| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Rob Pierce is a writer and editor. His stories have been published in Monday Night, Zygote In My Coffee, and Swill, and will also appear in the forthcoming edition of Strange Tales of an Unreal West. |
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| © 2007 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| LANGUAGE BARRIER |
| by Rob Pierce |
| He wore a Georgia St. Bulldogs cap; fifty years ago, he might have been a linebacker. Now he was just an old guy with broad shoulders, and he leaned against the counter in the sweltering lobby like this motel might be his last stop.
He’d waited there silently while the Arab behind the counter tried to explain how the room phones worked to a large black woman, whose room phone apparently didn’t. Then when the Arab loaned the black woman his personal cell phone, the old Bulldog had graciously looked up from his leaning to help the woman read a phone number off a business card. “Seventy four hundred?” she asked. “Seventy four hundred,” he agreed. Now it was his turn, sweat running down from his forehead, eleven in the morning and already eighty-five degrees outside and probably ninety-five in here. “I’d like a room for the night,” he said. “Something downstairs.” The man behind the counter asked him a couple of simple questions, and from his already open wallet he produced his driver’s license and a credit card. “I don’t know if I have any rooms ready yet,” the man behind the counter said with his accent, which sounded maybe Indian, not Arabic after all. “I will check.” “I don’t need the room right away,” the big man said. “I’ll come back in five, six hours.” “Let me just see if the room is ready,” the man behind the counter said again, and he began punching numbers into his keyboard. “I don’t need the room right away. Just give me a room number, I’ll come back around six o’clock.” “Just a moment, sir, while I check.” Expressionless as he could, the big man turned his head. He knew someone waited behind him. It was a kid about thirty, he stood several feet back and he was sweating too. Their quick exchange of glances shared nothing. The typing stopped. The man behind the counter spoke. “Okay, I can give you room two-oh-six, it is ready now. Will you need one key card or two?” “Okay,” he nodded. “Just one. Two-oh-six: is that on the ground floor?” “Second floor,” the counterman said agreeably, his accent sounding Indian but his face still looking Arab. “I have to be on the ground floor. I can’t walk up stairs.” “Oh. Just a moment. I will see if a first floor room is ready. It is early,” he explained, “they are still cleaning.” “I don’t care if it’s ready now. I’m going to visit my wife in the hospital. Just give me a room number, I’ll come back in four, five hours.” The man behind the counter was on the phone, talking, tapping at his keyboard with one hand. He held up a finger as though to hush the big man. “It is okay,” he said, definitely Arab. “The room is ready now. Room one-oh-three.” “I don’t need it ready now. Ground floor?” “Ground floor. One key card or two?” “One, please.” The Arab tapped something on his keyboard and passed the big man a card. “You may enter any time.” The big man turned, grumbled to the kid behind him, “Can’t even speak English.” And he took one solid step then dragged his left leg behind, did it again until he was out of the lobby, back into the relative cool and calm of the heatwave nature provided. |
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| Jan. 2007 |
| 75 |