A tall, lanky, chocolate-complexioned black man, blessed with still a full head of hair though mostly gray now and still strikingly handsome though age has claimed those facial features. His name is Richard Jamison. He is the manager slash owner of the Crimson Motel on the upper east side of Harlem, New York City, and is also employed as the night clerk. Financial times demand he occupy dual roles.
As well Jamison filled the gap as night shift maintenance worker of the motel, mainly managing the rooms. The staircase, which too many of his guest seem to utilize for their lascivious acts for some strange reason, is left for the professionals to clean that is, when he can afford them. Cleaning the rooms were for Jamison the most challenging aspect of all the other occupations he took on. Not only was he up in age, sixty six years old to be exact, but his body had seen healthier days. He was a former Marine sergeant that served two tours in Vietnam, which not only earned him a purple heart and an honorary medal of valor, but he was stricken with unfortunate side affects of absorbing dioxin, a highly toxic chemical derivative from an herbicide better known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange was used by the United States as a chemical weapon against their former Vietnamese enemies during the height of the conflict between the years 1965 and 1970. The chemical was one of a group of six defoliants known as the Rainbow Herbicides (so derived from color-coded banding on shipping drums) that were employed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of the agricultural food and plants which also provided cover to the Viet Cong. During what was dubbed Operation Trail Dust approximately 12,000,000 gallons of herbicide had been sprayed across 272,000 acres in Vietnam. Unfortunately, plants and foliage were not the pesticide's only victims. People had also become casualties, including many of America's soldiers. The diseases it causes are varied and range anywhere from acute and sub-acute peripheral Neuropathy to soft tissue sarcoma and birth defects. The Veterans Association's doctors informed Jamison that the on-again off-again numbness and tingling in his fingers, toes, hands and feet (signs of peripheral neuropathy) were just a temporary condition, due to what they preferred to term as mild exposure to Agent Orange.
That was thirty-nine years ago.
To this day Jamison still at times wonders if the doctors really knew the difference between a temporary and permanent condition, or worse, they lied. Five years after becoming a veteran of that war Jamison developed type II diabetes, which because of treatment, diet and medication has currently been under control. However, after he suspiciously took into consideration there was no history of the disease on his mother's or father's side of the families, he never indulged in excessive consumption of sugar – unless you count the alcohol (as in liquor) to sugar conversion which alone would not cause diabetes. Jamison grew apprehensive enough to hire a lawyer to look into the idea of filing a lawsuit against the government. He found an attorney; an eager, intelligent and damn good one. The case was litigated and Jamison became one of the first of many Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to chemical agents to win a claim against the government. Though his compensation was not enough to earn him a coveted position on Forbes list, it did enable him to purchase a once abandoned three story building and turn it into the Crimson Motel.
Jamison survived a war but not without affliction both physically and psychologically. Fortunately, however the experience of being exposed to so much human suffering instilled (or was it?) strengthened his sense of compassion and it was in this benevolent reasoning Jamison decided it would be better to not hire someone to work for him only to have to reverse his decision months later and let them go, because of financial circumstances beyond both their control, though he very much could use the additional help, he chose instead to struggle without it and handle what he could himself. The motel is not and never was a big money maker. It wasn't something in which he ventured to get rich. The business generated enough income to support himself, as well as another employee for the day shift. Besides, Jamison had twice gone through the experience of having to lay someone off and for him, as well as the other person, it was emotionally draining and actually pained him to the core of his soul to know that because of a critical economic decision to keep his business viable that he had no choice but to be the indirect cause of some poor individual falling on even harder financial times because of a lack of employment. With the passage of time his sensitivity in this area seemed to have increased, especially after the separation and divorce from his wife Novella of twenty years. The period that he and Novella struggled during the last ten years of their marriage, Jamison had been plagued by flashbacks for which there seemed to be no help, save prescribed drugs and text book psychological treatments that actually worsened his condition, while enriching the doctors with endless follow-up visits as well as the pharmaceutical companies with their expensive, modern day witch doctor concoctions of medications with devastating side effects. Jamison ultimately found what he felt at the time to be a less expensive treatment, at least in monetary terms, which turned out to be liquor. The false solace-in-a-bottle eventually led to an addiction that wrecked not only his marriage, but almost his business and helped to even worsen his health. It was all Novella could withstand, and he never could blame her. She dealt with the situation for as long as she possibly could, but everyone, even in love sometimes, have their limitations, especially when the other party isn't interested in reform or personal growth of which Jamison, in his ignorance and misguided desperation, was guilty. That was six years ago and Jamison's been clean ever since.
He lived solitary life now and though it's a situation in which he's still learning to navigate he nonetheless misses his beloved wife who has since moved on and remarried.
So, it was on slow, quiet nights like these that Jamison sat behind the desk in the lobby of the Crimson Motel, staring out the window that faced the street, thinking of Novella. His was not an indulgence in self-pity – he had given up that destructive activity in order to conquer his alcohol addiction. But he had also reckoned there would never be another woman that would take the place of Novella and decided that at this point and time in his life he wasn't even interested in investing the time or energy to prove otherwise. He had made peace with himself and with whatever unseen, divine power that ruled the universe and fully understood that past decisions he had made brought him to his current circumstance and for him that was acceptable even if regrettable.
Though the flat screen of a nineteen inch wall-mounted Samsung LCD television with full cable hook up was alive with action, volume low but audible, Jamison barely paid attention to it so deep were his musings. What had actually nudged him back to reality was the ring of the telephone. The call was from room 3A, a patron requesting Jamison's service of a nature not stated and which Jamison did not get a chance to ask, because the gentleman had hung up the phone before he could. Jamison checked the guests list. The room had been rented the night before last to one Gregory James. Jamison knew of course that was a fictitious name but that was not unusual. Most if not all of the clientele that visited the Crimson were a sordid array of carnal desire seekers involved in one kind of sexual indiscretion or another and as a matter of protocol always used fictitious names. Therefore, their time spent in a room usually ranged anywhere, depending upon circumstances, from thirty minutes (though the motel charged for a standard four hour minimum) to overnight. What was unusual, Jamison thought, according to the message left by the day clerk, was that this Mr. James had requested an additional day's stay. Perhaps it wasn't all that odd, but in any case it puzzled Jamison and he couldn't figure out the reason why. He remembered this Gregory James well, the hard, cold look in his eyes. Jamison recognized that look and not since fighting in the jungles of Vietnam had he been unprivileged to see it again. There was no mistaking it; he had seen it too many times on too many faces of both friend and foe – it was the chilling look of a killer and not just any killer but one that enjoyed the destruction of a human life. What he also most remembered, however, was the beautiful woman that accompanied him. She seemed to be at least ten years his junior though not adolescent, rather a blossomed woman's youthfulness.
Jamison felt she was the most gorgeous female creature he had ever seen walk through the doors of the Crimson. There was something about her that just did not fit the profile and aura of a common street whore and somehow she seemed lost… but so did most fledgling prostitutes… and that was none of his business. At first Jamison hesitated, perplexed that his hand had reached underneath the counter to retrieve his M&P .40 Caliber Smith and Wesson handgun. It was a legal firearm for personal as well as business protection. In the fourteen years that he's owned the weapon he has never had to withdraw it from its hiding place except to take it home and or clean it. He did not anticipate having to use it this evening but he just had a strong inclination to take it with him on his way to room 3A. Besides, he felt it wasn't safe to leave in the lobby without him present. It was as good a reason as any. "Best to be prepared, than regretful," Jamison whispered to no one present but himself. Not to mention that since Vietnam he had remained in the habit of following his instincts. So Jamison tucked the weapon under his shirt, secured between his pant belt and the nape of his back. It felt mildly cool against him even through his cotton undershirt. He walked to the entrance and locked the door, facing the 'To Return' sign toward the street and he headed slowly up the stairs to the third floor.
When Jamison finally finished his slow, amble climb up the stairs he was quite winded, even with the number of pauses during his ascent. Upon reaching the final landing he just stood there bent over in an effort to catch his breath until his normal breathing resumed. The third floor was much warmer than the prior floors even during the winter months. The weather was not very cool today in the city and the exertion of climbing five flights of stairs (for there were two flights on floors two and three) made the hall feel that much warmer. Jamison had never been one to perspire easily; therefore it took him longer than normal to cool off. Room 3A was down at the end of the hall, which would take Jamison all of thirty seconds to get there. He was in the habit of walking slowly in order to conserve his energy. Normally, when he climbed these stairs to clean rooms he would take his sweet time, but since the nature of this errand was a patron's request he did not want to give the impression of being dilatory. As Jamison made his way down the corridor he made a mental note of the blinking fluorescent bulb in the ceiling located in the center of the hall. A sign the bulb was nearing the end of its glowering life and would have to be changed; he wanted no grounds for a potential lawsuit were something to happen to a customer with the light out. People were more desperate than ever these days and any excuse was good enough for any two-bit lawyer looking to make a case and earn a dollar.