Barb's Barbs

We knew when she stumbled in at 5 AM that she would be trouble. With an unruly mop of curly brown hair that declared open war on conventional notions of hygiene, a sallow face, and the attire of someone more likely to be a guest of a nearby condemned house, she did not possess the appearance of a normal guest. She, however, had a reservation, and that was the most relevant factor. While the normal guest at the Hilton-branded hotel would be in a dress shirt or a chic dress, money, not fashion reigned supreme. Front desk agents aren’t judges of character or arbiters of sartorial splendor. And Eugene is an odd enclave of artistic self-reproach. Barb was one of the reasons we played a game behind the desk, where we guessed whether someone was a business owner or a homeless person. You just never knew.

Barb presented just one example of this. In the era before Barb, call it B.B., a tall brunette co-worker and I would look out the tall windows looking out on downtown Eugene and make quick assessments of the pedestrians and passers-by. Since the hotel was new and trendy, with a fireplace and elegant green furniture adorning the open area visible to the public through those large windows, sometimes the people we had arbitrarily judged to be homeless walked in the door, sacrosanct Visa in hand, ready to rent a room. Artists and retirees make their home here, too. Sometimes the only difference between a rich writer and a bum is dumb luck.

We couldn’t have foreseen, however, how enjoyable that trouble would be, nor how or when it would manifest itself. The ghost was its own entity following her, filling shift reports and team meetings with tales and revelations of her actions. The older woman I worked with once nearly spit food out of her mouth when told in a briefing of Barb’s most recent exploits. It turned out this disheveled woman of rotund stature and a propensity for vulgar language was, in fact, a business owner. Sold premium cutlery all over the world, in fact. She tipped staff at the hotel with hundreds, flippantly telling us about her flagrant abuse of the insurance money thrown at her during an ice storm that left half of the city without power. An old Jewish woman, she hated Christmas but gave dinners and gifts for the occasion, then got drunk and talked a hotel staff person into giving her a ride to a nearby bar in her personal vehicle. She crapped in the urinal once, too.

Barb stayed with us for almost a month before she finally was kicked out. Up until she had what appears to be a psychotic break, she threw parties in the decadent oasis (that hotel didn’t call it a lobby) and handed out knives to strangers. These gatherings often involved steaming piles of catered food and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. She always smelled like something vaguely sour, as if mayonnaise had been left out in the hot July sun for days and then slathered on under her unwashed sweat suits. But we tolerated her because she handed out money like Mormon missionaries handing out tracts. And she possessed a certain wit, an ineffable charm capable of pulling at your gut with its vaguely visceral truths.

On one occasion, struggling to figure out how to work a small older-model flip phone, she rambled on about the picture she wanted desperately to show me, unsolicited. Trying to navigate the turbid waters of her stench and back away from her without the gesture being noticeable, I sublimated the awkwardness and waited, unable to tear myself away from yet another odd story. When she finally retrieved the grainy picture, stored on this 1990s-era device, I saw Barb, hoisting a huge rifle akin to something from a sci-fi movie. A very elaborately concocted, poorly done sci-fi movie, such as one shown on a mildly popular network known for giant octopuses and shark-infested tornadoes. “Now, that’s a fuckin’ gun.” she said, finishing her story.

Barb knew how to make an impact because she did what so few guests are willing to do: She embraced the humanity of the staff. Barb loitered, in only a slightly creepy way, and interacted with us. She listened to us. She did not expect service. It was this that gave her ammunition. Armed with fully-automatic wit and enough magazines to make a prepper dance with glee, she made it stick because it was targeted at the individual.

When she finally did cause the mother of all troubles, walking around the hotel clutching an actual headstone for her dead father, muttering to herself and threatening housekeepers, we knew the time had come. All of the barbs and incisive criticisms of a shallow society, observations bordering on feats of philosophical genius, all of the excesses at the expense of her generous insurance company, all of the intrusions into personal space and interminable impulsive conversations started with nothing more than a hello, they were piquant precursors to that final act we all had seen, but avoided confronting because it all felt too good to be real.

We wanted to be listened to. We wanted to feel important. Valued. That desire for relevance allowed us to ignore the body odor and stares. It preyed on us. And, ultimately, it preyed on her. Because we should have listened to those voices inside that repeatedly insisted something just wasn’t right. We shouldn’t have enabled this behavior.

But, we did. And, what may be worse: We actually had fun doing it. Even when we had to call the police to haul her screaming, flailing corpus out the door, we still liked her. Life A.B., or After Barb, was going to prove a boring affair.