he sneaks into the hotel as if it’s a strange place, not one he’s known for nearly 20 years. As he disappears into the dingy closet that serves as the bellmen’s break room, he looks troubled, scared, like a child who wants desperately to please, isn’t sure he can. But once he hangs up his tweed fedora, Tony becomes all smiles, the hep cat he wants to be, the good-looking, smooth-talking Texan others see, ambling out to jaw with the sweet young things at the front desk.

“Hey honey, how’s it going? You ready to run away with me yet?” he asks Mayanna. She wouldn’t put up with it if anyone else talked to her that way. But with Tony, it’s somehow right, funny, the way a caricature is. She gives him a smile. That’s his cue. “Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind.”

Then he’s off to the lobby, an expansive area that’s sprinkled with imitation Victorian furniture. At one end it leads into the ballroom-like dining room. With its marble pillars and white tablecloths, it’s the only place the Mallory’s former glory still shows through. But it feels more like a set than a real place. Tony is an important part of the illusion. He goes with the lobby the way the high ceilings go with the crystal chandeliers. He likes the lobby, likes to hang out there, waiting for customers. They’re what he’s there for, what he’s been there for since he started belling back in Texas about 35 years ago. It’s all about being a professional and anticipating the customers’ needs.

Like the Belle Beauticians’ Convention. The rest of the bellmen panicked when the beauticians, notorious for their long-running parties, ran out of ice. But Tony kept his head, went around town and came back with enough ice to keep the party going late into the night. Later the beauticians passed around the ice bucket and Tony turned a $164 tip. Best in his life. That’s what being a professional is all about, at least that’s what it used to be about, when the word still meant something in this business, when all men were Tony’s buddies and women were honeys or babies, when bellmen held to their stations with the conviction of crusaders, when bellmen didn’t let a customer with anything more than a handbag cross a lobby without help, when people knew the value of good service and paid handsomely, or at least fairly, for it.



and part of Tony knows it. But there’s another part that still likes to pretend. That’s why everything has to be just so before he steps out into the lobby each day. Tie, brown with little white flowers, has to hang straight and true; coat, nothing more than cheap polyester, smoothed down; hair, thin and gray, slicked back smooth. Then, the smile. The whole package should be professional looking, Jimmy Stewart cool, but Tony can’t quite pull it off. Brown age spots ring the perimeter of his Brylcreamed hair. Strands escape from the slick in stubborn little tufts here and there. The skin on his face looks saggy, like his bones are too weak to support it. His teeth are chipped and crooked and smoke-stained, like someone kicked him in the mouth a long time ago. The uniform is a rather ill-fitting emerald-green blazer with an “M” embroidered on the pocket.

But once he steps out into the lobby, Tony’s appearance changes, as if the job of hauling bags, carting irons, checking rooms, tidying the lobby, coordinating the maids, welcoming customers and looking the part were enough. Under the chandeliers, his smile is suddenly friendly. Against the backdrop of hooded monk chairs and elegant end tables, his slicked-back hair is stylish. Mingling with casually dressed customers, his suit is professional looking, nearly dashing. Under the weight of other people’s baggage, he seems to straighten up just a bit. And when a chime calls Tony out of his closet, he’s all smiles, only too happy to show a room to the woman at the counter.




he asks as they enter the elevator.

“Just fine and you,” she says, not really caring.

“No complaints. Did you want to see a single today or a suite?”

“A single is fine.”

“Right this way.”

“This is our single, right here,” he says, sliding his card into the lock and swinging the door to room 517 open. “There’s a nice view of downtown Portland through them windows at night.”

The woman just nods, smiles absently. Like the lobby’s, the room’s ceiling is high, but no chandelier hangs from it. The wood furniture is curved elegantly, but it looks too big for the room, more cramped than cozy. When opened, the door to the entertainment center blocks entrance to the bathroom. The windows are streaked with dirt. The nicest touch in the room, which the woman doesn’t notice, is a sewing kit on the table. It’s a miniature pillow bordered with white lace. Right in the middle there’s an embroidered green “M” with 13 stick pins arranged in a pyramid just above it. The pin cushion is from a time when the Mallory was The Mallory, a time before the mass-produced Motel 6s and Econolodges and Best Westerns.

It was during that golden age when Tony began his life as a bellman. He started right after high school at the Central in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, a Texaco Oil town right on the Gulf of Mexico. From there, the rest of his life was a string of hotels—the Cortez, the Menger, the Paso Del Norte, the Flagship, the Cosmopolitan and finally the Mallory—all in different towns, with different characters and different memories. Like meeting Lon Chaney, Jr., or Betty, one of the quickie divorcees who set a record with three in one year, or the old black couple none of the other bellmen figured was worth their time. When Tony helped them out to their car, the old man winked at him and gave him a $10 tip with instructions to tell the others not to judge people on their appearance. It turned out the man had been a bellman himself for nearly 35 years.