other’s families, told stories about other conventions, exchanged gossip about who was going to be promoted and who was on his way out.
The hospitality suites were muted with a recuperative quiet, the stains removed, the liquor replenished. Of seven hundred delegates, perhaps three hundred would sleep until noon, and there was another much smaller group which was still out somewhere in the city, their hotel beds unused. Hangovers ranged from mild dull headaches to repetitive, uncontrollable nausea.
There was a constant trickling traffic through the exhibit ramp. Delegates picked up brochures and pamphlets, accumulating bright glossy assorted stacks which would clutter a bureau top for several days and then be dropped in the room wastebasket at the time of packing. At the AGM display, Bunny and Honey, in starchy, brief little cotton sunsuits, wriggled, pranced, smirked, passed out the literature, activated the displays, chanted the memorized answers to anticipated questions and, from time to time, when a group of at least ten had accumulated around the display, they would go into the routine, much like a prolonged television commercial, which Tommy Carmer had made them learn.
Several of the corporations, including AGM, had rented pool area cabanas for the duration of the convention. These were the gathering places for the rather small contingent of wives of delegates. They lay on the casually grouped chaises, greased themselves constantly, gossiped, practiced corporate gamesmanship, ordered tall rum drinks and made agonizing decisions about what to do with the rest of the day—such as to go shopping or take a nap or play cards.
Amid the forenoon silences on the third floor, north wing, several salesmen of a company which makes large industrial pumps, were in danger of strangling on their own attempts to laugh without making a sound while they played an innocentgame on one of their shyer associates. They stood outside the door of the company suite looking along forty feet of corridor to where the most inveterate practical joker of the group stood, tensed and furtive, within reach of one of the big aluminum housekeeping carts. The cart stood outside one of the rooms. The door of the room was ajar. At intervals of almost a minute, the joker would reach out, grasp the pull-bar of the cart and shake it, so that the soiled glasses and the containers of cleaning materials would jingle and clatter. Each time he did so, the observers would clutch each other and make small groaning sounds as they tried to stifle their intense amusement.
Earlier that morning, an enterprising one in the group had discovered that the maid for that end of the corridor was available for special service, at ten dollars a throw. She had obliged the others of the group in turn, all except the shy one. The romantic aspects of it left something to be desired. She was a tall Austrian girl with ginger hair, a sharp nose, bulging blue eyes, a turkey neck, a heavy accent, meager breasts and round heavy hips.
There were rules to be obeyed, ja? The door, it has to be open. The cart, it must be outside door always. And the cleaning schedule, it must be kept, ja?
After she had decided to take the risk of a multiple income, she had stowed her panties under the stack of clean towels on the housekeeping cart. She was too much in terror of the housekeeper to risk removing her gray and white nylon uniform. So she hitched it high, and performed with a strenuousness partially motivated by panic, and kept her eye on the room door at all times.
They had, with difficulty, talked the shy one into taking his turn. He had been very dubious about the open door.
Suddenly the joker tensed, whirled and came sprinting soundlessly along the corridor. The five salesmen erupted into the suite, gasping, hugging themselves. The joker, eyes streaming, said, “She … she cussed him out in kraut … and she … she said she couldn’t waste … any more time. Shh, you guys.
The hospitality suites were muted with a recuperative quiet, the stains removed, the liquor replenished. Of seven hundred delegates, perhaps three hundred would sleep until noon, and there was another much smaller group which was still out somewhere in the city, their hotel beds unused. Hangovers ranged from mild dull headaches to repetitive, uncontrollable nausea.
There was a constant trickling traffic through the exhibit ramp. Delegates picked up brochures and pamphlets, accumulating bright glossy assorted stacks which would clutter a bureau top for several days and then be dropped in the room wastebasket at the time of packing. At the AGM display, Bunny and Honey, in starchy, brief little cotton sunsuits, wriggled, pranced, smirked, passed out the literature, activated the displays, chanted the memorized answers to anticipated questions and, from time to time, when a group of at least ten had accumulated around the display, they would go into the routine, much like a prolonged television commercial, which Tommy Carmer had made them learn.
Several of the corporations, including AGM, had rented pool area cabanas for the duration of the convention. These were the gathering places for the rather small contingent of wives of delegates. They lay on the casually grouped chaises, greased themselves constantly, gossiped, practiced corporate gamesmanship, ordered tall rum drinks and made agonizing decisions about what to do with the rest of the day—such as to go shopping or take a nap or play cards.
Amid the forenoon silences on the third floor, north wing, several salesmen of a company which makes large industrial pumps, were in danger of strangling on their own attempts to laugh without making a sound while they played an innocentgame on one of their shyer associates. They stood outside the door of the company suite looking along forty feet of corridor to where the most inveterate practical joker of the group stood, tensed and furtive, within reach of one of the big aluminum housekeeping carts. The cart stood outside one of the rooms. The door of the room was ajar. At intervals of almost a minute, the joker would reach out, grasp the pull-bar of the cart and shake it, so that the soiled glasses and the containers of cleaning materials would jingle and clatter. Each time he did so, the observers would clutch each other and make small groaning sounds as they tried to stifle their intense amusement.
Earlier that morning, an enterprising one in the group had discovered that the maid for that end of the corridor was available for special service, at ten dollars a throw. She had obliged the others of the group in turn, all except the shy one. The romantic aspects of it left something to be desired. She was a tall Austrian girl with ginger hair, a sharp nose, bulging blue eyes, a turkey neck, a heavy accent, meager breasts and round heavy hips.
There were rules to be obeyed, ja? The door, it has to be open. The cart, it must be outside door always. And the cleaning schedule, it must be kept, ja?
After she had decided to take the risk of a multiple income, she had stowed her panties under the stack of clean towels on the housekeeping cart. She was too much in terror of the housekeeper to risk removing her gray and white nylon uniform. So she hitched it high, and performed with a strenuousness partially motivated by panic, and kept her eye on the room door at all times.
They had, with difficulty, talked the shy one into taking his turn. He had been very dubious about the open door.
Suddenly the joker tensed, whirled and came sprinting soundlessly along the corridor. The five salesmen erupted into the suite, gasping, hugging themselves. The joker, eyes streaming, said, “She … she cussed him out in kraut … and she … she said she couldn’t waste … any more time. Shh, you guys.
Similar Books
