Chapter 8

Chapter 8

They walked all the way through a long corridor on the bottom floor to the other side of the Hotel which was is just as bad of shape. They came to a large opened door at the end of the hall and Gracie let out a deep breath when she stepped through it into the ballroom. She did a whirl with her arms out. "This is the ball room!" She continued with her dress flowing around her. She looked very relieved to be here, like she had needed to come in here and show it to David. "It's beautiful isn't it?"
David looked around at the huge caverness room. There were huge tall windows lining one side of the room. All the windows had long crimson red curtains from top to bottom. They were cuffed in the middle and draped very nicely, but they were tattered torn and dirty from age. Some of them had fallen completely off there dowels and a couple were laying in big piles of themselves on the floor.David walked in a bit further. The most impressive thing about the room was a huge fire place that went up about three quarters of the wall high.
"This fireplace is huge!" David chuckled in amazement. He walked inside which was more than double his height. The carvings of the mantle and sides were very ornate. There were columns and extrusions all along the wall which shared the same style.
"I can't believe there is a place that looks like this still here." David said as he sat down on a knee high stone lions head on the side of the fireplace.
Gracie stopped dancing and admired the room with him. "Yup, and it's all ours." Gracie looked at David as if he automatically was saying that because he thought this place was cool. And she was right, he did think it was cool, although it was a little scary to him at night but he would never admit that to Gracie.
"It's not very clean of course but the essence of what it was is still here." They both contemplated that thought. "Oh come on, I want to show you something else!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him off the lion head. They walked across the huge floor and entered one of the three doors that led out of the ballroom. They were now walking down a long corridor like the one in the back of the building and David could only make out the square light at the end of the corridor that they were walking toward. There were only a few uninteresting rooms that the hall contained.
They got to the end and then walked into another large room which was the main lobby of the hotel. David's eyes were first drawn to the piles of the various motel furniture and items that block the big doors of the main entrance. There were receptacles, chairs and tables, one on top of the other going up a quarter of the way up the door. For some reason someone went through a lot of trouble to keep people out. The doors themselves were large gold painted with square design.
"I love this chandelier." Gracie raised her hand presenting the large crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling. It was the most impressive thing about the room. A number of its crystals were missing but not enough to break apart it's flowing intricate design. Most all the crystals were dulled by a film of dirt covering them but a lot of the shimmer managed to shine through each crystal.
The main stair case was another marvel of the room. It was really wide but  it was very damaged all the way up to the next floor. Another thing that stood out was the fact that a tree had broken through the wall from the outside and was now growing inside the hotel. It took out part of the main desk and mail boxes and continued up into the next floor. The big roots had destroyed and were lifting the floor boards up about a foot. There were big chunks of the ceiling on the warped boards by the tree where the ceiling had fallen when the tree reached and broken through it untold years ago. David just couldn't believe and understand why everyone would abandon this place and leave all this stuff behind.
"What happened here?" David asked Gracie. "Were did the people go?"
Gracie began to develop the same sad and unsure look on her face that David had. "I don't know." she said. David plopped down on the step in front of the main entrance. Gracie moved into the room further. "I really don't know. I guess I wish they were still here... I wish I could ask one of them." She gave David a smile. "Wouldn't that be cool? To talk to one of those people who lived here so long ago?"
"How long has it been do you think?" David asked. "I mean, since any of those people who started this place have been here... when it really was a Hotel."
"I dunno, lets see. What year is it now?" Gracie asked.
David's concern shifted to what happened here to how did she not know what year it was. "It's 2009." David said like it was obvious.
Gracie wasn't fazed by David's surprise. "2009 huh? Lets see." she said as she turned her head away looking out in thought. "Probably about sixty or seventy years."
David repeated Gracie's answer under his breath in astonishment staring blankly at the ground trying to contemplate that much time. He got a tragic feeling of loss and pity for this place. About how this place was long forgotten, and those people long dead, wiped from the face of the earth never to see this place again and to see what it had become. "It's so sad." David said.
"Well I'm sure they had a good reason to leave, I mean would you leave this place if you didn't have to" Gracie asked with her arms out. "Maybe you and me can rebuild it and run it ourselves." She said now being sarcastic. David got a hopeless sensation about how impossible and how much work that would be to clean up and fix this place. David got a sense that that is what she really wanted to do. There was a glimmer of sincerity and emotion in her voice. David heard her voice crack a little when she said it, and her smile suddenly turned into to a quivery mouth frown. Her red teared up eyes looked around the room in a sad way and David's heart acted for her so bad it was unbearable and he started to tear up as well.
David got up and walked over to give her a hug. Her side was to him and he stood there in front of her trying to give her a hint of what he wanted to do.Gracie could see she was looking like a crazy lady that was too attached to this place and quickly smiled back up and forced herself to look cheery.
"We could get all new people in here and make it look like new. We can start by getting this washing machine out of here!" She kicked the side of the washer and the deep metal sound echoed through the hotel.
David could now see she was feeling better. David watch her as she stood there talking. Behind her the old large chandelier was hanging from the ceiling. Even though it was covered in suit David could recognize the beautiful design of it even though how dirty it was. It was like even the dirt couldn't stop its beauty from forcing itself to be seen.All around Gracie were beautiful shapes and accents of the interior of the hotel covered in filth. Gracie's dress was torn. With a gleam in her eye and her lovely pale skin against the contrast of the background, David had never seen something look so worn and beautiful at the same time.
"Well that's the best part of the Hotel, the rest is pretty much the same... I can show you the rest later." She slapped the sides of her legs and took a deep breath, letting out the last of her emotional outburst. "What else were we going to do." She asked, this time she really didn't know do to her pre-occupation."We were going to get a Christmas tree weren't we?"
"Yeah that's right." David confirmed.
Gracie walked into the side room where they had entered the building the night before and David was right after her. They got to the clanky metal door and Gracie yanked at it trying to get it back open. He remembered how frightened he was to go up that side stair case last night which was much better lit now. His state of mind about this place was better now but he was glad to be getting out of here.
Gracie managed to pull the door open and they both walked out.It was good to be back out in the daylight again and David was surprised at how different the street outside the hotel was in the light of day. Instead of being scary, all the broken down old building were now interesting derelicts to explore. Gracie walked out to the middle of the street then turned around to look at David.
"Ah, its such a nice day!" She said in an invigorated way. "How do you feel?" She asked in excitement. Apparently the new atmosphere had an effect on her spirits too.
"I feel alright." David said as he looked around some more. He looked down the street at the old theater and large elaborate marquee. It sat there like it did last night like it was waiting there for him to look at. It was so dirty and broken it seemed like the dark that was around it last night had stayed with it even though the bright day and the sun was all around it. The theater looked weary and burned out under the energetic brilliant sky.
David walked out to Gracie then turned around and looked at the Hotel to view it in the sun. The achetecture and detail of the Hotel was incredible. It had the same burned out look as the theater under the bright sky. It was diffinetly the dominant structure of the area dwarfing everything else. The old turn of the century look and feel was still so strong with it that it looked like it should be in a museum.  The dead building that was frozen in time seemed unwilling to wake from its slumber.
"Are you coming?" Gracie had said now half turned around ready to go. She had probably looked at this Hotel a million times and was not interested in looking at it right now.
They walked over to the cross street and started the long walk back to the bus stop. David wondered how there could even be a bus stop in this neighborhood. He could now see the street sign, it said Eliot street.The old storefronts also look much more inviting in light of day. David could now identify all the debris lying in the streets. All the bricks and stones and the rubble of the buildings, tires, a toilet, steel bands, a coil of frayed wire were in his eyes sites now.
David looked ahead to see if he can estimate how far the bus stop was away. He couldn't, he just knew he would have to walk at least a half hour like he did last night.They finally reached the old clothing store with the creepy mannequins. They were the one thing that stood out in David's memory from last night. The mannequins were still there waiting for them.
They finally reached the bus stop and Gracie immediately spied down the road to see if the bus was coming. Nothing in sight. She then pulled out her pocket watch on a chain.
"We still have another 5 minutes before the bus is supposed to get near. Most of the time the bus driver is late." She put away her pocket watch. "Seems like they would put a bench out here for people to sit on."
All that remained was a steal post sticking out of the edge of the sidewalk that looked like it at one time held a bus stop sign, the sign was now gone. Gracie sat down on the curb and put her feet in the gutter not affected by the lack of a bench. She planted her hands on the sidewalk behind her and leaned back on her arms and looked up at David.
"Might as well get somewhat comfortable." She advised David.
David sat down next to her. Gracie caressed the green sponge like moss that was growing out of the crack in the sidewalk. "Ooh velvety!"
The building out here seemed further apart and more cold than the Hotel neighborhood, if that was possible. "I can't wait to get back to civilization." David said half kidding. But then he realized his verbal mistake from Gracie's reaction.
"What?" Gracie said as her relaxed demeanor turned to a worried one.
David tried to put out her worried fire."I mean I would rather be back at the Hotel or at a shopping center than this place." David was now concerned that Gracie would be so worried about David abandoning her that she wouldn't even to go into town to get the Christmas tree.
David noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and looked down the road to see that it was the bus making its way up the road. It broke the stillness of the landscape that David had endured for too long. He got up but Gracie remained seated as if she was still thinking about David's comments, looking like she may not want to leave this area now. She saw that David was looking at her wondering why she wasn't getting up. She new that she would have to make an action.
"Here help me up." She said extending her arms.
She quickly change from her worried look to a pleasant one. David moved in front of her, grabbed her hands and leaned back pulling her up. David could now tell that she was going to get on the bus and not change her mind. Gracie held her purse over her shoulder and they both watched the lively bus approach.