Curits, My Man

As  you can imagine, hotels have lots of outside windows, and those same windows have an annoying habit of getting very dirty. Someone needs to clean those dirty windows, but not I said the housekeeper, nor I said the maintenance man, and not I said the desk clerk, and certainly not me, the GM. So, who wold clean those windows without breaking the budget that I had to work with? Well, Curtis, of course.

We are back on 85th and Aurora, Emerald Inn, Seattle, WA, my favorite place for my hotel stories,as those of you who read them several years ago recall. I really miss those days. There was never a dull moment.

OK, let's get back to those dirty windows. One day when I was working the front desk, a middle aged looking street person came into the office and asked if I needed the windows washed. Yes, I certainly did, but the questions running rapidly in my head as I looked at this man were:
1. Did I trust him


2. Did I trust him.

After all, my guest's safety and privacy were at stake here as well as the question of did this guy even know how to wash windows? And then back to the two previous questions. Did I trust him?I had to make a decision, and so I said yes to him. We set a price that was more than fair for doing the entire outside of the hotel. The man introduced himself to me as "Curtis", and then said that he was known on the street as " Detroit". I called him Curtis.


I watched with merriment and growing curiosity as Curtis gathered his bucket,brush, and squeegee,and started to work cleaning the windows. Honestly, I did not expect much in the way of him doing a good job, but I was soon proven wrong. Curtis was like an artist with the brush and squeegee. I have never seen windows washed quicker and cleaner . Curtis was the Picasso of the street window washing artists. When he was finished, I paid hm what we had agreed on plus a tip. He then shook my hand and said that if I ever needed help on the street with the gangs, just to mention that I was a friend of  "Detroit". Curtis was maybe 5 foot 7, maybe 135 pounds, so I thought ,sure, I just bet he strikes fear into some of the gangs that ran in the neighborhood .I was pleased though, that the windows were clean, at least for the time being.


I didn't know if I would ever see Curtis again. He lived on the street at the time, and those who lived on the street had a way of not being seen or heard from again.  I would, however, see Curtis many more times, and sometimes it was to wash the windows, and other times, well, they were not so pleasant encounters. There would come a time in the not too distant future when knowing Curtis could very possibly have saved my life.




Stay tuned.