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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 22

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 22: There Are Many Interesting Jobs in Food Services

Terry was the busboy who trained me to be like him.  The biggest things I had to learn were:

  1. ALWAYS keep your boots clean and your shirt buttoned all the way up. That’s how people can tell you’re a servant at the King George Hotel.
  2. Keep your eyes on the floor and your dunce cap firmly on your head.
  3. Be invisible. You are nothing, get used to it.
  4. Wait till the guest is finished with a dish, then snatch it fast.
  5. Say Sir at the start and finish of anything you need to say to a freeman.
  6. Waiters are freemen. Always obey the waiter.
  7. Speak only when spoken to. If you start talking, you will be punished.
  8. If you take a tip, you will be punished.
  9. If you violate any rule, you will be punished.
  10. If anybody thinks you violated a rule, you will be punished.
  11. Any food remaining on a plate and any liquor remaining in a glass will be reported to Ned, the boss slap in the kitchen, for recycling to the basement.

And number 12:  Be grateful that you’ve got this job.  A lot of slappies don’t have it so good.

Continue reading Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 22 →

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 21

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 21:  Spare the Rod and Spoil the Slappie

Then came the day when I returned to the housekeeping room on the fifth floor, and my hand couldn’t find the stash I’d hidden behind the wallboard.  I knew I was in bad trouble.  I was scared to even look at my other hiding places.  At the end of my shift, I found Boss Derek waiting for me at his desk.  Seated behind that old dinged-up piece of discarded furniture, wearing his brown slappie suit with his hotel tag dangling from his collar, he looked like a total putz, despite the distinguished haircut.  But he also had total power.

“Found this,” he said, opening a drawer, pulling out a wad of cash and laying it on the desk.

“What’s that?” I said.  It was just a formality.  I knew I was caught.

“Don’t waste my time,” he said, putting the wad back in his drawer.  I could imagine what was going to happen to that.  That and all the other stuff he’d found, exactly where he knew it was.  His snitches would have seen to that.  It would be pointless to bring up all the bills I’d passed up the chain to him.  He wouldn’t bother to deny it.  It was clear that somewhere I’d crossed a line.  No matter how much he’d made from me, I’d gotten too big.  I’d have to be made small.  And being a sadist is entertaining in itself.  “Hit the Frame,” he said.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 20

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 20: Opportunities for Success in Uniformed Service

I’m leaving out a lot of stuff about the “guests.”  The kids that trip you in the hall.  The people that open their doors and see you and squirm and slither away as far as they can get, hoping not to catch your disease.  The old gentlemen who like to tell you jokes.  “Hey boy—how many slappies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  Don’t know?  Well, what DO you know?  Ha ha ha ha ha!  I heard that one on the tour today.”  The young ladies who check in for their bachelorette party, four to a room, and totter off to shop for their bridesmaids’ dresses, leaving their puke on the couch.  The boyfriends muscling them past the ugly slappies that would otherwise want to rape them.  The annual guests who’ve learned that if Housekeeping turns up at an inconvenient time they can always say “Corner,” and the slap will have to find the nearest one and stand there facing it until the guests are ready to leave their room.

It was good that during those first days I had Dave to keep me standing at attention with my hands behind my back, anytime there might be trouble.  And to teach me a lot more things than how to change a hotel bed.  He went way beyond what hotel management calls Guest Relations.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 19

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 19: Headgear that Says It All

Twenty slaps can make a huge racket when they’re reluctantly waking up, and that’s what was happening next morning, when my shift was getting ready to start.  They were rushing around in their undershorts, pissing and shitting, washing their faces and pits, and taking the hair off their faces with the little electric razors attached to the wall next to the john.  A quick jump into uniform, and at 5 am sharp (!) one of the security slaps unlocked the door of the barracks.  Everybody piled out.  Oatmeal and sausage and coffee were hitting the table.  The oatmeal was sticky and cold, and the sausage was mainly grease, but the coffee had such a kick that right away you were completely awake.  Then a door opened, stools scrunched back, and we lined up for Boss Derek’s inspection.  “Lace up those boots.”  “Yes boss.”  “Use the comb.”  “Yes boss.”  “Button that shirt, all the way up–where do you think you’re working?”  “Yes boss, ver’ sorry boss.”  “Lose that attitude.”  “Yes boss, ver’ ver’ sorry boss.”  Having readied us for the rest of our day, he sat down at his desk, and a security slap unlocked the big barred door at the end of the room.

“Follow me,” Dave said. “I’m you trainer.”

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 18

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 18:  The Best Place to Get Boeuf Bourguignon

Did you ever stand around naked?  Just stand around?  You shift from one foot to another.  You cover your nuts.  Then you uncover them, just for the hell of it.  Because you’re bored.  Bored and anxious.  You look around at the uniform stacks of uniforms.  You smell the ink as Dev rubs it over a stencil and into your clothes, turning anonymous pieces of cloth into YOUR shirt, the shirt of Tommy, slap number 21338.  First the front of the shirt, left pec; then the back of the shirt, between the shoulder blades.  Then the shorts, right thigh, left butt.  Then the underwear, right thigh, left butt.  Your boots too–21338, left side of your left boot, right side of your right boot.  And the cap.  There was room for your number on the back of your cap.  Dev was a perfectionist, so it took more than 20 minutes.

“Yeah,” he was saying, holding up a shirt to inspect his work, “like we say, they be seein you comin an goin!  Same with you shorts.  They watchin you dick, then they watchin you ass.  They wanta SEE whose ass it is.  You jus’ off thee slap farm, so you doan know.  So I’m tellin.  The freemen LOVE to look at us.  Not kiddin!  Even if you are like . . . older.”  Meaning me.  “These women jus love to flirt with you.  These men too!  Course you best not try any follow up.  Least so somebody find out.  Somebody in Crew 7.”

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 17

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 17: Preparing for Your New Career in the Hospitality Sector

Two tall young slappies jumped out of the van.  One opened the door for Mr. Williams; the other took charge of Kristian and me.

We were told to face the van, and we heard our shackles being unlocked and falling onto the concrete.  Then we heard, “OK, I be gettin you in now.”  “In” meant the luggage compartment—a windowless steel box with a tiny grille through which we glimpsed, for a moment, the luxurious compartment where Mr. Williams was now positioning himself amid pale green leather upholstery.  In the luggage compartment there were hooks on each side, up near the top, to secure any cargo that might get loose.  But now we were the cargo, and we were attached to the hooks by our cuffs.  A few moments were required for the slappie to push us into place, facing each other; then the hooks clicked shut, the door slammed, the slappie’s heavy boots pounded their way to the driver’s compartment, and the delivery van was in motion.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 16

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 16: Establishing Your True Worth

There were bets about how quick Yash would go, and the ones that bet on his thirty-first day in the Coop were right.  I took longer.  Lots longer.  By the time I went to the Room, I was the longest-running slap in the Coop.  But just when I thought I was lost in the system, the boss grabbed me out of the line leaving the chow hall and told me to “stand aside.”  “Aside” was a collection of three slappies–me, a 20-something named Kristian that had been vacationing from Sweden and had suddenly discovered that coke was not allowed on St. Bevons Island, and a young local named Marco, a “rude boy” that had got himself “sent down thee road” to Slappieville.   Marco was a kid, 18 or 19, whose eyes kept roving back and forth like he expected someone to kill him.  Kristian was tall and his stubble was blond, but he was skinny and somehow professorial.  Even after his weeks in Slaptown, he was still looking around him in a bewildered way, like he’d lost his glasses or his cellphone.

The Boss led us to the Intake shack, where Jojo and Malcolm gave us a shower and a new set of browns and boots.  “Lookin you best for thee Man” was Jojo’s comment.  “No haircut?” I said.  “No mon, that stubble you got is you best feature mon.”  When they were finished, they shackled our legs and cuffed our hands in front of us.  Then they locked our cuffs to a chain.  An officer came by, grunted something at the trusties, gripped the end of the chain, and gave it a tug.  We shuffled forward.  “You’re on your way to the Show Room,” he said.  Like we wouldn’t have guessed.  But that was that.  No long goodbyes.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 15

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 15: Crime and Punishment

Here’s the way it was.  Every new slap had to spend at least 30 days being “trained.”  The idea was that if you spend 30 days in the Chicken Coop, you find out what you are, an you be a good slappie, resta you life.  “Good” meaning all slappie and nothing else.  After that, the Program looked around for somebody to sell you to—I mean, somebody to take a lease on your labor service.  Every few days, clients were invited to the Show Room and slap boys were displayed.

Sometime in my distant past, Major Timmons had explained it all.  Then it had seemed less personal—much less personal than when it was discussed in the Scrum Room.

“They even got a catlog, dude.  They be seein YOU, an you bare ASS, right in they laptop dude.”

“While they jerkin, I guess.”

“They jerkin for ME, anyways.  Doan know for you, dude.”

When you were sold, you left the Coop and you were never seen again, unless you turned up working down the block from some other slap that trained with you.  Then maybe you would meet him and share your happy memories.

Continue reading Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 15 →