A Day or a Lifetime – You can forget about that on account you’re a rez

The first character whom Barton encounters upon arriving at the Hotel Earle is Chet (Steve Buscemi), one of only two employees we ever see working at the hotel, the other being Pete the elevator attendant.  I’ll be sure to talk more about Chet in a subsequent entry, because he’s a pretty fun character, but for now I’m just going to note the information he gives Barton upon establishing that he’ll be at the Earle indefinitely – namely, “Checkout time is twelve sharp, only you can forget about that on account you’re a rez (resident).”  It’s curious enough that Chet would bother to impart that information only to immediately tell Barton to disregard it.  What’s really startling is the implicit suggestion that Barton should not expect to ever have to concern himself with checking out at all.  Upon arrival, the resident is instructed to surrender all hope of ever departing.

Having set up his typewriter upon his desk at the Earle, the first thing that Barton notices (before his gaze wanders to the image of the sun-bathing woman) is the hotel stationary – a small stack of letters and envelopes bearing the slogan “A Day or a Lifetime.”  This slogan is a reiteration of Chet’s statements about the Earle offering services to both the transient and the resident, and the threat of entrapment is once again implicit.  There is a pencil, but its point is broken, and when Barton moves it the markings underneath indicate that it has been lying there dormant for quite some time.  Has the room itself been vacant for as long?  This seems entirely plausible - the Earle as a whole is so eerily quiet and lifeless that it raises the question as to whether anybody besides Barton, Charlie and a couple of love birds (heard but not seen) is staying there at all.  Or maybe the sense of alienation is so overwhelming that few tenants ever feel the urge to make a connection with the outside world - the broken pencil calls to mind that old gag about there being “no point”, after all.

An obvious symbol of stifled creativity, it signals Barton’s oncoming onslaught of writer’s block, but also the sense of despair and isolation that pervades the Earle, severed from means of self-expression and communication.  W.P. Mayhew will later argue that the ability to write represents a means of escaping from oneself, something which the Earle is clearly stunted on.

The broken pencil is not, in itself, an obstacle to Barton, who has come equipped with his own typewriter.  But the threat of entrapment within the life of his own mind is potent nonetheless.