The Stripper for Hong Kong

The front door opened, then the door to the foyer. Since all our scheduled guests were in for the night, I was puzzled by this rare walk-in and went to see who it was. Nan and I, owners of the Astor House Bed and Breakfast in Green Bay, had been enjoying a quiet Thursday evening before the weekend rush. She was watching a Bogart movie while reading a book. I was in the adjoining office finishing the day’s business and soon planned to join her and Bogey.

Two young men stood just inside the foyer. The first was the shorter of the two: close-cropped black hair, a weight-lifter’s build in a bomber jacket that was unzipped to show a rock band t-shirt underneath. His right hand held the straps of a khaki knapsack. The fellow behind him wore aviator glasses, a camouflage windbreaker, and carried a boom-box. He was trying to look non-descript.

“Hello. Welcome to The Astor House.”

The bomber jacket smiled. He was the leader of the two and moved the knapsack from his right hand to his left in order to shake hands in a more business-like fashion.

“Hi,” the bomber jacket said. “I’m the stripper for Hong Kong.”

As innkeeper of the Astor House, I had had a variety of visitors in the three years since my first guest, but he was the first stripper – at least to my knowledge.

“A stripper. For Hong Kong.”

“Yeah. Sarah told me to be here about 7:30. She said I could change upstairs.” What he was changing into was probably folded up in the knapsack. I glanced down. It didn’t look like there was much in there to change into.

“Let me call Sarah.” I dialed the number for the Hong Kong Suite up on the third floor of the house. Sarah and a group of young ladies had reserved the room as a birthday sleep-over for a 21-year-old friend. Earlier in the afternoon, the birthday girl had been led blindfolded up the stairs into the room, surrounded by her giggling friends. They ordered delivery pizza (two boxes, large tip, happy driver) and, for a 21st birthday party, were rather quiet. Now, it seems, they had ordered in dessert.

“Hi Sarah, this is Doug, the innkeeper. Can I see you?”

In a moment, Sarah came down the stairs, cheeks a little flushed from wine. “Oh, hi,” she said to the bomber jacket and his friend, then she smiled at me. “I guess I forgot to tell you about this.”

“I guess you did.”

Four years before, in 1993, a bed and breakfast seemed like a good idea. Nan and I had researched a half-dozen businesses, spent many weekends discussing the pros and cons of each, but could not bring ourselves to make a final choice. We resolved to make a “go or no-go” decision over a summer weekend at the Edgewater Hotel in Madison. As we drank our umbrella drinks on the hotel’s drink deck on the shore of Lake Mendota, our choices had been narrowed to an advertising agency or a bed and breakfast. Either choice fit our profile, but either choice was risky.

Actually, the whole idea was crazy risky as friends and family kept reminding us. The high percentage of new business failures per business start-ups was a sobering statistic, they pointed out. Why not stay safe? Why not keep your established jobs? Why take the risk and expose yourselves financially and professionally? But both Nan and I felt our careers, once very promising, had shifted into neutral. I thought starting a new business would get us in gear again and prove to ourselves, and to others, that we could be successful creating a business of our own. I didn’t want to look back 20 years from now and wonder, “What if?”

As we talked, a small tour boat pulled up to the end of the deck. The engine idled in puffs of exhaust and then shut off as the captain and first mate waited patiently. After a few minutes a gaggle of guys came from the bar inside the hotel and jostled onto the boat. Just before the motor was engaged, someone shouted, “Where’s Jules?”

One of the gaggle was missing. “Jules, Jules, Jules,” they chanted as waves pushed the boat farther and farther from the deck. Jules appeared through one of the hotel doors, ran down the wooden deck past umbrella tables, diners and waiters. The boat was now about five to seven feet out. Drifting farther by the moment.

“Jump Jules, jump.”

Jules hesitated, saw that this was the last possible moment, and jumped. Both his feet landed on the gunwale, but he tottered backward about to fall into the lake when a half-dozen hands reached out to pull him in. A cheer, and the boat roared away in a broad curve toward the lights of the distant shore.

Jump, jump, jump. We would jump, and if we fell short, we would reach out for help.

“Let’s do the bed and breakfast.”

The key to a successful bed and breakfast is, to parrot any realtor, “Location, location, location.” The ideal B&B home (by law Wisconsin Bed and Breakfasts are staged in owner-occupied homes) has accessibility and visibility in the community, is large enough to make a profit and sits in a historic, romantic neighborhood. After weeks of searching, we found an 1888 Victorian on the outskirts of Green Bay’s Astor National Historic Neighborhood. We came to terms quickly, and by the end of the year our business projections morphed into a business plan that was accepted by a bank who then approved our loan. The closing date was just after Christmas. That was quite a package to unwrap. At the beginning 1993 we were just another couple with a dream; by the end of the year – hit the lights, cue the music – we were entrepreneurs.

The first week of April we moved into the B&B, now dubbed the Astor House. Our quarters were completed first and the guest rooms opened later, as we completed them. Our gimmick (every B&B needs one) was designing each of the five rooms based on a loose decorative interpretation of the great cites of the world: London (a masculine nod to Sherlock Holmes and William Morris), Marseilles Gardens (frilly French country garden), Laredo (a southwestern homage), Vienna Balcony (a split level room spanning both the second and third floor) and Hong Kong (our largest room at the top of the house). Modern additions such as gas fireplaces, whirlpools, cable TV and CD players, separate telephone lines, and private baths, put our B&B ahead of most. What we didn’t have were guests.

One Saturday morning, soon after we moved in, the phone rang: “Hi, do you have any rooms open the first weekend in May?”

Oh my God. An actual customer. Our first. My eyes widened. Yes. Yes. We will be successful. People will actually come to stay with us! We won’t be bankrupt and be forced to live in the street, huddled together under our 250-count sheets.

“Did you say the first weekend in May?”

“That’s right. Do you have anything?”

Do I have anything? Lady, it’s all yours. I give you the entire house. In fact I will pay you to come stay with us as our guest for that weekend and for every first weekend in May between now and the end of time. Nan and I did a high-five.

“Let me check.” I had to extend the conversation because this moment was too good to cut short. It was the first laugh of a comedy before a live audience after you had been rehearsing before silent seats for six weeks. It was the first customer admiring your canvases during that dewy morning hour of a weekend art fair. It was the letter from The New Yorker asking if they could publish your poetry.

After I finally completed the sale, Nan and I hugged, and jumped up and down. Our doubts and fears had been dulled by one simple phone call, a single cheer, and after that call that our days and our success were defined by more phone calls. The routine was when Nan walked in the door after work, (she kept her full-time job with benefits) she asked, “Is it a good day?” That meant, had someone called to reserve a room? Were we still successful? My reply was, more often than not, “Yes! It’s a good day.”

The financial success of the business made the bank very happy, but I still had doubts. Even years into the project, quietly surveying the rooms after the guests had left, I wondered when they would find out that I was just an ordinary guy. Hard working, sure, but no special talents, no keen insight nor extraordinary gifts. The business was successful because of what guests brought with them, not because of what was here. As an innkeeper, I became what they wanted to see, not necessarily who I was.

One of our guests was a famous network sports anchor in town to keynote a charity dinner. He arrived late on a rainy autumn weeknight, exhausted, barely recognizable from posters advertising the fete. In one grueling day he said he had been on the East Coast then the West Coast before he arrived mid-coast in Green Bay. He didn’t come down for breakfast first thing, or for a mid-morning snack, and it was almost noon when I served him coffee and a bagel. I asked about his crazy network and speaking schedule, but he was more interested in chatting about the neighborhood and the B&B.

I imagine most of his celebrity stays were in gilded Hiltons and Hyatts, though he seemed quite common when I talked with him over a kitchen counter. What might a little place like The Astor House mean to someone with his talent and success? Each of our rooms contained a journal and pen, and guests would often write their thoughts about their stay. Some entries were predictably superficial: “Had a great time!” “Can’t wait to get back!” “Best B&B I have ever seen!” His entry was much thoughtful and showed an awareness of what I was trying to provide: “You know, I always tell my daughter to slow down and enjoy life – it passes too quickly – but I never take the advice myself. Today, I took the time enjoy. Thanks for having a place like this.”

Maybe the inn had been successful was because I was able to attract kindred spirits. The Astor House was a stage and those who stayed with us wrote and performed their own plays. Me? I was just the stage manager, the guy with the boom-box and broom behind the scenes.

And the stripper for Hong Kong? Instinct told me this was just harmless entertainment, as it turned out to be: no dirty, sleazy, scuzzy plot. The bomber-jacket looked like the junior member of a bowling team and not at all what I would have expected from a stripper – though, to be honest, I don’t know what I would expect a stripper to look like. A kindred spirit, I suppose. I wished him well.

Jump, jump, jump.

Sarah looked confused, “Excuse me?”

“Have fun, but try not to disrupt the other guests.” All three looked relieved, and they went up the stairs to Hong Kong. I went back to our quarters. Bogey shot a bad guy. Nan looked at me quizzically.

“It’s just a stripper for Hong Kong,” I said, as I walked past.

It had been a good day.

Bio:

Douglas Paul Landwehr is an adjunct writing instructor at NWTC. He is also a graduate student in the English program at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and lives in Green Bay.