The room was lit by candles. A few rows of folding chairs patiently faced the coffin that lay, like a wooden hyphen, at the front of the room. Flowers arced in color, their scent thick against the low ceiling. Off in the house somewhere a clock clanged eleven times. All the windows had their blinds drawn. A young man, slightly bald and slightly paunchy, slipped into the room and made a gesture to say something to the smallish white-haired man sitting off to one side, but stopped, his mouth open and hand outstretched. He glanced at his watch, glanced at the man, and slid out of the room.
No one else was there. His eyes clung to the dull wood of the coffin. His face did not sag with tiredness and his body sat upright, not slouched. His hands, brown as bark, arrayed themselves like an altarboy's on his knees. The clock struck the quarter hour. The young man appeared again in the room. "Mr. Cooper," he said in a voice professional with pity, "you have to leave now. The services were over a while ago." The figure of George Cooper did not sway and the young man, daunted, decided to wait another fifteen minutes before ushering him out.
When the young man had left, George Cooper walked to the coffin. There was the face of Mary Sager, no longer Mary Cooper, resilient as he wanted to remember her beneath the undertaker's cosmetics. "You wouldn't have approved my being here," he whispered to her, "but it was always like us to do the right things for the wrong reasons." His eyes went out of focus and the calm rouge on her cheek and the white velvet pillow melted into a candle with a soft unmoving flame. He heard the brisk scuffle of the man's shoes on the carpet behind him. Without a word, he brushed past the man.
The street outside was a mute, shadowed. His hands flew in and out of his pockets like unsettled birds. There would be no sleep for him. He turned right and walked resolutely down the short hill into town. His sparse figure jerked as he hurried, all his parts not keeping the same pace. The Glen Hollow was still open and he headed thirstily for its light. Immersed in the voices and glow of the place he ordered a whiskey, straight. With his drink in one hand and his change in the other he roosted at a small table near the back. Seated opposite him was another old man, his face going blank, five glasses in front of him, one in his hand.
"I have the best wife you'd ever want to meet," George said without preliminary. The man raised his eyes to the knot of George's tie. "Yes, the best." George gulped half the glass, ran his tongue over his lips. "I met Mary Cooper almost fifty years ago. At a high school dance. Can you believe that? Fifty years ago." He wanted to throw the drink into the man's blank face, play loud music with the quarters in his hand, anything to keep his ears empty of lies; but the whiskey prodded his tongue and the words spilled out unshepherded. "She didn't want to dance with me but her sister made her and I was so in love with being in love that I...I even wrote her poetry. Poetry! Me! But you should have seen me then -- and she, she had this long brown hair and blue eyes that would make the sky..." He finished the drink, bought another. "We were young of course you know how people are, we said dumb things, did dumb things, promised a slice of the moon for a kiss, but something real must've been there because, well, because I've got the best wife you ever saw, and that was over fifty years ago." The bottom of the glass greeted him. He quickly bought another, downed it.
"I remember one time, just sitting in the park, holding hands, just sitting. We could do that, just sit and listen to the air hum." Black patches slipped up alongside his eyes and the face of the man across from him elongated, the red of his cheeks like two streaks of fire. "We could! And when we got married everyone said it was the nicest wedding they'd ever been to. And it was!" The patches crept inward, and he though he were looking down a long tube. "We loved each other like nobody ever loved. Believe me!" He saw his hand go out for the hand of the other man. The two streaks of fire jumped up and disappeared and through the curdling in his ears George heard the man mutter "Cain't even offer me a drink". Someone laughed.
"But...but..." His arm shot out, trying to grab the fire, but his elbow knocked his drink over and it spilled full into his lap. Someone in a white apron was there sweeping the liquid away; colors kaleidoscoped, voices burbled loudly, the patches narrowed, the air pressed. With a snap of his body he heaved out of his chair and into the night air, looking for all the world under the candle-yellow sodium lights like an old sot who'd wet himself. With an inarticulate cry he lunged into the darkness and disappeared.