They call him the Gray Wolf.

New York City bellmen build houses and create college funds, all out of ones and fives. This kind of life, lived on a constantly fluctuating scale of cash, comes to define their entire world. I offer an example. Let's call it Doorman in the Mist: The Hundred-Dollar-Bill Challenge Doorman in the Mist: The Hundred-Dollar-Bill Challenge.

"Don't act like you don't feel it, Tom," Alan says to me.

"What is it? Like a mystical attachment? The hundred-dollar bill has its own energy?"

I've got a good three months on the evening shift behind me, and my interactions with the locals are starting to loosen up and become natural. Alan is leaning on the front desk, his right hand holding a stack of ones the size of a Carnegie Deli sandwich. "Now count this stack up. I'm clocking out."

I lower my head and start laying the bills on the desk, one by one, trying to get it done without being interrupted. Turning the Gray Wolf's small bills into hundreds isn't really my job. If any guest walks up, I have to stop counting, handle it, and then start the count over. "Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine."

"How come no one showed you how to count a stack? You keep it folded in half and slide your thumb-"

"Sixty-two, sixty-three-Shut YOUR MOUTH-sixty-four, sixty-five."

This daily little cash transaction is a big moment for any bellman or doorman. Consider the fact that a top earner, a real hustling bulls.h.i.t artist, can make well over a hundred thousand dollars a year and all that money is in cash, and all that cash is in small denominations. You think they keep trash bags bulging with ones and fives in every corner of their tiny outer-borough apartments? So the hundred-dollar bill is the mark, the quintessential nugget of their existence. They stack hundreds. Want to rob a bellman? Don't even consider ident.i.ty theft: follow him home and find his stack. (WARNING: I do not advise this. Bellmen are like grizzly bears; if you get between them and their tips, even a five-dollar bill, they will bleed you out from the throat, laugh over your corpse, and then go pound beers.) "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and a hundo."

"Nice," Al croons and jiggles his "f.u.c.k you, pay me" fingers. I hand him a hundred, and he sucks his teeth. "Look at this sad, sad bill. Save that for a guest. Got anything crisp or what?"

So here we go. This is an absolute fetish with these guys. I lay out five sample bills and let him pick. You should see his face, excitedly peering through his gla.s.ses at the selection of hundreds like an eight-year-old at a pastry shop.

"That's my hundo right there. Seriously, you can't feel the power emanating from this bill? You know where they get crisp hundred-dollar bills, kid?"

"Where?"

"They slice 'em right off G.o.d's back."

"Jesus."

"I'm serious. I jab my hand in a bag of bills, I'll pull out the hundreds based on power alone. Ain't no way I can't find the hundo in a sad bag of ones, even blindfolded."

"That," I say, "is some bulls.h.i.t."

"Sure about that? Care to put some money on it?" Alan asks, staring King Benjamin in the face.

"Here's what we're going to do," I say, removing five ones and five hundreds from my hotel-issued two-thousand-dollar bank. "I got twenty says I blindfold you, hand you one of each, and you tell me which bill is the hundred. Three out of five, and my twenty is your twenty."

"Kid's going for the hundred-dollar-bill challenge? I was just waiting for the offer. But it ain't gonna be me with the blindfold. I'm staking Jay the doorman."

Five minutes later Jay walks along the meandering path carved through the sea of stored luggage, like a jungle path through high gra.s.s, and enters the back office. The Gray Wolf has the bills on the manager's desk. I've taken off my tie and am holding it taut in front of me, as if I'd choke Jay with it.

"f.u.c.k is this about? I'm missing money outside."

"Calm down, Jay, you're making money in here," Alan says soothingly. As with a grizzly and her cubs, even getting between a doorman and money he could be making could be making can be dangerous. And Jay is a G.o.dd.a.m.n grizzly: tall, handsome, big American chin, and intimidating as all h.e.l.l. can be dangerous. And Jay is a G.o.dd.a.m.n grizzly: tall, handsome, big American chin, and intimidating as all h.e.l.l.

I slowly approach him with the tie at neck level. "Go easy now, big fella."

"Come on, Jay, sit your postal a.s.s in this chair, and here's how it goes. Your boy here is going to blindfold you, got it? Then into each hand you're getting a bill, one a dollar and the other a brick. You pick out the brick, you win the round. Three rounds out of five and we split a twenty spot."

"You're a sweetheart, Wolf. Tie me up, Tommy. We're doing this quickly."

"The kid actually thought up this one himself," Alan says, laying a fatherly hand on my shoulder.

I secure my tie over his eyes, and we start round one, which is a randomly selected bill from each category.

Watch him now, watch how the grizzly, stripped of sight, uses all of his natural instincts. See how his head tips back and the nostrils flare. He takes one of the bills in his paw and brings it to his face, sniffing, crinkling, nuzzling the bill.

"This is the brick."

"What the h.e.l.l?" I yell. "You didn't even spend time with the other bill."

"HEY," Jay says, rolling his head around like blindfolded people do, "it spoke to me. Next."

For round two we've gone crisp. Both bills sliced off a G.o.dly back, the one-dollar bill just off some lesser, pathetic G.o.d.

Oh, the grizzly likes this challenge. The crispness of the bills has excited him into a near frenzy. He is snorting and his head is shaking, crunching both bills right below his nose, mashing them up like lettuce. He freezes, as if a twig has snapped far off in the forest, lowers each hand slowly, and lets the bill in his right hand fall to the ground. "Brick," he says, lifting the hundo back to his nose and taking a deep, primal breath.

"Really? Am I being set up? This is bulls.h.i.t."

"I told you," Alan says consolingly. "I told you it could be done."

"Not done yet. Round three. Good luck to you, Jay, you greedy, money-loving gorilla. Begin."

For round three Al and I have crumpled the bills into mush. We've rolled them, crushed them, flattened them, and smashed them until they are soft to the touch. I close my eyes, and, I swear swear to you, they both feel the same. to you, they both feel the same.

The grizzly does not like what he has been handed. The abused state of the hundred, whichever bill it may be, has angered him. But look, his head is wavering from side to side; he's been thrown off the track! He sniffs each bill and each time rejects the scent with a snort, unpleased. But now his jaw tightens, and he starts to rub at the surface of the bills, scrubbing each one simultaneously with the hairless pads of his thumbs. He's as still as a mountain, in a state of complete concentration, communing with G.o.d.

Jay blindly begins to straighten out one of the bills, lovingly molding it back into shape on his knee. It's the dollar bill, and I look at Alan, who is shaking his head. After flattening out the one, he lays it on the manager's desk, then closes his fists tightly around the other bill and thrusts his hands in the air.

"The bill of the f.u.c.king G.o.dS!" he bellows.

The back office door flies open, and Kelly Madison, a front desk manager, surveys the situation: Alan and me in the throes of victory and defeat, Jay blindfolded with my work tie and holding his clenched fists aloft, as if signaling to begin the human sacrifice ceremony.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?! There are people outside who need cabs and a line at the desk. You left your co-worker alone out there for Christ's sake? You, take the tie off your face. You, put that tie back ON, and CHECK PEOPLE IN LIKE YOU ARE PAID TO DO! What the s.h.i.t are you guys doing?! G.o.dd.a.m.n IT!"

Jay stands and pulls the tie off his face. He glances at the crushed hundred in his palm, making sure he'd been right, and then shoots a look of psychotic fire into Kelly's eyeholes. She takes a big step back.

Jay walks out.

Kelly looks at Al, and then Al looks at me. Kelly stops looking at Al and looks at me too. I'm looking out the door into the lobby, where I can see the check-in line backed up almost to the revolving doors.

"Where the f.u.c.k is Jay going with my hundred-dollar bill?"

While we are on the subject, here's a few other names I learned for hundreds: nugget, money shot, redhead, dirty dancer, hundo, hunnert, brick, leaf, ben, benny nugget, money shot, redhead, dirty dancer, hundo, hunnert, brick, leaf, ben, benny, and basically any word that is used correctly at the moment a hundred-dollar bill is explicitly implied in the context. As in: "Imma take these five twenties and get myself a bobo."

So, victim to the hustle, indoctrinated into the vocabulary, I started to settle in nicely. The bellmen were slowly coming to my side. My money troubles had quickly evaporated. I'd cleared up my late-rent issue, and things were running smoothly across the river in Brooklyn. Starting pay was twice what I made in New Orleans, and overtime was rampant. One co-worker, a lobby porter (whose duties include fax delivery, polishing the bell carts, hitting on the housekeepers when they go out back to smoke on the loading dock, cleaning dog s.h.i.t off the lobby floor, late-night condom runs, napping on top of FedEx packages, and so much more), tied together a consecutive thirty-two-hour shift. I came in fresh at 4:00 p.m. and saw him wavering behind a bell cart, one eye closed, the other staring at me.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Tom. We've met. I've been here about five mon-"

"SHUT THE f.u.c.k UP."

"My bad," I said.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Nice to meet you," he said, gripping the bell cart for support.

"We've met. No worries."

So, obviously, it took some time to get to know my co-workers. In general, the best way to get to know any hospitality crew is to follow them to the bar after work and kill a few bottles together. In this high-stress business, just like the restaurant industry, there is ample and nightly opportunity for this. Let's not forget it was Sanford the doorman in New Orleans who poured me back into the bottle in the first place. But in New York, drinking with my co-workers, I didn't always like what I learned. Kelly Madison, the manager who had soured the ending of our hundred-dollar-bill challenge, runs on stress, even outside work. It was immediately clear from my first overnight manager that if it wasn't one affliction, it was another with these "managers." Either stress or drugs. Drugs or theft. Drugs or more drugs.

Okay, so, management: twisted. And as far as my co-workers, once they opened up to me, I couldn't believe the kind of s.h.i.t these people were getting into, the kind of daily hustle I was surrounded by.

Most companies that book room blocks at hotels will cover room and tax but won't reimburse for incidental charges (movies, minibar, and such), and so, more often than not, guests will close out that portion of their bill in cash. I noticed my co-workers, prior to posting the cash payment, consistently asking guests if they would need a receipt for the "incidental" account. If they got a definitive no, I watched them give exact change, say good-bye to the guest, and, once the yellow cab had pulled off toward Newark, simply remove the charges, type in "guest dispute," and put the cash, change and all, right into their purses and pockets. Considering, as I explained before, that movie and minibar are the most frequently disputed charges, no one is going to follow up when those charges are voided off a bill. But voiding off a valid valid charge and pocketing the cash? What a hustle. Any cash payment where the guest does not require a receipt is open for this move. This hustle is called charge and pocketing the cash? What a hustle. Any cash payment where the guest does not require a receipt is open for this move. This hustle is called stealing stealing.

It was all part of my new home, the New York environment. When you struggle for every dollar, not getting that dollar can collapse your local economy. Bellmen feel this with every transaction, every front, so should they be "stiffed" (the term for "G.o.dd.a.m.n working for G.o.dd.a.m.n free"), it's only natural they would find a way to lash out at the guest.

Now, the kind of person liable to slam the door in a bellman's face while the poor guy is politely lingering about for a crummy two-dollar tip, that kind of person? He shouldn't use his toothbrush that night (or ever again, really). And that 3:00 a.m. call he got when someone confidently whispered "I'm banging your wife while you're out of town" into the phone receiver? Well, sometimes a wrong number isn't a wrong number.

How you take your coffee, Tommy?" Trey the bellman asked me. "Light and sweet?"

"Light and sweet": a wonderful New Yorkism for coffee with lotta milk, lotta sugar. Another one of my favorites from New York is the term "brick," as it applies to weather. Basically, it means extremely cold. In context: "f.u.c.k me, it's G.o.dd.a.m.n brick brick outside." outside."

"You making a coffee run?" I asked, reaching for my wallet.

"It's on me. All the boys know you're doing a good job here. Don't think we haven't noticed. Listen...that new girl, with the a.s.s, you think you can train her? You know, about calling, 'Front'? Even teach her the 'this is my good friend Trey' line. She's still asking guests if they need help, and it's cutting into our money."

"Sure, Trey, no problem. I'll handle it."

"You're a good kid."

"Your mother on all fours."

"d.a.m.n, Tommy Tommy. I'm getting you a doughnut, too."

I just got a free doughnut for verbally putting someone's mother into a doggy-style position. Well on my way from clown status to New York City status. In retrospect, it felt like catching a prison sentence and carving out your place in the cell block. I kept my head down, ate alone in the cafeteria for a while, took a huge amount of s.h.i.t, but stood up for myself when it counted. After a few months, when I walked into the prison yard, it was daps all around, and my fellow inmates were now joking with me, including me me in the excluding of in the excluding of others others.

People had settled in here; they were lifers. Trey the bellman had met his wife in housekeeping. It was a Bellevue wedding of a Bellevue couple attended by Bellevue employees. Now they had three kids, and everyone watched them grow up. It felt good to be accepted, slowly and by degrees, into their lives.

It was a full eight months after the hundred-dollar-bill challenge before Ben the bellman straightened me out.

Turns out those new, big-faced hundreds have an additional security feature. In the bottom right corner there is a color-shifting 100 that turns from green to copper when rotated in the light. And guess what? It's also textured textured and and raised raised, meaning all that money-loving gorilla had to do was simply check the corners for a raised texture, something lacking on the one-dollar bill, and he had the bobo identified. What a show he put on.

After Ben was nice enough to explain it to me, I approached the Gray Wolf for a full debriefing.

"Al, why didn't you just run the hustle alone? Keep the twenty for yourself?"

"Well, Tom," he said, looking at me over the rims of his silver frames, "as you get older, you realize life is best shared with others. You were so new, kid, so ripe, and I just couldn't run it on you without someone else to share in the joy of it, you see?"

"Okay. Why Jay then?"

"Oh. Two reasons. One, I knew he would play the part extremely well. You were paying twenty for the show, and I wanted a quality performance. Two, well, he was sore for years after I ran it on him in '97. He lost a whole redhead on the challenge and was pretty torn up about it all the way into '99. I thought he'd like to make a little bit back."

You see the kindness? The camaraderie? With my own family so far away, Alan would become my father figure at the Bellevue, the guy I'd bring my girl troubles to, and I'd help him figure out how to use that new cell phone he was peering at with a bewildered look. Ben would become my brother, drinking buddy, and the man who'd tell me, if I ever complained about the New York City winters, to shove a mitten up my v.a.g.i.n.a.

In many ways, bellmen are are the hotel. Owners come and go, managers come and go, carpets come and go. Bellmen create the permanent face of a property. They come with the land. And I already felt lucky to be surrounded by such an interesting and, in some ways, loving crew. Changes were coming, big dangerous shifts in the Bellevue's framework, and it was guys like that who would make it all bearable. the hotel. Owners come and go, managers come and go, carpets come and go. Bellmen create the permanent face of a property. They come with the land. And I already felt lucky to be surrounded by such an interesting and, in some ways, loving crew. Changes were coming, big dangerous shifts in the Bellevue's framework, and it was guys like that who would make it all bearable.

Not Jay. That motherf.u.c.ker is dangerous.

Every day of the week operated on a sort of template.

Monday it's almost all business travelers checking in for the week. Some of them even have houses in Connecticut less than an hour train ride away, but they book a room for five days starting Monday, allowing them to avoid their families and accomplish another ninety-five-hour workweek that they've convinced themselves they don't hate. Mr. Hockstein, a longtime Bellevue guest, checked in every Monday with minimal luggage and popped in and out randomly all week. Hockstein was quiet, uncomfortable, and never interested in talking. Other business guests were more open. I personally got to know the CFO of a gigantic cable company because he checked in every single Monday between 8:15 and 8:30 p.m., sent his luggage upstairs, always ordered the same meal from the pub across the street, and brought it to his room to eat. If I was working a double shift, I'd see him head out for the day at 7:35 a.m. on the dot and return at 8:00 p.m. with the same meal from the same pub. Despite being the head of a huge corporation, this man never once complained and never demanded upgrades or attention or amenities. Because of that, we always gave him upgrades and attention and amenities. When I finally got it out of him that he liked to drink a Bud Light, just one one, at the end of the night, I started having a bottle for each night of his stay waiting on ice in the room for him.

Tuesday you get more businesspeople and the occasional Euro traveler or Euro tour.

Wednesday it's less business travelers and maybe some midwesterners who've come to drop their jaws in Times Square, booking midweek trips to save money.

Thursday the tourists with long stays start to arrive and businesspeople start to disappear.

Friday it's straight tourism and Jersey douche bags wearing Ed Hardy trying to placate their fake-breasted wives with a New York trip so they can continue discreetly banging their secretary at the construction company the rest of the week.

Sat.u.r.day more tourists and the occasional New York couple having a staycation or renting a room to cheat on their spouses.

Sunday morning everyone checks out and the luggage storage room fills up to capacity, often pouring out into the lobby, which security surrounds with a red velvet rope, to give an edge of safety to the exposed luggage. After everyone clears out all at once, we flip the whole hotel and get ready for the next business week.

Sunday can be a mess for the bellmen when the afternoon comes on. As I mentioned, all morning guests are storing all their possessions, checking every bag they can find. Come 3:00 p.m., they all want them back, and they want them back fast. I saw Trey, working alone one Sunday afternoon, trying to work down a cloud of checked-out guests who all had their claim checks waving in the air and cabs to catch five minutes ago. Trey comes out with two bags, a middle-aged woman s.n.a.t.c.hes them and runs out to get a cab, stiffing him. The next guest, like a clone, pulls the same move: another s.n.a.t.c.h and stiff. After the third stiff, Trey, who's about five feet nothing but has the intimidation potential of a foamy-jawed Doberman, stops cold and looks out at the rest of the cloud, all the guests wondering why he's not hurriedly grabbing at the next set of claim checks. Just as the guest who figures he's next is about to open his mouth, Trey tilts back his head and snorts.

"Another G.o.dd.a.m.n stiff. I'm batting a thousand. I am working for G.o.dd.a.m.n free out here."

He said those words at a volume that was, let's say, extremely audible extremely audible. Then I said, less audibly, in fact under my breath, "Oh, s.h.i.t."

After Trey calmly took the following guest's tickets and returned to the back to get the bags, I kept an eye on the cloud. It was as if his attack had morphed them into a solid unit, and they shook their heads at each other in amazement and said things like, "The gall!" "Can you believe that?" And even an old-fashioned "I never never."

Just as they were getting comfortable sharing their indignation, Trey burst out from the back, pulling two big-a.s.s rolling hard sh.e.l.ls behind him with carry-ons stacked on top of each and a backpack strapped right to the front of his d.a.m.n chest.

Like a blown-out candle, the huffing and puffing stopped, and every single one of those guests, even the ones at the end of the line, pulled out their wallets and brought some green into the lobby. Following the lead of that first guest, they were all planning on stiffing him, but Trey had flipped them all, like a slick casino dealer drawing an ace over a spread deck and inverting every card. Now they were all faceup, a.s.s out, ready to tip and shut up.

That, again, dear guests, is a New York City bellman.

But during the slower desk shifts, the Tuesdays and the Wednesdays, Kayla and I would amuse ourselves by pretending to verbally critique everyone who wandered into our lobby. I had her down to a science. All I had to do to make her laugh was point out anyone (that was the funny part, that it wasn't personal, it could be anyone anyone) who came into the lobby, and I'd say, "Look at this this guy." And then on and on like that: "Now, wait, oh, wait, look at guy." And then on and on like that: "Now, wait, oh, wait, look at this this guy, Je guy, Jesus," and then, "Whoa, look at this this f.u.c.king guy, you believe f.u.c.king guy, you believe this this f.u.c.king guy?" until she had to go sit in the back and calm down before she peed herself. f.u.c.king guy?" until she had to go sit in the back and calm down before she peed herself.