rebecca sutter

Twitter & Blog.

2006-03-31 // Summer '04

I suppose there's something that clicks after high school that makes you desirous of adventure, to feel like you're taking advantage of your new freedom. In retrospect, not everything seems daring as it did in the moment, but in that post-graduation fervor, it seemed like anything could happen at any time. So with my eyes wide open, I took a trip to Austin with my boyfriend and some of his friends.

We stayed at the Wellesley Inn on I-35 & Riverside, five of us in one room. On the first day, while I was unpacking, Amy came back from the pool saying there was a crazy old man out there giving them beer.

The next day, I met Charles.

I'm guessing he was in his sixties, wearing unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts exposing his gut. As we walked out into the pool area, he yelled, "Hey boys!" from a lawn chair on his second-floor balcony. That day, he called Amy "Beth" and Chase "Smilin' Jack." He then proceeded to throw cans of beer into the pool for us to fetch, oblivious to the fact that he was supplying three minors with alcohol.

That night, we revisited the pool, where he brought us lounge chair floaties to lay on while we drank the next few cases of beer he had bought. He talked to Amy and I about all the jobs he had worked "back in his day" while Chase, Matt, and Chris disappeared around the side of the hotel.

Five minutes later, they emerged on the edge of the roof. Four stories above a seven foot deep pool, one by one, they jumped. Hotel employees began to walk out the door, not to reprimand them for taking such risks on hotel property, but to watch. Eventually, we were all making our rounds from pool to grass to ladder to slippery roof and back into the pool while Charles cheered us on.

Over the next couple days, we forgot our names and answered to "boys" every time we swam. He bought us several winning scratch tickets, more beer, and a couple meals. One night (which may have been his birthday), while the three boys were still jumping off the roof, he called Amy and I up to his room to help him cook. We battered and fried shrimp while listening to his stories about how he got rich from oil, and how he caught a little feather floating in the air sent from God, and he wore it in a prayer box on a chain around his neck.

He had been staying at the hotel for weeks. I thought he had gotten kicked out of his daughter's house after fighting with her. Chris thought he was there because he was waiting for someone to trade cattle with to make some money. Either way, he had been there so long that the hotel staff knew him by name and gave him a special discount on his room. On our supposed last night, he begged us to stay to keep him company. All the employees told us he was very trustworthy and supported our decision to stay an extra night. He even bought a plane ticket back to Lubbock for Chris, who had to work the next day.

Our last wake up call was not Charles's excited voice beckoning us out of our room, but his daughter's angry knocks. She yelled at us for accepting his money and gifts. She informed us that despite what he said about oil, he had never had a job half as lucrative, and he couldn't afford to be spending his money on us. "The only way he can show his love is through buying people things." He apparently hadn't taken his medication in weeks, so he was acting out as his full-fledged manic depressive, possibly schizophrenic self.

Finally she left us alone. We said our goodbyes (guiltily), and went off to cash our last $200 lottery ticket before driving back to Lubbock.