Bad Ideas in Berlin

A few months ago, my boyfriend and I visited Berlin. We booked our hotel because of its location, and nowhere in the details of it did it mention there was a studio inside.

On the Wednesday night at around one in the morning, my boyfriend and I were trying to sleep. Yet there was a thunderous noise coming from somewhere above us. When I went into the bathroom, the bass shook my molars right through the concrete ceiling. This was partially my own fault—I’d by then become so committed to smoking that my gums frequently bled, but still.

He went into the stairwell to investigate and discovered that the sound was coming from the 8th floor (three whole floors above us). We couldn’t go up and deal with it ourselves because the elevator would only let us off on our floor and the stairwell doors were locked unless you had the appropriate fob. So, we called down to the front desk.

“I’ll do something about it,” the guy who answered promised us.

We waited twenty minutes, and still the noise continued. Fed up, I threw on a bra, a dress, and the pair of big black shit-kickers I always bring when I travel.

“I’ll come with you,” my boyfriend volunteered.

“Oh, I really don’t want you to see this.”

When the elevator opened to collect me, a waft of cigarette smoke billowed out. A couple who looked furious walked through it. I suspected they had a similar complaint to mine but had been unsuccessful in solving it.

Down in the lobby, the clerk explained that he was the only one working. “I can’t leave my post,” he insisted.

“If you don’t,” I said, in the calmest voice I could muster, “I will take the shitty chair from my room and use it to break down the stairwell door. After that, I will find where the noise is coming from and use whatever is left of said chair to beat whoever is inside that room to death.”

“Well,” he said, understanding that I wasn’t going to give up, “then I suppose we should go upstairs together.”

I was surprised he wanted to take me with him. He was tiny, but at this point, poor life choices had whittled me down to little more than a sternum and a pair of untied boots—think Kate Moss during her heroin chic phase, with teeth in a more unfortunate shade of bone. I would be any sensible person’s last choice for backup.

Incapable of thinking anything through, I agreed to his plan. On the 8th floor, I went one way and he went the other. He came chasing after me a moment later, realizing I was probably best not left alone. 

We located the room easily. It was the one with a door that was bowing out from the sound inside. Standing in front of it, the night desk clerk knocked very lightly with his little fob. This was much like watching a bee land upon a flower, and surely could not be heard over the absolutely thunderous noise inside. So, I, helpfully, began kicking the door.

A man soon opened up to reveal the spinning disco ball inside the room. Flashes of mirrored light played across the planes of my stunned face. But I got it together enough to ask, “What the fuck?”

“Just a sec,” the guy said, and summoned someone else.  

The night desk clerk, as if noticing my unbridled fury for the first time, stepped in front of me, while the man in charge of whatever was happening inside the room explained the situation.

“We’re streaming live on Twitch, so you understand.”

Night desk clerk, emboldened by the bravado of the emaciated woman at his side said, “No man, I really don’t.”

“I’ll turn it down a bit,” the man in the doorway offered.

“Way down,” I corrected, “or I’ll be back.”  

 We left and took what was perhaps the longest elevator ride I’d ever experienced down to the front desk, with the clerk apologizing the whole way.

“You know,” I said when he paused to take a breath, “I would have punched him if you hadn’t stepped in front of me.”

 “Of that, I was very aware,” he assured me.

I dropped him back at his post and headed up to my room, where my boyfriend was pacing.

“Where the fuck did you go?” he wanted to know.

I recounted the story as I began getting ready for bed again.

When I was done, he stared at me, agog. “I wish you’d have let me come with you, and furthermore, why on earth couldn’t you have put on panties first?”

“The thought never even crossed my mind.”

Berlin, 2024.