“Yotel” (short story)

Before all the other high-rises appeared, there was mine. 

I enjoyed a full view of downtown Manhattan through my bedroom window. One steel-framed, glass leviathan at a time, my precious view was chipped away at until all that remained were the grey hindquarters of the Intrepid and a tenebrous sliver of the Hudson. When the Intrepid creaked its way to France for refurbishment, the guests I occasionally entertained were left with no scenery to compliment but this unsightly shard of river. Their compliments quickly began to feel strained: “You can even see a bit of Jersey on the far-shore!” or “What a nice little slice of history!” And so on. I wished, just once, someone would come out and say it: “You know, this just isn’t what it used to be.”  I would have agreed solemnly, relished the opportunity to voice my disdain for the goliath invaders. Moreover, I would’ve disclosed to this frank comrade my particular disdain for the buildings that stood directly across the street: The Mid-Town Yotel, and its residential counterpart, Mima. The hotel and residential building comprised the MIMA Complex and at 33, and 63 floors respectively, they erased all but the crest of the Freedom Tower from my view. 

For a number of reasons, I disliked the Yotel more. 

Firstly, though the hotel was smaller than Mima, it was just shy of being small enough. From my view at 26 floors, I watched it grow from its humble beginnings over the span of four years. My view remained more or less intact up until the last few months of construction. As the building rose, I tried to set telekinetic barriers into place by holding my forearm over its shape, wishing my willpower were sufficient to suppress its growth. My hope was much like that of a second-class bowler, hoping his errantly tossed ball will somehow sense that he is avidly pawing the air in the direction that the ball ought to go. Just as in the case of this clumsy pseudo-athlete, my efforts were for naught. I watched as the hardhats climbed dumbly, resolutely right through my imagined barriers, wiping out the far reaches of lower Manhattan from view. When, at last, I gave up all hope, they stopped building.  

The 669 rooms they built were constructed as suites, luxury cabins, and primarily: “pods.” Pods consisted of little more than a work-desk, a lamp, and a bed, and were advertised as inexpensive, practical lodgings in the vicinity of Times Square. I was made aware of these details when a small, glossy card was slipped surreptitiously under my door –and presumably all my neighbors’ doors– during the early stages of construction, informing me that it was in my best interest to “learn about my new neighbors!” When I read about pods, I could imagine them only as high-altitude coffins, and their inhabitants as undead entities, gliding into the hotel lobby as daylight approached. 

There is another reason that I disliked Yotel but it requires a lengthier explanation. I’ll begin by saying that the building’s designers seemed to care very little for privacy. I could make out most rooms through their large, indiscreetly placed windows and, in the case of Yotel’s Premium Queen suites: through walls made entirely of glass. As long-term residents, those staying in Mima adapted to the lack of privacy, behaving accordingly tame when in the vicinity of windows. The transient Yotelians, on the other hand, never quite had time to catch on. They would lose themselves in the throes of tourism, and forget that as they were looking out at New York, New York was looking back at them in their brightly lit, ergonomic sarcophagi. Often, they could be seen traipsing around their rooms in various states of undress, examining their crotches, and dancing the way they did when they thought no one was looking.  

My frustration emerged, not from their indiscretion (who was I, as an aging bachelor, to complain of it?) but from the casualness and monotony with which they went about it. Having always felt a bent toward Hitchcock’s work, in particular Rear Window, and the voyeuristic subgenre it sat within, meant that I had learned some things about the way the observed are inclined to behave. I knew, or thought I knew, for instance, that when people congregate, disrobe, or simply exist within the field of vision of an unseen watcher, significant events will inevitably ensue. 

The reality was that Yotel was a very bland place. Instead of seeing a murder, or a grand theft, or two beautiful youths indulging latent sexual desires, I’d look out and see a man and woman reclining side by side in bed, staring intently at a computer screen. No one ever seemed to be secreting away mysterious packages in the middle of the night, nor did any supermodels spend the day publicly practicing their gymnastics. I implemented what the cinema had informed me was a catalyst of sorts, thrusting a pair of binoculars to my eyes at the slightest sign of bared skin, the sinister glint of a blade, a bundle of a questionable shape. But, without fail, my focal point would reveal itself as nothing more than a naked shin, an oddly angled forearm, a bag of gutted luggage. My expectations for drama, spurred higher by my preconceived notion of Yotel’s guests as supernatural, went perpetually unmet, and yet somehow failed to diminish. 

On August 30th I was inside enjoying a respite from the weighty, oppressive heat of summer in Manhattan. It was the last weekend before I returned to my job as a professor at Vassar College, and as the crosswalk between campus and home-life narrowed, the pressure to make good use of my downtime intensified. I wanted to do something significant. Pressing a palm against my bedroom window, I gazed out, my eyes on a group of girls unpacking their luggage in Yotel. One strode to the window, and pulled down the shade. Directly above them, three elderly women were dancing. Two windows to the right of the dance party, a young, handsome couple had just materialized. 

I grabbed hold of my binoculars upon seeing this couple. As I fidgeted with the focus, the rim digging into my brow, I felt a rush of adrenaline. It was that unnamable intuition that the figures before me were going to do something worth watching. In my excitement to bring the couple into clarity, I scraped my finger on the ridged focus-disc of my binoculars. What came into view as I sucked my finger, however, frightened me, engendered palpitations of a more uncanny variety. 

The man in Yotel was looking directly at me through his own pair of binoculars.

As has become my habit when I am discovered, I promptly ducked beneath the windowsill. I acknowledge how purposeless and juvenile this reflex is (as if my disappearing for the instant might erase the whole occurrence!) but I’ve concluded that this is the best and only course of action if one wishes to cling to the slight possibility of remaining unseen.  I waited for a few moments in a crouch, panting, considering how possible it would be for this man to count the floors up to my terrace and phone the police, before I moved up a few inches and once again raised my binoculars.  

I was able to comprehend what I saw next only because of my many months of surveillance. Through the repetition of my nightly ritual, I’d learned how different parts of a Yotelian appear when the rest of his or her body is not apparent, which is to say: cut off by the limitations of their window, or mine. For instance, I knew that two small blobs of peach, suspended in space in the bottom left corner of one of the pods, nine times out of ten, were nothing more than bared feet, dangling off the end of the bed, implying a supine Yotelian.

Ergo, I could discern, fairly quickly, when I laid eyes on the small smear of black hovering at the bottom of the Yotel windowsill in question, that I was looking at the top of the man’s head. I could make out that he was still gazing through his own pair of binoculars. I briefly studied the woman in the room beside him. She had not moved. She was gazing in my direction. The man and I remained crouched for a moment. Then we both stood up. I extended my right arm and he promptly mimicked the action. Only, mimic isn’t the right word. Mimic implies that there was some delay between action and duplication. In reality, this man seemed to pre-empt my movement, beginning the motion of his shoulder at the exact same moment I did, our binoculars dutifully at our respective brows the whole while. I placed my hand on my head. So did he. I made a fist. His was clenched. I dropped my pair of binoculars and began a crazed set of jumping jacks, which, a naked-eyed glance confirmed, he was engaged in as well. I stopped my hectic exercise and retrieved my binoculars. It was at that point that it became abundantly clear to me what had happened. For months, without knowing the exact nature of what I was after, I’d been hungering for just such an eventuality. 

This man was not mimicking. Quite on the contrary, his actions were no longer his own to decide. Some enigmatic agents of fate must have conferred and decided, in light of my daily urgings, that it was time for the Yotelians to become as entertaining as I’d hoped. Actually, this cosmic jury must’ve gone a step further. They’d offered up this man as a pawn on their great, unfathomable chessboard. They’d forked over, to direct as I pleased, an actor in the greatest show on Earth. I knew, as the man and I readjusted focus in perfect synchrony, that I would no longer have to sit idly by as Yotel’s guests drifted in and out of sight, wisely and frustratingly remembering to close the shades before doing anything worth seeing. As this idea took shape in my mind, I felt its correctness in my body. I could feel the shape of the man’s mass as I manipulated it, shifting its weight, flexing its fingers, shuffling its feet; it followed along with the flawlessness of a dancer. 

It didn’t take long to master this game. 

I found, with a little experimenting, that I could control the man’s movements without enacting them myself– merely thinking what I wanted him to do, and making simple motions with my fingers would do the trick. I embraced this new, efficient system and made a jabbing motion with my index and middle finger. In this way, I turned the man’s body around. By rotating my wrist, I was able to use his hand to brush a strand of the woman’s hair behind her ear. I felt the curious, intuitive sensation of my power expanding. I stared at her intently. With a momentary exertion and a soft, psychic pop, I found I could control her too. My face split in a grin. At this point, a more respectable voyeur might have stepped back for a moment and allowed for some introspection, some evaluation of the recent and notable developments. I must admit I let myself be tugged forward by the riptide. It was simply too tempting. I saw no reason for delay. I promptly made the woman step forward, kiss the man’s neck, and unbuckle his belt. I hope no reader will judge too harshly when I reveal that I manipulated these two actors until they were both in their undergarments. As easily as I might pick up and bite into an apple on my dining table, I used the man’s hands to grab hold of her slender shoulders, and work his jaw softly into the nape of her neck. Her fingers, I sent sliding down his chest and into his briefs. 

I was so scarcely aware of my actions at the time, so caught up in a haze of vindictive pleasure, that I wouldn’t be surprised to discover my account is not altogether accurate, or rather, that there are some details I’ve failed to retain. What I did next was force her to unclasp her bra. After I used his hands to push her backward onto the bed, I had him remove her underwear. I rolled the two of them to the floor, and, in an explosion of telekinetic energy, forced him inside her. As I pumped his body into hers, I vaguely wondered if any of my neighbors happened to be glancing out their windows.

Your vigilant narrator stayed at the windowsill for quite some while, glowing with the delight all lofty authorities must feel as they watch their orders being carried out. Before long, I started to feel my power expanding again. I grew steadily aware of my link to the other guest’s in the hotel, as well as to the hotel itself. With an upraised palm, I sent all the shades of Yotel flying upward. Though many of the revealed guests made attempts to lower the shades, I delightfully disallowed their actions with a twist of my ring finger. In each actor I controlled –and there were quite a number of them– I felt a twinge of consciousness beating tiny fists against the vice-grip of my power. I quelled these miniscule uprisings with little to no energy, growing evermore confident that my new power was as supreme as it was inexplicable. I decided to have some more fun.

I sent the trio of elderly dancing women on a rampage, using their fragile limbs to destroy their hotel room. Eight floors above this chaos, I’d uncovered a man taking a shower, whom I forced to consume a bottle of shampoo. In no time at all, I’d sent the concierge caterwauling down the hallway, decimated the sewage system, and compiled an orgy from the guest’s of the 19th, 20th, and 21st floors. 

During those initial moments of omnipotence, all the frustration I’d faced in my steadfast, unsated voyeurism, all the times I’d cursed residents for being unaware enough to brush their teeth in the nude, but never unaware enough to copulate within my field of vision, oblivious enough to gyrate in front of a mirror, but never interesting enough to stab, bludgeon, poison, or otherwise harm one another, all of that frustration transmutated into a rabid display of vengeful power. I’d go into further detail about the depraved acts I had the guests of Yotel perform that night but I’m sure it’s not difficult to imagine. 

I had just caused two women on the housecleaning staff to knock over a vending machine and smack a businessman with the ensuing flood of soda bottles, when there was a knock at my door. I was momentarily jolted out of my game, and as I was, I felt the collective consciousness of Yotel slip free of my grasp, rubbing its puerile eyes, as though emerging from a drunken reverie. I raised my palm in Yotel’s direction and reclaimed control, paralyzing each guest where he or she stood.  Then I left my bedroom and went to the front door. 

“Who is it?”

“Hey, it’s Ava, your neighbor from down the hall.”

I unlatched the door and pulled it open. She wore a purple robe, her brown hair tied up in a messy bun. My neighbor was the sort of young and beautiful that had seemed beyond reach since my twenties. “Hi. Do you think I could borrow your laundry key? I locked myself out of the laundry room,” she said. I smiled inwardly that she could be so ignorant of my new status. Didn’t she know with whom she was dealing? 

“Of course. You can come in, I just have to fetch it from my bag,” I told her. She entered my apartment and sat down on the couch, saying:

“Awesome. Thanks so much, I would use a laundry room on another floor but I just put my clothing in.” 

“Can I get you something to drink first?”

“No, just the key. Thank you though,” she said, touching her neck. 

I walked into my bedroom and looked out the window. All of the guests of Yotel were frozen, just as I had left them. I fished my laundry key out of my bag and was about to round the corner into the living room when I caught sight of Ava in the mirror, her slender legs spilling out of her robe. It was time for some more games. 

I raised my hand towards her reflection and twitched my index finger while thinking the words take your robe off. Nothing happened. I scratched my chin, reasoning that the mirror might be diluting my power in some way. I walked into the living room and wiggled my index finger in Ava’s direction.

“You find it?” she said, rising. 

“Take your robe off,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Take…” I gestured wildly with my hand, and when that failed, mimed taking a robe off my own body. Her eyes stretched wide. 

“You know what, forget the key.” She shot towards the door, her arms crossed in front of her. I groped around with my psyche, searching for the telekinetic reigns I’d so easily used to manipulate the Yotelians.

“Ava, I command you to come back!” but with a venomous “creep!” she was out the door. I watched it slam shut. 

Dejected, I returned to my bedroom and looked out of my window, gazing evenly at my paralyzed antfarm. I unfroze the Yotelians, and had them resume their various forms of bedlam. But it wasn’t the same. I was unable to return to the giddy excitement I’d so recently felt within myself. Ava’s arrival had made clear the absurdity, and frivolity of my power. Yotel was too small. What use were my abilities if they were limited to the confines of a single hotel? 

I reasoned that Ava might be the exception, might have some rare immunity to my powers, while others would be as susceptible as my Yotelians, regardless of their location. Or else, perhaps, my control of Ava had been impeded by the fact that we’d both been in my apartment? I decided to take to the streets to find out for sure. Not bothering to change out of my flannel pajamas, I descended the 26 floors solitarily, and stepped out into the night. 

The man behind the counter at the deli was equally as unfazed by my gesturing as Ava had been. He stared blankly at me when I demanded that he hand over all his packs of cigarettes and when I started doing an impression of someone taking money out of a cash register, he told me to “get the fuck out, crazy.” I did. 

It struck me, as I returned the street, that distance might just be the key variable. Perhaps my powers required that there be space in between my subjects and me? Granted– not the conclusion I’d initially hoped for, but a notion of some small solace to a very befuddled man.  To test my theory, I stood on the corner of 43rd and 9th, and, having caught sight of a gaggle of girls crossing 41st, I snapped my fingers, while thinking the word scream.  One of the girls let loose a whoop of joy. I momentarily glowed with satisfaction. After several follow-up gestures, I discovered, however, that coincidence had made a fool of me. These girls were no more under my control than the lovely Ava.   

Meanwhile, a tourist couple nearby had begun giggling and pointing in my direction. I seethed for a couple of minutes before deciding to flip them off. But by then they were too busy to notice; they’d become rapt by a pair of police-cruisers whizzing by. How interesting life would be if seeing a New York cop car were all it took to dazzle me. Despite myself, I kept an eye on the cruisers as they passed. I realized, as the cars rounded the corner of 42nd and pulled up alongside the façade of Yotel, that I’d left the Yotelians to their own devices when I’d exited my apartment. While searching for new subjects, I’d forgotten to keep an eye on those I’d already conquered. One, or likely many of them, must’ve scrambled to the phone and dialed those fateful three digits. My mind involuntarily flashed back to the day the students in my English lit class mutinously confronted me about my syllabus, which they said was “tedious, pretentious, and full of old white men,” and vowed to get me fired.  Their impunity was the same I was now dealing with, that of pathetic inferiors thinking they knew best. I’d show them all right.

I bolted towards 42nd, and as I did I watched two policemen exit their car. The sounds of the city became distorted as I ran, the wind filling my ears, melding together with the dogs, and the cars, and the litany of homeless men. The policemen entered the lobby of Yotel just as I was crossing the street.  Slowing my pace so as not to arouse suspicion, I planted myself about 15 feet from Yotel’s entrance while I assessed the situation. 

What had my tiny, confounded subjects done? What did they know of their master?

Before taking any other action, I decided it’d be prudent to return my awareness to the guests I’d so recently abandoned.  Flattening my body into the outside wall of Yotel, I reached outward with my mind and grabbed hold of the guests (for the last time, I would later realize), and felt the whirling cloud of their memories. I plunged into it and saw a scene play out from the perspective of one of the guests, I estimate from no more than two minutes in the past. Three or four Yotelians were gathered around the concierge’s desk, speaking rapidly in to a telephone. Their clothing was torn and they were drenched in sweat and sprinkler water.

“–Like a pair of hands pulling me by the spine,” one was saying. 

“The room went haywire. My shades flew up and I think my bedding tried to suffocate me,” said another.

“I’m so scared.” 

I drifted from this memory into the fogs of a preternatural plane, and discovered, as I did, that my power had evolved still more. If I willed it to be so, I could see every Yotelian in vivid color. Not just in memory but as they existed in that very moment. In fact, I could see every person to enter the lobby of Yotel, guest or not, as if my eyes were wired in to security cameras on every floor of the hotel. 

As soon as the policeman entered the building, they were mine. 

So as to give all my attention to the incoming officers, I once again paralyzed all of the other guests of Yotel. For my own amusement, I pressed on their frozen spines so that they were forced to lie flat on one surface or another. I whispered to them gently, lulling their collective conscious into a dreamlike stupor. The stage was set.

  In the lobby of Yotel, over a battlefield a comatose bodies, I mentally seized the flabbergasted newcomers, and pitched them into an all-out brawl against one another. Cop number one was smaller and faster, but even with his dexterous feet, all it took was one well-placed uppercut from the robust cop number two to send him flying into the concierge desk. His neck broke with a snap. I forced cop number two to run full throttle into the elevator door. He crumpled to the ground. Now all my children were asleep. 

I returned to my body and opened my eyes to see the second pair of policemen standing in front of their car. They were both eying Yotel warily and one was talking rapidly into the intercom of the car. It made me uneasy. An ineffectual turn of my palm confirmed that they, as members of the outside world, were still free of my control. 

  I figured I could let the inevitable happen and take control of these two officers once they walked into the hotel, but I was pretty confident the policeman on the intercom was calling for backup. How many outside threats was I willing to absorb tonight? My powers were new to me, but even having possessed them for just a few hours, I knew public attention was not my ally. Having the entire NYPD infiltrate my funhouse was not my idea of discretion. 

The sad, weakling professor I’d been just hours before would never have done what I did next. But I needed to take action. I snuck up behind the officers, who were still transfixed by the hotel before them, and knocked the intercom to the ground. I smashed it under my heel and fled, the officers in enraged pursuit. I led them up the steps of Yotel’s entryway. Basking in the glory of my dominion, celebrating my arrival at the heart of my hive, I passed through the doors of Yotel.