Concerning the Hotel, And What Transpires There

    Hoell slept in a bare-wall flat outside he hotel fire-escape, flashing promise of Vacancy and sounds of the street below unhindered by thin plaster walls. It was at the end of an easement guarded by a shower of sparks from an elevated train bouncing in the oily water. Homeless fires sparkled faintly along the embankment, sure to be evicted by passing police or railroad bulls, but for now a moment of sanctuary.
  A passing train slowly shrieked and groaned its way overhead, hissing fumes into the musty trail of the night. Hoell dodged a resonating pool at the foot of the trestle, giving the shadows a wide berth. Some of the unfortunates calling this place home could be desperate. Be careless, and you might find the Houngan calling you up from a premature burial.
  The hotel steps might once have been nacre marble, now worn down ambergris and furrowed, supported by a rusted iron railing like an octogenarian couple aiding each other down the street. Wan florescent lights drew the decay of the floor tile to the eye like dross. Rip Van Winkle at the desk wouldn't have offered any messages had Hoell been expecting them. He passed the lobby by and started to the second floor. He didn't see the ghost boy until he stood from one of the fraying lobby chairs.
  Jean Lafitte from the blue club, hair stringy and limp. Hoell thought he was called Keyes, a sort of courier for Whitechapel and other unsavory task masters in the city. Wandered down here years ago, castaway from another life hoping to taste a little sample of darkness and was soon swallowed.
  His face showed no betrayal of thought or emotion. He just reached an arm out, palm open to the ceiling. Hoell felt pulse pounding in his ears. He shook his head, and then for good measure raised a middle finger. The ghost boy was unmoved. Hoell continued up the stairs.
  He locked the door, deadbolt and slide chain, and jerked the stained curtain over the window. Discotheque colors bled through and blended on the wall. Hoell turned on a cathedral RCA that looked dredged from the waste bin and sat in a spliced wooden chair as the tubes warmed. Eventually tinny notes began to fill the room.
  Years ago, before the Fall, when the whiskey and music were still flowing through his fingers, Hoell had ended up by the riverfront, and while revelry swirled about him found himself drawn to a dark storefront. On a whim he entered, and had the cards line up to pluck his fate from the uncertain. He asked what he was not doing. She told him power and dreams would fall to him. They would angle through his hands.
  He looked at them now, dirty and scarred as a corollary of forgotten dreams and magic, twitching palsy-like to phantom notes and arpeggios that would never exist. Streams and tributaries of that great river lost without a moment of notice.
  To be notice by Music is to swim against current, struggle to be met with the flow of grace channeled through your fingers, fight against the bitter world. When you tire, you're swept away with scarcely a memory remaining. A bucket drawn from the well.
  The radio scratched out Louie scatting Stardust. Eventually, Hoell fell asleep in the chair.