Betty Jackson locked the door to the ticket booth and was heading for the switches to turn off the lights for the Rialto sign when Mel, the projectionist, came down the steep steps from his projection room. “There’s a guy still sitting in the theater,” he said, keeping a tight hold of the railing. Mel was only a couple of years younger than she was and had recently had a hip replacement.
“I see,” said Betty. “Didn’t you call down and tell him we’re closing?”
“Yeah, but I think he’s asleep.”
They entered the theater together.
She registered that it was the black man in the red hat. She would have shouted his name, but she didn’t know it, had never spoken to him, even though he sat there almost every day, usually staying for several hours. Sometimes he was the only person in the whole theater. She’d hear him talking on his phone when he wasalone, like it was his office. But this time it looked as though he’d fallen asleep, his chin slumped down on his chest and the brim of the hat shading his face.
Betty walked along the row toward him with the projectionist, who had actually offered to go first, like he was some kind of gentleman, right behind her. The man sat with one hand resting on his thick thigh and she put her hand over his and gave it a gentle shake. The hat fell off. Betty exclaimed loudly and backed away, into the projectionist. The man’s eyes were wide open and completely white. Though it wasn’t that that made her jump, her own husband also sometimes slept with his eyes open and his head back. Nor was it the open mouth with the tiny inlaid diamonds glinting in the teeth. It was the hand. It had been as cold as marble.
—
It had been a more than usually busy afternoon at Bernie’s Bar and a very good evening. Liza had turned down the volume slightly on Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” so she could hear what he was saying, the tipsy and rather forlorn-looking elderly man sitting at the bar. He was saying he had driven to the big city from a town named Funkley, four hours’ drive to the north, to attend the NRA gathering the next day.
“Quite a change for a hayseed like me, this,” he said with a cautious smile. “Funkley’s got five inhabitants. Everyone lives alone, got their own home. It gets kind of lonely. Even though I’m the only man among them.”
“Yes, you’d probably be better off living in Minneapolis,” said Liza, signaling to another guest that she would take his order in a moment or two.
“How so?” asked the hayseed, looking at her with genuine curiosity.
“Well,” said Liza as she tried to think up a good answer, “we…er, for one thing we’ve been voted the healthiest city in the country.”
“Good for you. But you look just as lonesome as us people from Funkley.”
Liza stepped aside to pull a beer for the impatient customer as the swinging door to the back room opened and Eddie—who was to take the final two hours alone—came in.
“Anyone would think the place was popular,” he said as he looked out across the bar.
“You can handle it,” said Liza as she took the money for the beer and nodded in the direction of the hayseed. “Be nice to this guy here.”
“Always nice to everybody, that’s me,” said Eddie.
Liza went out to the back, untied her apron and put on her coat. She had to admit that since morning, every time the bar door opened, she had looked up, half hoping to see that ugly mustard-yellow coat coming in. Maybe he’d be back some other day. Or not. It was okay either way. She left by the back door, onto a sidewalk that was still wet with rain.
An orange Volvo stood parked by the curb.
“You can see that coat doesn’t match the car,” she said. “Or are you color-blind?”
“A bit,” he said as he opened the passenger-side door. “Can I offer you a lift?”
She pretended to think it over.
“So?” she said as they set off down the road. “Have you found what you were looking for?”
“Perhaps,” said Bob.
“Perhaps?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, anyway you, you look…lighter.”
“Lighter?”
“As though you’ve…I don’t know. Got rid of something.”
He nodded. “Perhaps.”
