Looking for Mr. Gilbert by John Hanson Mitchell

Author:John Hanson Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497672826
Publisher: Open Road Distribution

I was staying down in Bethel at this time at a restored house called something like the Bistro that had been turned into a bed and breakfast and restaurant. It was run by New Yorkers who had come up to the area to ski and liked the place so much they decided to stay. The concierge, a man named Allen, was a displaced Londoner with a strong East End accent who had made a lot of money rigging the sound systems for rock groups. He and his wife, who did all the cooking, had a couple of young children and, unlike so many of the overly precious New England bed and breakfasts, they ran the place somewhat haphazardly.

This custom had gotten them into some difficulty with the stray NTLers who would come to eat at the restaurant and take rooms there when the institute rooms were filled. The Bistro had no air-conditioning, no TVs in the rooms, no blow-dryers, no hookups or connections for the electronic devices carried by the harried NTL executive visitors. This begat many complaints from the guests who expected special services.

“I just shrug, don’t I, when they say that,” Allen told me. “What are we to do, run out and buy a TV?”

Allen had his own complaints about the NTLers.

“You get the troubled ones here, sometimes. You get these types who are sent by their companies because they don’t have many people skills, as they like to say, and the NTL staff tries to get them to face up to the fact. Sometimes it works; they begin to look at themselves for the first time and you’ll see people sitting here in a corner in the living room sobbing bitterly while the other guests are trying to enjoy a drink.”

I had heard similar complaints about the NTLers voiced by waitresses in some of the other Bethel restaurants. The NTLers come in, stare at the menu, drink some water, eat some of the rolls, stare at the menu again, and then get up and walk out. Or they demand things that are unavailable, or require special orders, or change their minds after the chef is halfway through preparation of their dish.

“They’re all screwy in one way or another,” a woman named Linda, who ran a little spot on the green, told me. “I’m telling you, they get some real weirdos up there. Late one night, I’m closing the place up, and I hear some scuffling and grunting out on the green there. Here’s two naked guys, wrestling, right by the fountain, trying to ‘work it out,’ I suppose. People who live around the green sometimes hear yowling and singing at three in the morning. It’s like these middle-aged dorks finally figured something out. They grew up too soon, like they never had childhoods. Hey,” she said, “we all got problems. Get over it.”

All this talk about the NTLers made me want to go there myself and attempt to become normal. I had talked with the staff already

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