the dignified doorman

the dignified doorman

The Dignified Doorman

In the thirties when fish factories in my town closed, the
sardines

didn’t swim near shore, they swam further into deep the
ocean.

Perhaps collective memory told them not to go near the coast
line.

Like the war, it was forgotten when old sardines died out
and the new

generation swam too close to shore again, but that was after
my

two uncles had gone to America to find work. In New York one
of

them, a young man with an immense dignity got a temporary job

as a doorman at a swanky hotel, but he stayed the uniform
was

smart and the ladies were very kind to him, free food and
lodging.

 After twenty years, he
came back home and bought a house, cash,

of tips given to him by hotel’s clients and he got married
which was

expected of a man with greying hair and a fairly new
bungalow.

In the meantime, there had been a war and he got a job as a
driver

for the boss of a brewery a job he kept till he retired. A
placid man,

more than Domingo, his wife had affairs in the hope of
shaking him

out of his placidity he turned the other cheek. Talking
about cheeks

when his wife died he moved in with his friend and both of
them

lived to be old men, who had found love, if a bit late in
life.