The best booths were in back. My favorite had a team photograph of the Cape Head Women’s Softball Club, 1986 South Shore Park League Champions. Third one in, on a bench, sunburned and smiling, was Dottie.

The customers today were three Coast Guard wives, a town selectman, and the lobstermen regulars.

I sat under a fight poster for Marvelous Marvin Hagler who used to train out around the beach.

“Hey, Paige,” the waitress said. “Where’s Raf?” Her name was Connie Del Verona. She had a waist-length red hair braid and black-lacquered nails.

“He’s around. Espresso,” I said.

One of the all-day drinkers sauntered over. Dick was his name. Looking very disheartened, he scooted beside me in the booth.

“Hey, Paige. Where’s Raf?” he said.

I remembered Dick ran a day trawler out of Kitahassett for a living.

“How’s the fishing?”

“Another week of this storm shit and I go under. So is Raf in town? I love that sucker.”

“Hiding out, you know?”

Dick liked hearing that. He grinned.

“I love that sucker,” he said again. He wore yellow rubber overalls and a matching parka that reeked of the sea and booze. His streaming beard and hair seemed to pull his eyes and mouth down as if he were melting in his misfortune. He was a nightmare version of Raf.

“We tried goin’ out yesterday, to the shelf, believe it or not. You want some of this?” Dick said, offering me his brimming doubles glass. In his raw-knuckled grip the glass shook.

“I came here to get straight,” I said.

“You came to a bar to get sober?”

That was true. I came for the cold air, the walk, to escape the temptations of the inn; came because Raf and I had had some jolly times in these booths.

Dick guzzled his red whiskey and shivered.

He rasped at me, “You do writing, don’t you?”

“No, just poetry,” I said.

“Right, well, here’s a poem you can write. This’s what God told me last time we were chatting,” Dick said. Hunching closer and taking my wrist in his hand, he said, “Fornicate and be fruitful.” He unrolled his long tongue and panted at me.

I said, “Oh, Charlie?”

Nervous Charlie owned the place. He ran the Ocarina’s grills and tended bar. He was bouncer too, and with his darting maroon eyes, missed nothing. He never went far from the cash register, where his baseball bat was stashed.

“Charlie’s getting the Louisville Slugger,” I said to Dick.

“Raf’s wife, and she throws this kinda crap at me. Gets Charlie angry. Raf’s a close buddy of mine.”

“Then let go of my wrist, Dick, and keep your tongue in your mouth.”

Charlie had moved our way and he carried the tape- handled bat. “You two all right? Where’s your husband, Paige?” he asked me.

“Running for governor,” I said.