beach meeting the River Harbor as it opened up on to the Long Island Sound, that had the smallest little waves you have ever seen: only a few inches high, but completely steady and rhythmic. There was the Mystic waterfront, which I was traveling to on my second day in the area, for a show at the Green Marble Coffeehouse.

All in all Harry was friendly and helpful. We got along in some sort of intellectually present sort of way. He admired my project, and said it was like the troubadours. To which I agreed. (and also the bards, like Homer, or the blues men, like Robert Johnson, I replied).