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4 Yes, mam, she was pretty and still she was seventy and bent and
dragged her feet along instead of liftin’ them. The man was dressed just as
sorry as her and in his hand he carried a paper bag. . . . Marge, he was
lookin’ at her like every woman on earth dreams of bein’ looked at, and her
eyes were doin’ the same thing back at him.
5 Honey, everyone was standin’, just starin’. There was a giggle from
some kid and one well-dressed woman looked like she was goin’ to faint, but
the old man walked up to the clerk with the old lady follerin’ behind him and
he said in a quavery voice, “We’d like a room for the night.”
6 Well, you could cut the silence with a knife. The clerk hemmed and
hawed while they stood there lookin’ back at him real innocent and peaceful,
and finally he said, “You’ll have to pay in advance.” “How much is the
cheapest room?” the old man asked. The clerk breathed a little easier and
said: “Three-fifty.” The old man went in his coat pocket and brought out four
crumpled up dollar bills and put them on the desk.
7 The clerk turned red in the face and said real loud, “You can’t have a
room without carryin’ baggage—where’s your baggage?” You could hear a
pin drop when the old man placed the paper bag on the desk, opened it and
pulled out two rough dry shirts. . . . Well, with that the clerk took the
money, gave him a key and fifty cents change and said, “Top floor rear!”
8 The couple smiled in such a dignified way, and it seemed like they
hadn’t noticed a thing. They started over toward the elevator and then the
old lady turned away from the man and made her way over to the
receptionist’s desk. Everyone kept their eyes dead on her, and the
receptionist, who was awfully young and pretty, was almost scared out of
her wits. The old lady kept makin’ straight for her, and I could see that the
young lady was gonna scream any second. . . .
9 When the old woman reached the desk, she leaned over a bowl of red
roses that was there and, ever so gently, breathed in the sweet smell, and
then she turned away and quickly joined her husband at the elevator, and
nobody moved until the doors closed and they were gone from sight. . . .
10 That’s all, Marge. Of course, there was buzzin’ and hummin’ after that,
but I got to wonderin’ about who they were and where they came from . . .
and did they have children . . . and how much work they both done in their
lifetime . . . and what it must feel like to be old and draggin’ around in the
cold.
11 That’s all there is to the story and it sure don’t sound like much the way
I tell it, but if I was a poet, I would sing a song of praise for the love in their
eyes and I would make you see the sight of a lifetime when that ragged lady
bent over those roses, and I would tell how awful it is to be old and broke in
the midst of plenty. . . . And that’s what I mean when I say—sometimes I
wish I was a poet.
Copyright © 1956, renewed by Alice Childress in 1984. Used by permission of Flora Roberts, Inc.
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