Ezoic
He was sitting on a stool behind the counter with a crossword puzzle book open in front of him.
He barely looked up.
“One room?” he said.
“Yes, please.”
“How many nights?”
“Just tonight.”
He pulled a little computer monitor toward him. An old one. He pecked at the keyboard with two fingers. He squinted at the screen. His glasses were so thick I don’t know how he could see anything at all.
Then he reached beneath the counter.
I heard a drawer slide open. I heard keys jingle. He felt around under there without looking, the way you do with something you’ve done ten thousand times.
Ezoic
He pulled out a brass key attached to a wooden tag.
He set it on the counter.
18.
“End of the east hallway,” he said.
I paid. Sixty-two dollars, cash. He wrote me a receipt by hand on a little pad with carbon paper. I hadn’t seen carbon paper since the nineties either.
