"Easter Island"

Kitty watched as the male stripper at the bachelorette party came out of the gentlemen's restroom wearing his regular clothes again. He had a limp as he walked across the hotel lobby and sat down on a bench next to her.

"I noticed you left the room as I was beginning my act," he said, bending over to pull his sock off of his foot. His toes were swelling, turning purple.

"I got some bad news," said Kitty, suddenly feeling like she was going to cry. "My grandfather was in an accident. I'm waiting for a cab to take me to the hospital."

Poor Grandpa, she thought. He 's lying all alone in a strange hospital room, scared out of his mind. Poor Grandpa.

"When I was a little boy," said the stripper, "My Grandpa used to tell me a story about the Easter Bunny and how he lived by himself on Easter Island and how he waited all year round for a boat to come ashore, for someone to visit him. But no one ever came."

"Oh," said Kitty. How long had it been since she'd visited Grandpa at the Old Folks Home? How long since she'd called?

"I think you're the only person in this hotel who hasn't seen me naked," said the stripper. "There must have been two hundred people who crammed into that convention room to watch me take my clothes off. They were screaming and pulling and I fell off a chair." He touched his swollen foot with his fingers.

"I forgot to call my Grandfather on his birthday this year," said Kitty. "And I didn't get him a Christmas present either. I didn't even stop by. He was alone at Christmas."

"Sometimes when I'm up there dancing," said the stripper, "And I'm shaking my stuff and people are grabbing my legs and shoving dollars in my g-string, I feel so all alone. It's amazing how lonely you can feel when you're the only naked person in a room full of strangers."

"I never visited him at the Old Folks Home," Kitty blurted out, hot tears hovering in the corners of her eyes. "Not since we moved him in there."

"I'm up on a table shaking my stuff and sometimes I pretend I'm the Easter Bunny, waiting there on Easter Island all alone. Sitting under a palm tree, staring out to sea, waiting for a ship to come ashore."

"Poor Grandpa," said Kitty, a tear running down her cheek.

"Don't cry," said the stripper, taking Kitty's hand in his own. "I'll take you to the hospital if you want. I'm going there anyway. I think I broke my foot."