“A chip off the old block,” the ugly bearded man said, at which point everyone broke into laughter.

“Ha, ha,” I said. “A chip off the old shoulder.”

Gill and his companions ignored me until the skinny hag turned to me and said, “You, sir, are standing in the way of our evening and I for one don’t appreciate it.” I suddenly under-stood why she was missing her front tooth.

Gill said, “Dolph, maybe you should just try to keep quiet and listen for a change.” I nodded and leaned back in my chair, thinking, Listen to what? He’s so nice, she’s so nice, aren’t they so nice. Nice is a mystery to me because while on some mundane level I aspire to it, it is the last thing I would want a table full of dullards saying about me.

“Nice job, Byron.”

“Hey, Kimberly, nice blouse. Is it new?”

“I love your haircut, Pepper. It’s really nice!”

I don’t understand nice. Nice is a lazy one-syllable word and it says nothing at all. I prefer to surround myself with more complex words, such as heroic and commanding.

“That Dolph, is he a national treasure or what?”

I sat at Gill’s table for another ten minutes or so during which time I heard the word “nice” twenty-three times until I couldn’t stand it anymore. When I finally left, the idiot with the beard called out, “Nice talking to you,” which I guess brings the tally up to twenty-four.

I wrote Gill after my mother died, hoping he might pick up the phone and give me a call but instead he chose to mail this hokey calligraphed sympathy card, which I fear he may have actually made himself.

My mother chose to be cremated and the memorial service was sparsely attended — just me, three of my four sisters, my mother’s boss from the collection agency, and a few of her acquaintances from the firing range.

During that time at our mother’s house my sisters were remote and mechanical, acting as though they were hotel maids, tidying up after a stranger. They spoke as if a terrible chapter of their lives had just ended, and I felt alone in my belief that a much more terrible chapter was about to begin. I overheard them gathered together in the kitchen or talking to their husbands on the telephone, saying, “She was a very sad and angry woman and there’s nothing more to say about it.” Sad? Maybe. Angry? Definitely. But there is always more to say about it. My mother made sure of that.

Three days after the memorial service we met with her lawyer, an energetic woman with very long fingernails painted to resemble American flags. Someone, her manicurist I suppose, spent a great deal of time on the stripes but the stars were a mess, a clot of glitter.