The Arlington

1. The Arlington

We climbed the stairs of the Arlington Hotel and Spa and walked into the lobby. There were people coming and going with suitcases, people seated at tables, some talking, some eating, and people sitting at the bar.

The hotel clerk behind the counter pointed us the elevators and told us to go to the third floor. The dials above the doors counted up and counted down, and eventually a bell rang and one of the doors opened.

The elevator stopped on the third floor, and we passed thru a double doorway into a kind of foyer. We looked around the room while two women behind the counter checked in clients ahead of us. This place was from another time — the radiators, the moulding on the walls, the tiny closet that could hold nothing today.

When we were checked in, they gave Trudy a loofah with her name on it and me one with mine. Trudy was directed to the women's door on the left, I to the right.

2. The Rooms Behind the Door

The men's spa was a linear series of two or three narrow rooms. There was the changing room with chairs and lockers for your clothes. There was the massage room, with tables neatly set between curtains hanging from stainless steel rods. And there was the hydrotherapy room. This latter was why we came.

On the left there were doors to rooms that I never discovered, door after door. On the right there were shower and tub stalls. Down the center there were tables, more than 20 one after another, with only several covered with sheets and pillows.

The long room was painted white, and there was plaster falling from the ceiling in places. There was plumbing coming out of the floor and walls, with pipes and elbows and valves with big brass knobs in pairs for cold and hot. No matter where you looked, this place shouted sanitarium, and I half expected Nurse Cratchit to appear from behind one of the closed doors.

3. Waiting My Turn

Take off your clothes here, an attendant said, pointing to the chairs and lockers. He handed me a wrap-around terry-cloth skirt with an elastic waist and velcro fastener, figuring I'd know what to do with it. Then he mumbled something about sitting on one of the tables and the far end of the room. I looked to where he pointed and saw an old man sitting alone, his back to me, his head bent, a wrap-around skirt about his waist.

The old man at the end was sitting quite still and seemed to need no company. It wasn't obvious what the protocol was — do I sit next to this guy with nothing but terry-cloth skirts on us, or do I sit on another table? I chose the latter, which meant moving several tables back, since three tables immediately behind him were made in clean white sheets and had towels squarely folded at one end.

So I awkwardly sat down several tables back, wondering what would happen next.

Soon, an attendant came out from behind one of the doors and escorted the old man into a stall in the far corner of the room. Before long after that he came and got me.

4. The Tub

The attendant's name was Matt. He led me to a different stall in the corner of the room and told me to take off my skirt and step into the tub. I took the terry-cloth off from around me and stood there in all my glory as Matt tested the water temperature, periodically turning the great brass knobs.

The tub was a huge porcelain thing, long enough for a tall man to loose himself in. It had high sides and sensuous curves. The finish was worn from years of use.

I lifted one leg and then another over the edge as Matt made some final adjustments to the water, turned off the valves, and then left the room. Relax, he said.

The water was warm, not hot. Frankly, I expected hot water — this was Hot Springs, after all. Still, after several minutes of sitting there in silence, listening to Matt talking to the old man (who seemed very far away), I began to sweat and had to lift my arms out of the water. It was plenty hot enough.

Matt came back and turned one of the valves, filling a paper cup with hot spring water.

Drink all of this if you can, he said.

I did.

Then he reached for my loofah, which was on the shelf next to my discarded terry-cloth skirt.

Lift up your right leg, he said.

He put some kind of blue lotion on the loofah and scrubbed my right leg and then my left and then my right arm and then my left and finally my back. This was no Nurse Cratchit. It felt divine, even though it was only a few brief moments.

5. Soap Bubbles

When we had finished scrubbing, Matt tossed the loofah into the water, turned on the whirlpool, and left. The water started swirling, and my arms fell back in. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I let my body slide down the tub so that only my neck stuck out.

As the water swirled, it began to bubble. For more than twenty minutes, the swirling continued and the bubbles climbed higher and higher until at last I had to push them away from my face so that I could breathe. Certainly Matt would return soon, I thought, but he didn't, and the bubbles climbed yet higher, ignoring the rounded edges of the tub and advancing instead toward the ceiling.

This would have made a fine image, I think. A rounded porcelain tub with a man's head sticking out of the water at one end and bubbles dwarfing him. Picture my arms extended out of the bubbles — my right draped over the edge of the tub, my left extended up the tiled wall.

Sweat was streaming down my brow.

6. The End

Of course, Matt did eventually come back and rescue me from the advancing bubbles.

Then there were hot towels laid on sore muscles. And there were sheets wrapped around me with only my head sticking out. And there was the old man lying next to me, telling me that the last time he did something like this he was much younger and it was in Japan and the attendants were young girls. (A much different experience, if you know what I mean, he said.) There was the three-dimensional cool shower with water coming from all directions. And there was the massage.

Alas, there was no cold ice cream. That would have to wait for another day. But there was the lovely vision of my wife smiling and chatting and waiting for me as I emerged, and that's better than any ice cream I could ever hope for.

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The Arlington Hotel and Spa
Hot Springs, Arkansas

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