You laugh at me sometimes for just
throwing a veil over my face and coming home black-face. It's because
I'm too tired, Marcy. Too lonesome for home. On the road I always used
to think of all the families in the audience. The husbands and wives.
Brides and grooms. Sweethearts. After the performance they all went to
homes. To brownstone fronts like the Grosbecks'. To cottages. To flats.
With a snack to eat in the refrigerator or laid out on the dining-room
table. Lamps burning and waiting. Nighties laid out and bedcovers turned
back. And then--me. Second-rate hotels. That walk through the dark
downtown streets. Passing men who address you through closed lips. The
dingy lobby. There's no applause lasts long enough, Marcia, to reach
over that moment when you unlock your hotel room and the smell of
disinfectant and unturned mattress comes out to you."
"Ugh!"
"Oh, keep to the safe people, Marcia! The unexciting people, maybe, but
the safe home-building ones with old ideals and old hearthstones.
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