Marie was in her late twenties and a housekeeper in a downtown Denver hotel. She was 7 1/2 months pregnant but because she was physically fit, no one could tell by looking at her. Occasionally she threw up after lunch and sometimes she looked a little green, but still she managed to hold onto her job.
The hotel was one of those plush, posh, pizazz polished hotels catering to mostly celebrities, rich folks, kings, and queens type people. It employed seven housekeepers during the day and six at night and occasionally somebody filled in for somebody else. Regardless, there was a housekeeper 24 hours a day.
Marie was popular and shifts were easy to change if she needed a break.
So now, Tyrese also in his late twenties lived with his mama, and he didn’t work, go to school or nothing. One day his mother put her foot down and said, “Either you get out of here and do something constructive, find work, go to school, mow a lawn for goodness sake, or you find somewhere else to loaf around.”
This was it! He knew she wasn’t playing because hints had been flying for months and well, he knew he had to change his ways if he wanted to remain in the comforts of his mama’s house, sleep in his own bed and eat his mama’s cooking.
Tyrese knew thugs, mostly drug dealers. To live with any of them was not what he wanted so he pulled out his one suit, his red socks, his Sunday shoes, his white shirt, his blue tie with diamond shapes and he went downtown looking for work.
The hotel was his last stop before lunch, and it was on a whim for him to ask about a job parking cars. He even told them, “I will even carry bags.” The front desk lady was excited to see a fresh face and immediately called the hotel employment office and put in a good word for Tyrese.
He interviewed and started work the very next morning. He was officially a hotel parking attendant. Plus, he was the only person working the 3 to 11am shift. At first, he said, “Naw, nobody needs parking at 3am”. But it was a job!
He was there on time and dressed in the uniform which the hotel furnished. He clocked in and his first car was a limo with twelve people getting out. The driver gave him a 100-dollar bill and told him to put the car somewhere safe. Tyrese almost fainted. It was perfect! Here he was, a parking attendant for this plush, posh hotel. He thought to himself that if it kept up like this, he was going to be all right. That shift netted him eight hundred dollars on his first morning and the cars he parked could make you swoon.
During his first six months, he was excited every morning and eager to get there because he met some famous fabulous people. His tips equaled three times the salary of working for a burger joint. Sometimes, tips would just flow hour to hour, and it was all his. He now had money in the bank, some of it went to his mama and he was doing all right, but of course, doing all right makes you want to do better than all right.
In his tenth month of working at the plush posh hotel, Tyrese stole a Rolex, a six-carat diamond ring, a man’s alligator wallet, and a fox fur. These things were reported as missing but believed to be stolen.
The hotel management was used to these situations and usually wrote shit like this off on their insurance. No big deal! And of course, hotel security was always on the job.
One morning, Tyrese was on camera going through the trunk of a Bentley. He checked the back seat first and then he had the gall to use the car key to ramble around in the trunk. The camera saw him with a set of golf clubs and a jewelry box, and he put all of it in the trunk of his own car.
He was fired. There was nothing he could have said to prevent it.
During his short stay he and Marie had managed to get acquainted. She had been working for three years, and she knew how the ropes were played at the hotel, and she even tried to tell Tyrese. She knew there had been several people fired from the parking attendant position because they were greedy. Not that she considered Tyrese a thief but just to let him know the hotel was no ‘Motel 6’, and he would be wise to do his job and appreciate it.
Tyrese was on top of it, he listened to Marie. But it started looking overly good to him. Like I said, he was doing all right but wanted to do better than all right. He was from the hood and like some people say, “You can take the man out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the man.” Sometimes it’s true!! (But that’s another story)
Anyway, Tyrese was gone!
Two or three months passed, and Marie’s car broke down. Something to do with the transmission. She put her car in the shop and had to take rides and taxis to work. Luckily, her partner was financially situated so it didn’t hurt her pocket too awfully bad, besides, she still had a paycheck.
One Wednesday around 2:30 in the afternoon she was leaving work early for a doctor’s appointment. She waited in front of the hotel for her taxi and finally around 2:45, it pulled up. They were on the way to Wayfair Street, which would have been a 20-minute ride if the driver stayed on the freeway from the hotel.
Marie saw a man walking on the side of the freeway and thought she recognized him. She turned as they passed him and sure enough it was Tyrese. Marie told the driver to stop and pick him up. The driver hesitated because he was on the freeway, but he managed to get to a side street and stop.
Tyrese finally caught on to the fact that it was Marie, and he ran to see her and to get a much-needed ride. They had lost touch, so they were both excited to see each other.
Since the taxi was no longer on the freeway, the driver was using city streets to get Marie to her appointment but suddenly Tyrese says, “You didn’t flip the meter man.”The driver said, “I’m driving this car and I know what I’m doing.” Tyrese said, “But you supposed to flip the fuckin meter.”
The driver kept driving a few more miles without flipping the meter. Marie and Tyrese were catching up on what had been happening, but Tyrese was steadily watching the meter and the driver.
Marie was not sure of what was happening because she wasn’t familiar with riding in a taxi or flipping a meter and shit. She was glad to see Tyrese, but she was more concerned with being on time for her appointment.
All of a sudden, Tyrese reached over the front seat and grabbed the walkie talkie thing, and he hit the driver on his head, several times. The man was bleeding and trying to cover his head with one arm, while still trying to manage the steering wheel and watch the street but Tyrese moved the man’s arm and he hit him twice more.
He kept saying, “I told yo dumb ass to flip the meter” THUMP! (he hit him again) “Dumb ass.” The driver managed to stop the car in front of a driveway and was rocking and holding his head. Blood was everywhere in the front seat, on the windows and a few sprays hit Marie. She couldn’t believe this was happening!
Tyrese hit the driver one more time and then he reached down and took the man’s money filled cigar box. Then he jumped out of the car and started running.
Marie was in total shock; she was pregnant, and she peed her pants. She was crying, hollering for help, and trying to help the man and fussing at Tyrese who was GONE! She didn’t know what to do: stay and help the old ass-hole driver who was cheating her or leave him and go find help. (There were no cell phones yet) or go somewhere to find a phone and call her partner.
She was torn but she stayed and tried to help the man, and she used the bloody walkie- talkie thing to call in to the dispatch who in turn sent the police to the scene.
Marie was all shook up. Let me tell you!
They had to help her into the police car because her legs were shaking, and she was wet. (Mind you, she was seven ½ months pregnant) It was awful. No, she didn’t want to go to the hospital, is what she told the police. She said, “Just get me home please.”
The driver was holding his head, moaning and shit. They took his bloody ass to the hospital.
When Marie finally got home, she cleaned herself up, rescheduled her appointment and decided to chill. Maybe an hour later her partner came home, and she rehashed it all and started crying again. She just could not understand why Tyrese would do such a dumb thing and she said, “Babe, he beat the man all over his head, he took the man’s money, and he ran, he ran!”
Time passed, she had a baby, all was well, and she was now in court, and she had to testify against Tyrese. The driver was there with a Band-Aid on his head after all this time and Tyrese was there in his jail uniform.
Do you swear to tell the truth so help you? Marie was nervous and shaking so bad that she put the wrong hand on the bible, and she nodded her head. She had to be reminded to speak for the purpose of the stenographer, but this was her first time in court and she was a witness.
She told the court, “I wasn’t aware the meter had not been set, I wanted to get to my appointment, and I was going to pay whatever the man said.” She went on, “I guess it was a good thing Tyrese was in the taxi because the driver was going to cheat me, and Tyrese stopped that from happening.”She said, “Tyrese is actually a good person, but he was angry, and he took it out on the driver that day, he’s a good person.” “But I am still angry because he put us all in danger, I could have lost my baby.”
There were no other witnesses. But Tyrese’s mama said he came home with a cigar box full of money and she said, he was laughing kind of crazy.
Tyrese told the judge; “I was caught up in a wild moment sir. The man didn’t flip the meter.” He told the judge, “I got fired from my job and I was having a hard time. Judge, I just did what I felt like I had to do.”
The judge gave him 6 months. He also, as a penalty, had to pay the taxi driver’s hospital bill and repay the stolen money.
Marie never wanted to see him again, ever.
Oh! The hotel didn’t press charges, but Tyrese was not allowed on the premises ever again.
The End!
