A Call He Did Not Answer

A True Story

One day in 1988 while working as a hotel houseman at his first job at the Holiday Inn in downtown St. Paul, MN, Ephrem's managers summoned him to their office, a small room on the eighth floor of the hotel (do not quote him on the floor number.) His managers were two middle–aged ladies, the head of housekeeping. He did not know why they summoned him. Did he mess up something? Or are they going to tell him that he is getting another raise, as they had done on his three–month employment anniversary when they told him with excitement he was getting an 11-cent-an-hour raise?

Upon entering the room, his managers greeted him with smiles on their faces which relieved him to see but kept him wondering. They had a message to relay to him, which they had received from the attorney of a guest that had stayed at the hotel a short while ago and whom Ephrem had taken care of. The guest was a rich old man, an advertising executive in his day, who could barely care for himself, who, after about a two–week stay at the hotel, had checked out to move to the Raddison down the road. Ephrem had taken care of him during his stay. He had also helped him with his move to the Raddison. A short while later the old man had moved into a nursing home. If his recollection is correct, he had helped him with that move too (or it is just that he had visited him while at the nursing home.)

The message from the attorney was as follows: The old man has passed; and he has mentioned Ephrem in his will; the attorney is trying to reach Ephrem and has left a call–back number.

After a brief chat with his managers Ephrem took the number, thanked them for relaying the message, and exited the office. For the next day or so he thought about what he should do: should he return the call or not? He was around twenty years of age. He followed his gut and decided not to return the call. He does not remember what he did with the number.