The People’s Champ
We called Kofi the People’s Champ because he was the only manager at the Vide Hotel that didn’t care about us drinking on the job and, in fact, would sometimes hit joints with us in the bell closet.
He had worked at this polished piece of shit for six years, slowly rising in the ranks of corporate fuckery, but somehow avoided selling out like the other now soulless higher-ups.
But one day Kofi decided he was going to quit. He had saved up some money and was starting a streetwear company. His designs were basic, at best—no one even knew Kofi had a passion for designing until he made the announcement—but Kofi was the People’s Champ, and you didn’t question him.
Besides, it was everybody’s dream to quit.
Over the years at the hotel Kofi had accrued “house credit” which was given to employees after their first year, and which you could use on guest rooms and meals at the restaurant. Kofi had so much credit that on his last night as a manager he booked himself the largest suite on the top floor of the hotel, a room we called “The Oligarch’s Quarters.”
I was in guest services with Malcolm and Damien, the bellmen, watching Kofi make the reservation on one of our bulky old Dell computers. After he completed the booking, he swiveled his chair toward Damien, blinked, and said, “Flask?”
Damien’s eyes went wide. “Broo!!”
“Just pass it,” said Kofi, and Damien did.
Kofi took a big pull, sighed, and loosened the tie on his hotel uniform. This—in addition to sporting a slight beard—was a first for Kofi: he had always groomed himself according to the strict standards as described in the Employee’s Handbook.
Now, tie loosened, a slightly unhinged look in his eyes, savoring the whiskey from Damien’s flask, Kofi said, “Call up the crew. We’re throwing a party tonight.”
Damien exclaimed “THATTA BOY!” while Malcolm and I fist-bumped.
Then we got to work.
Damien—who had claimed to have fucked over 700 ladies, including an aging Paris Hilton, and probably wasn’t lying—easily persuaded the hot girl hostesses at the rooftop bar to clear their schedules for the night. Malcolm, who had a cousin that worked in security, strolled over to that department, making sure those guys felt included, and therefore wouldn’t rat us out.
I hung out in the room service kitchen with Luis, the dishwasher. He was a shy kid in person, but had another life on the internet as a trap music producer, using the name “Prod Olive,” like Palmolive, the dishwashing liquid.
Sometimes he would show me his producer credits on SoundCloud.
There were some pretty big names on that list.
In the kitchen, we listened to a new beat he was making for an artist called Max Payne Tha Villain and passed a Corona back and forth that I had taken from Nick Jonas’s minibar earlier that afternoon. Nothing against Nick Jonas, per say, I just figured he could afford it.
“Kofi is throwing a party tonight,” I told Luis. “It’s his last night.”
Luis said, “Oh. I don’t really like parties. What do you think of his…streetwear?”
“It’s…Kofi,” I said, blushing. We were very protective of the People’s Champ.
As the hours passed, excitement started to build around the hotel, and I’d occasionally watch Kofi fulfill his duties as manager for the last time. There was some kind of fire in his eyes as he went through the motions, finalizing next week’s schedule, interviewing potential new-hires, settling various guest disputes. In each situation Kofi smiled and acted professionally, as he always did, but there was something cracked in that smile too, an underlying and unspecific insanity pressing through.
Soon as I clocked out I took off my hotel uniform—the button-up, tie, slacks, boots—and put on my black hoodie, black jeans, and Vans which I kept stashed in the bell closet. For the last week or so, I had been sleeping in there.
Then I carried a six pack of Sierra Nevada Torpedos up to The Oligarch’s Quarters. Kofi was in the room already, wearing one of his sample t-shirts, appreciating the panoramic views of a shimmering night in Los Angeles.
I stood next to him and said, “Congrats my guy.”
He grimaced and thrust his pointer finger at the Hollywood Hills, where all the houses were lit up and twinkling, enticing, as if entry into any one promised some awesome future, all you had to do was pick.
Kofi said, “Congratulate me when I’m up there.”
I nodded somberly, thought to place my hand on his shoulder, thought again, and decided instead to hand Kofi a beer. It was the only way I knew how to help him, or anyone for that matter.
Soon, The Oligarch’s Quarters filled up. Damien arrived wearing torn-up skinny jeans and a Kobe jersey, two hostesses by his side. Malcolm and his cousin arrived, along with Shawn, another off-duty security guard who was wearing an exact replica of Pharrell’s signature giant hat.
More people arrived—waitresses from the downstairs restaurant, pilates instructors from the Spa—and Derick, the rooftop bartender, who used to be famous for singing in a mid-2000s emo band you loved once probably, but have long since forgot.
Within the first half hour of the party, however, there came a banging on the front door.
Kofi turned off the music, walked over, and opened up.
A Frenchman—wearing nothing but a bathrobe, fluffy slippers, and a shiny gold watch—was standing in the hall. Seeing Kofi, he instantly exclaimed, “I hear boom boom boom! From my ceiling! You must shut up! Stop the party! Now! Or I call front desk!”
Kofi assumed his managerial poise and spoke to the Frenchman in a soothing voice. The Frenchman squinted at Kofi, scratching the pube-like hairs on his greasy, oiled chest, checked the time on his watch, and said finally, “I don’t care! Just shut up!” before storming off.
Kofi closed the door slowly. We all watched to see what he would do next. Suddenly, he pointed at me and said, “Turn that music back up. Fuck that French piece of shit!”
Everybody cheered.
Quickly I ran for the speaker, eager to please the People’s Champ. D12’s “Blow My Buzz” was the next song up and the party raged on, becoming louder, stranger, more intense.
At one point in the night, Kofi and a few other people were doing fat lines in the shape of Kofi’s name off the coffee table in the suite’s sunken living room. Kofi snorted up the last letter of his name, leaned back, and put one arm around one of the hostesses. Then, waving around the light blue tampon tube he had used to do the drugs with his other arm, he explained to her, “Melrose! On Melrose! That’s where I’m going to open my shop. No wait,” he paused, eyes darting back and forth. “It’s not a shop…I’m going to call it…a gallery.”
Before he could say any more, there came a THRUMP THRUMP THRUMP on the front door. I was standing close to the speaker, and so turned the music off.
Kofi stood up, adjusted his shirt, and said, “Better not be the Frenchie.”
He marched toward the front door and opened it.
Immediately, the bathrobed Frenchman dove into the room and swung at Kofi, the sweaty man’s gold watch clipping Kofi’s cheek.
“Thafuck,” Kofi said, stunned.
I pointed and yelled, “Protect the Champ!”
Before anybody could reach the Frenchman, however, Kofi had already jumped on him. Half the party stood in the doorway, wide-eyed, and watched as Kofi pinned the man to the hallway carpet, removed his watch, and began repeatedly whipping his face over and over again with the golden timepiece.
Each time Kofi’s arm came up, the watch was covered in more blood and sweat.
Who knows how long the beating would have gone on if we hadn’t heard the voice of Luis. “BRO-BRO-BRO!” the dishwasher said, standing in the hallway.
It seemed Prod Olive had just arrived to the party.
Hearing Luis’s voice, Malcolm and I sobered up and pulled Kofi away from the Frenchman. Using the opportunity, the guy stood up, quickly took stock of our faces, then ran away down the hall, screaming like a lunatic the entire time.
I let go of Kofi. Blood, liquor, and chest hairs stained his sample t-shirt. I noticed as well that the logo was an iron-on, and instantly became depressed. No more fire lit up my manager’s eyes. The people’s champ only looked deeply tired and full of regret.
Deciding the fun was over, I went downstairs to the bell closet where I fell asleep.
In the morning I changed into my uniform and clocked into my shift. Before reporting for my pre-shift meeting I went outside to have a cigarette. It was a hot and sunny day in Los Angeles. Malcolm was riding up and down the sidewalk on an empty bell cart. He rode right up to me and said, “Bro. Shit is crazy. Corporate is all here. They are investigating the incident. Frenchie snitched.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, but check this out. When dude told them the room number, they looked up the booking and saw Kofi’s name. Plus, the tapes showed that everyone coming in and out of The Oligarch last night were hotel employees, so they can’t do shit! Imagine explaining to the police that one of our guests was jumped by the entire staff.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
“Probably nothing. Can’t fire everyone. They gave him a few free extra nights.”
A couple days later I was in the elevator with Malcolm and Damien. The door opened and in came the Frenchman, one black eye, plus bruises and cuts all over his face.
At first, our presence didn’t register to him. All he saw were hotel uniforms. But something clicked as he caught our faces in the reflective surface of the closing doors.
“Enjoying your stay?” I said, snarling.
The Frenchman gasped and frantically pressed the next floor button on the elevator. Soon as the doors opened again he sprinted through them, surely hoping to escape this bizarre twilight zone in which the working class were all out to spill his blood.
Damien curled his nose and said, “Bon voyage, motherfucker.”
Later that day the Frenchman checked out. It seems he didn’t want his free stay after all.
- The People’s Champ - April 16, 2025
* This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are producs of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
