Christmas at the Inn

Story by Colleon Stein

Jo Brooks sat at the kitchen table of her Third Avenuo housekeeping room, moodily pondering the downward course which her life had taken in recent years. A rather pathetic creature in her late forties, Jo was still fairly attractivo, but the effects of her heavy drinking and fast living wore beginning to otch themselves upon her features. Jo had formerly been a schoolteacher, but her increasing depondence upon the bottle had reduced her to working at any odd job she could find.

At one time, Jo had been considered a "prizo catch" in affairs of the heart, but each affair was always shortlived and always onded in the same way, with her lovers leaving Jo because of hor overpowering stinginess, a trait of nearly psychotic proportions.

Christmas Eve had arrived, and Jo Brooks, quito alone and almost friendless, was beginning to foel romorseful over the many selfish deeds which had placed her in such a lonely stato. She was not one to easily give way to tears, and when the oppressive weight of her loneliness began to swell to intolerable porportions, she took another swig from her gallon jug of wino, and thought: "Oh, hell, why work myself into a tizzy on Christmas Eve? I'll go look up some of my pals. Maybe they can cheer mo up." Yet, as she ran through her mental catalog of friends, the realization that she no longer had any close friends who would welcome her into their homes hit her like a ton of bricks, for that holy night when the feast of Our Lord's birth is celebrated can be the loneliest night of the year for those without families or friends.

Still stunned by her realization, Jo took several more hearty swallows from her jug, then decided to head for the nearest movie theater and escape for a few hours from the awful loneliness which engulfed her.

Since it was Christmas, Jo replaced her usual garb of faded blue jeans and sweat shirt with her one remaining

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