“Your swearing it already sounds scary,” Martin says, and they both laugh a lot. Like the bar, they’ve survived. It’s not thriving, what they have—the jukebox is getting wheezy, and their new flooring has been ravenous for money. Both of them would benefit hugely from some constant—a lover, say, who isn’t stark raving batshit—but Martin has figured it’s not going to happen. He got himself a dog, the large wet bounding sort that could distract you from a world war, and working for himself with a sledgehammer and six beers, tore down the walls in his apartment so it’s open, lighter. He watches old movies when he gets home after closing time, and a piece of dialogue in a beautiful Western—Mac, you ever been in love? No, I’ve been a bartender all my life—was the last of the jigsaw. He has not resigned himself, because he is not resigning. This life, he’s on his own, standing watch over a place where people cut loose a little from whatever’s collared them, spill out their secrets and go home empty of them. It makes him cry and it makes him laugh, but with Stanford sputtering from the courthouse downtown, he’s laughing now.

Padgett sees him. She has been wanting to see him, and there’s Martin Icke, laughing into a phone while a big dog, it must be his, stares very adroitly into the trees from which they’ve emerged. He looks OK. She starts to wave or something, then stops and looks back at everyone else. They haven’t noticed. They are looking down the block at the parade.