“Naw, can’t do that.”

“Well?”

The waitress brings our food, which look the sizzling-same as always, and Howie says, “Can I get a double Dewar’s on ice, please? And a ginger ale for my friend here.”

She smiles and winks and says she’ll be right back. She remind me of that girl on Gilligan’s Island. “You ever feel like sometimes thangs is happening so fast, and even though you the one doing it, you don’t know how it happened?”

“Come again, Cecil?”

The waitress sets our drinks on the table. Howie takes a deep sip. “I guess what I’m trying to say here is, you know how sometimes, if you blink, a whole week can pass?”

“Sorta.”

“Well, I been married to Viola for thirty-eight years, and now I’m with Brenda, and we fixing to have a baby.”

“I been thinking about this baby business ever since you told me about it.”

“Wait, let me finish my train of thought, would you, Howie?”

“All right, all right. I’m listening.”

“Anyway, it seem like I just blinked and my whole life done changed right before my very eyes, except I feel more like a witness to it than the person ‘in it.’ Do that make sense?”

“Hell, yeah, it make a whole lotta sense. You done jumped into some new shit so fast you don’t know how you got in it or how you gon’ get out of it. Is that about right?”

“Sort of. But don’t get me wrong. I like Brenda. A whole lot. I might even love her. It’s just that I can’t believe I ain’t really with Viola no more.”

“It ain’t too late,” he says.

“Sometimes it is too late.”

“How you supposed to know that?” he asks.

“I don’t know for certain. But I guess when it feel like you do on your last day at work before you go on vacation, only you wish you could stay on vacation.”

“Well, can I ask you something, Cecil, and don’t go getting all personally upset about it?”

“Okay.”

“You sure that baby yours?”

“Well, yeah. I thank. I don’t see why not. It should be. Why you ask me that?”

“She got pregnant awfully quick, don’t you think?”

“She young. It happen fast when they young, Howie.”

“Yeah, but be for real with me for a minute, now, Cecil. We done talked about this before, and you and me both know you been having trouble in that area for some time, and I just wanna know how you able to make a baby when you ain’t been with the girl but a hot minute?”

“It’s possible. But what you really getting at, Howie?”

“She had to been with different mens before you came on the scene, don’t you think?”

“Of course. She attractive.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, Cecil. But you hear where I’m coming from?”

“Naw, I don’t.”

“You got a pension. You ain’t got no responsibilities. You good at the tables. I’d say you was a good catch. I’d want you to be the father of my baby if I was young and homely with three kids in the projects and met myself a middle-aged old sum-bitch like yourself.”