In One Person

Elaine had observed, “but the shirt’s too big for her, and it’s not see-through material. The point is, she doesn’t want you to know she has breasts—or what they look like.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’m sorry about your mom, Billy,” Gerry said. “I know she was completely dysfunctional, but she
was
your mother.”
    “I’m sorry about yours,” I told Gerry. The stand-up comic made a horsey snorting sound.
    “Not as deadpan as usual,” Elaine would say later.
    “Someone’s gotta get the car keys from my fucking father,” Gerry said.
    I was keeping an eye on Grandpa Harry. I was afraid he would sneak away from the party, only to reappear as a surprise reincarnation of Nana Victoria. Nils Borkman was keeping an eye on his old partner, too. (If Mrs. Borkman was there, I either didn’t see her or didn’t recognize her.)
    “I’m back-watching your grandfather, Bill,” Nils told me. “If the funny stuff gets out of hand, I am emergency-calling you!”
    “What funny stuff?” I asked him.
    But just then, Grandpa Harry suddenly spoke up. “They’re always late, those girls. I don’t know where they are, but they’ll show up. Everyone just go ahead and eat. There’s plenty of food. Those girls can find somethin’ to eat when they get here.”
    That quieted the crowd down. “I already told him that his girls aren’t coming to the party, Bill. I mean, he knows they’re dead—he’s just forgetfulness
exemplified
,” Nils told me.
    “Forgetfulness
personified
,” I said to the old Norwegian; he was two years older than Grandpa Harry, but Nils seemed a little more reliable in the
remembering
department, and in some other departments.
    I asked Martha Hadley if Richard had spoken yet. Not since the news of the accident, Mrs. Hadley informed me. Richard had hugged me a lot, and I’d hugged him back, but there’d been no words.
    Mr. Hadley appeared lost in thought—as he often did. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked about anything but the war in Vietnam.
    Mr. Hadley had made himself a droll obituarist of every Favorite River boy who’d bitten the dust in Vietnam. I saw that he was waiting for me at the end of the buffet table.
    “Get ready,” Elaine warned me, in a whisper. “Here comes another death you didn’t know about.”
    There was no prologue—there never was, with Mr. Hadley. He was a history teacher; he just announced things. “Do you remember Merryweather?” Mr. Hadley asked me.
    Not Merryweather! I thought. Yes, I remembered him; he was still an underclassman when I graduated. He’d been the wrestling-team manager—he handed out oranges, cut in quarters; he picked up the bloody and discarded towels.
    “Not Merryweather—not in
Vietnam
!” I automatically said.
    “Yes, I’m afraid so, Billy,” Mr. Hadley said gravely. “And Trowbridge—did you know Trowbridge, Billy?”
    “Not Trowbridge!” I cried; I couldn’t believe it! I’d last seen Trowbridge in his
pajamas
! Kittredge had accosted him when the round-faced little boy was on his way to brush his teeth. I was very upset to think of Trowbridge dying in Vietnam.
    “Yes, I’m afraid so—Trowbridge, too, Billy,” Mr. Hadley self-importantly went on. “Alas, yes—young Trowbridge, too.”
    I saw that Grandpa Harry had disappeared—if not in the way Uncle Bob had recently used the word.
    “Not a costume change, let’s hope, Bill,” Nils Borkman whispered in my ear.
    I only then noticed that Mr. Poggio, the grocer, was there—he who’d so enjoyed Grandpa Harry onstage,
as a woman
. In fact, both Mr. and Mrs. Poggio were there, to pay their respects. Mrs. Poggio, I remembered, had
not
enjoyed Grandpa Harry’s female impersonations. This sighting caused me to look all around for the disapproving Riptons—Ralph Ripton, the sawyer, and his no-less-disapproving wife. But the Riptons, if they’d come to pay their respects, had left early—as was their habit at the plays put on by the First Sister Players.
    I went to see how Uncle Bob was doing; there were a few more empty beer bottles at his feet, and now those feet could no longer locate the bottles and kick them under the couch.
    I kicked a few bottles under the couch for him. “You won’t be tempted to drive yourself home, will you, Uncle Bob?” I asked him.
    “That’s why I already put the car keys in your jacket pocket, Billy,” my uncle told me.
    But when I felt around in my jacket pockets, I found only a squash ball. “Not the car