1.

“This was Mr. Edward’s room,” she said. “He lived here only a couple years…then he retired from the University. I don’t know where he went after that, or where he came from before he lived with us.”

Gauzy, yellow curtains flutter about the open window. Through the curtains and across the street a block of thin, three-story, Washington, D.C., row houses can be seen as if through breathed-on glass.

“He left some things behind.”

She picks up a souvenir tin ashtray. Across the bottom, where one would stub a cigarette, is a picture of a barren-looking, red desert landscape with the slogan “Come to Sunny Santa Fe!”

“He used this for spare change, I think. You don’t smoke, do you, Mr. Crabbe?”

“Of course not. It causes birth defects in pregnant women,” Mr. Crabbe responded.

The joke, if it was a joke, was lost on Mrs. Poole.

“Good. We have a baby, you know. In summer, we turn the air conditioning on, and you know how that smell just permeates a house.”

“How many children do you have?” Mr. Crabbe said, fingering the embroidery on the quilt on the bed under the window.

“Three counting the baby. Our oldest is a boy, Timmy, he’s in second grade. Our middle daughter Sarah is in first. The baby is Liza…er, Eizabeth. We call her Liza. She’s just nine months. Are children going to be a problem for you?”

Mr. Crabbe thought a moment. A problem. A problem. It could well be a problem, but right now his biggest problem was the pinch he felt in his wallet every time he looked at a prospective room for rent in Washington. He sighed in a way that did not set Mrs. Poole at ease. He did not even realize he had sighed, or that he had disconcerted her. “No. No problem.”

“I hope not. There’s nothing we can do about the children. They make noise.”

You can beat them until they lapse into unconsciousness, Mr. Crabbe thought. Works for me.

After a pause, Mrs. Poole said, “You seem like an ideal tenant for us, I hope we will be the ideal landlord for you.”

“I need a room, you see,” Mr. Crabbe said abruptly. “And right now I’m willing to take just about anything that is not in a high rise in Arlington, as long as it costs me something less than $1500.00 a month.”

Not sure if she had just been insulted, Mrs. Poole said, “Is that the reason you’re not looking for an apartment of your own? The price?”

“Yes,” Mr. Crabbe said. “I’ve felt more than a little sticker shocked lately. Just before coming to see you, I went to look at a room advertised as a bedroom in a condominium for $600.00 a month. Turned out, this Black woman was renting a dingy bedroom with no windows in an equally dingy, rather nefarious-looking high-rise building. I had to buzz her apartment to be allowed in. I knew right then I didn’t want to live there; probably inhabited by a bunch of drug pushers and who knows what else. The bathtub had a hole in the wall where the faucet should have been. She had other roomers, too, all of them Black college students. It’s been a depressing day, Mrs. Poole. Your face has been the first ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak day.”

Mrs. Poole brightened, “Well, it would indeed be an honor to have you here. I mean, you can imagine how unexpected…the Poet Laureate of the United States. I’d have thought the government would put you up, or else pay you more so you could live on your own.”

Mr. Crabbe smiled gently, “Come now, Mrs. Poole, the Republicans are in charge of things. I’m a Republican myself. It wouldn’t do to expect the Government to contribute anything to the support of a poet.”

“Oh, I guess not,” Mrs. Poole replied, uncertain whether this was a good turn in the conversation. Everything about Mr. Crabbe left her uncertain. She could never tell if he was serious.

After a too-long silence, Mr. Crabbe changed the subject.

“What are the terms again?”

“Oh,” Mrs. Poole said. “Five hundred a month. You have your own…what-do-you-call-it… “water closet,” with a toilet and a sink. You’ll have to share the shower with the rest of the family, I’m afraid. You’re also welcome to share meals with us. Since I don’t work, I’m able to cook dinner for us every evening. Dinner is at five-thirty. Breakfast at seven in the morning. Lunch is ‘fend for yourself,’ however.”

“I’ll be looking forward to dining with you. My things are in my car, and if you don’t mind, I’ll write you a check for the first month’s rent right now and begin moving in immediately.”

Mrs. Poole seemed shocked, “Well, O.K. Gee, you don’t waste any time…”

“I am sixty years old, Mrs. Poole. I have no time to waste, unlike the youthful, such as yourself.”

“Well, I understand. You can make the check out to me, Carolyn Poole.”

“What’s your husband’s name. I’d like his name on the check, too,” Mr. Crabbe said, taking a checkbook out of the back pocket of his trousers.

“Oh, Thomas Poole.”

Mr. Crabbe scribbled quickly in a fluid hand practiced at signing illegible autographs. He handed Mrs. Poole a check made out to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Poole. The personal information on the check listed the Poet Laureate’s name as Mr. Eugene Crabbe and his address as the publishing house Farrar Strauss and Giroux. Carolyn looked at the check, briefly perplexed, then folded it and tucked it in her jeans pocket.

“Well, then, do you need help moving your stuff in? Thomas should be home soon.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” Crabbe said. “I may just lie down and take a nap on my fusty bed until he comes home.”

“Fusty bed? Do the linens need changing?”

“Just a poetic expression,” Crabbe said.

“Oh,” Carolyn said, fidgeting for how to take her good-byes from her sudden new tenant. “Well, I’ve got to finish dinner. We’re having a roast beef tonight. Do you like roast beef, Mr. Crabbe?”

“Yes, if the cut of beef is tender. It should fall apart at barely the touch of the fork.”

“Oh my, I confess I don’t pay that much attention to the cut of the beef when I buy it. This might be a rump roast we’re eating tonight,” she said. “But I do hope you’ll join us. Maybe the salad will interest you.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Crabbe said.

“Well, good-bye then. Let me know if you need anything,” Mrs. Poole said.

“Yes, I will,” Mr. Crabbe said.

As she shut the door, he turned to the room and looked around at bed and night table, dresser, TV, and wing chair.

He went over to the window and parted the curtains, looking down at the street. A passerby below would have seen a tall, broody sixty-year old man, bald-headed and wearing thick, dark glasses peering out the half-shut window. Eugene Crabbe frowned.

This was Mr. Edward’s room, he thought.

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