e’s slumped to one side. “Gwen, you awake?” he says. “No? Okay.” She’ll freeze to death out here the way she’s dressed, he thinks, and locks the wheels of her chair and goes inside. He lights the burner under the tea kettle and looks outside. She still seems to be sleeping. She’ll come in when she wants to, he thinks, and gets the can of coffee out of the freezer. …Gwen’s lying in an aluminum rowboat that he’s pulling with one hand through a party. She’s on her back, her head on a seat cushion. “I hate dragging you around like this,” he says, “but I have to find that woman,” and she says “That’s all right; I’ve time.” He’s looking for a tall thin beautiful blond woman. He met her once, he forgets where, and they seemed to have hit it off and she said to look for her at this party. He pulls the boat through another room, this one even more crowded than the last. People are gabbing, drinking, several of them smoking cigarettes. “Don’t they know those things are bad for you,” he says, “and the sidestream smoke bad for anybody you’re near?” “Live and let live,” Gwen says, smiling at him and adjusting the cushion so her head’s right in the middle of it. “I’m glad you’re finally happy again,” he says. “I am. This is fun. Though it must be difficult for you, dragging me from room to room in this, without any water under it.” “No, you’re light.” He drags the boat into another room, the most crowded yet. Must be the formal room, he thinks: men dressed in suits and ties and most of them smoking cigars and the few women in it dressed in long black dresses and lots of jewelry. The men seem to be mostly Indians and Pakistanis — anyway, from that part of the world: Southeast Asia, if that’s where those countries are. “She’s not here either,” he says to Gwen. “You can’t see from down there, but take my word.” “So let’s give up on her and get something to eat,” she says. Then he sees a woman across the room waving an empty champagne flute at him. It’s the beautiful tall blond, and she starts over to them. “You see, I’m right, she is here,” he says to Gwen, but she’s no longer in the boat. In her place, where she was lying, is a celery about five feet long, the top leaves resting on the pillow where her head was. “How can that be?” he says to the woman. “Not only is my wife gone, when it would’ve been impossible for her to get out of the boat herself and if anyone helped her I would’ve seen them, but she’s been replaced by a monstrosity. She must’ve thought you and I wanted to be alone together,” and the woman says “Why on earth would she ever think that? And celery’s supposed to be good for the blood. I think we should stick around till she comes back.” “All night? Even if the party ends?” and she says “Longer, if it has to come to that. Don’t be a bad example of your own behavior.” “What do you mean? Seriously, and I’m not trying to sound naïve, what do you?” …Gwen’s on a bed in a hospital room, feeding and excreting and breathing tubes in her. She’s on her back, looks uncomfortable, and he thinks getting food from outside for her will boost her spirits. “I’ll be back soon,” he says. “I’m going to get you a big surprise.” She stares at him and moves her mouth. “Don’t try to speak. It’s no good for you. Don’t even move your eyes. And whatever you do, keep your mitts off the tubes, especially the ventilator one in your mouth.” She nods. “Not even your head,” he says. “Nothing. No movement. Stay absolutely still, you hear? Although don’t indicate you do or don’t. Goodbye, sweetheart,” and he kisses her forehead. She smiles. “What did I just tell you? No expressions, either.” He leaves the room. He’s on the street and heads for the Triple-X Theatre a few doors down from the hospital. Three tough-looking policemen are standing in front of the theater, one of them, it seems, telling a joke and the other two laughing. He has to pass them to get to the lobby and thinks they’re going to ask where he’s going, but they ignore him. He goes through the lobby, pushes a curtain aside and enters the theater. It’s faintly lit and there are no people in the audience or exotic dancers on the stage, just a man with a broom sweeping it up. Pity, he thinks. He wouldn’t have minded a little dancing and simulated sex thrown in with the food. Any kind of sex, really, but only women. He goes up to what seems like a refreshment stand at the back of the theater and asks the man behind it “Do you sell Indian food?” “On both counts, you’re right,” the man says. “We sell and it’s Indian.” “My wife likes it and is in the hospital, some say on her death bed, others — well, I won’t say what they say, and I want to give her a lift. What do you have today that’s special?” The man says “I’m not a full-blooded Indian myself but I am for the first time making chicken breasts,” and he says “That sounds good; I’ll have one to go.” “You have to have two if I’m to go through all the trouble of killing a chicken and making it.” “Two, then, which doesn’t seem unreasonable.” “Come with me.” They go to the front of the theater — the sweeper’s gone but there’s an old man in dark sunglasses sitting in the middle of the first row and staring at the empty stage, or maybe his eyes are closed — and climb the steps to the right. The man points to a door partially hidden by a stage curtain and says “You can pick up the food in there.” “Nice to meet you,” and he opens the door and goes inside. It’s the interior of an Indian palace overlooking a great expanse of water. In fact, he thinks, it must be an enormous sea or one of the oceans. There are no boats or anything else on it and no people on the sandy beach. The palace has very gaudy furniture and a marble staircase and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling about thirty feet up with lots of bright candles in them, some of them flickering and about to go out. If one of the chandeliers falls and nobody catches it, he thinks, or even a single candle, this place could be a firetrap. He smells food with Indian spices in it but there’s no booth or window around to get it from. “Is anybody here?” he yells. “Such a vast space and nobody to populate it? How do you do your cleaning, then, because this room is spotless. Anyway, I got to get back to my wife in the hospital up the street, so if you have my take-out ready, let me know. Hello? Hello?” …It’s night and he’s walking on a dark cobblestone street with his sister. Looks like old Europe, he thinks, but how’d they get here? His sister seems to be around thirteen, when he thought she died several days shy of her tenth birthday. Well, it’s obvious she didn’t die, or people can come back. She’s holding his hand and says “Martin, I have to make. Do you know where I can, because I have to go badly.” “There’s a toilet,” he says, pointing to a door in a brick wall with a handicapped sign on it. “I’ll use it after you, even if I’m not handicapped.” She goes in and he waits outside. A man tries the doorknob, it’s locked, and he says to him “My younger sister’s in there. She shouldn’t be long, but there’s a line. She’s number one. I’m number two. And you’re three.” “Fine,” the man says, “anything you say, sir.” Nice guy and polite and very reasonable, he thinks, the way people should always be. His sister comes out, the toilet’s still flushing, and the man darts to the door. “Hey, wait, you agreed to the line. And I have to go as much as anybody.” The man rolls up his sleeves and says “Ya wanna make something out of it? Because you’re lying, buddy; big, big lying. You were three and I was two, so you’re after me.” “What a bunch of junk that is,” he says, “but okay. You’re a lot bigger and younger than I and I’m not anyone to physically fight over anything. Those days, and I don’t only credit the change to my increasing frailty, are long past.” “Fine,” the man says, “anything you say,” and goes into the toilet, which is still flushing. “That, my dear,” he says to his sister, “is a classic example of flagrant untruthfulness and bullying,” and she says “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t around to hear it.” …He’s lying on a bed with a woman he was once engaged to. They’re fully clothed and kissing. Then he says “Whew, need some air,” and separates his face from hers, “You know, unlike me you’re remarkably preserved for someone who’s almost seventy,” and she says “I don’t know if that’s something someone wants to hear, but I’ll be honest with you. I take nothing to make me look this way. It’s all natural, even the adolescent acne and blond hair.” Though her legs are much heavier than they were, he thinks, her thighs especially, and she was a professional ballet dancer. Best not to comment on them. “So,” she says, “if you’re done looking, we ought to get hopping.” She sits up, slips off her jeans and socks and is naked from the waist down. “I can’t,” he says. “My wife. It’s crazy, because since you broke off our engagement forty-five years ago, I’ve dreamt of making love with you numerous times and in a few of those dreams I even got in you but never ejaculated. Came close, but the dreams always ended before. It was so frustrating, because it felt like the real thing we were doing. Sometimes I’d be on top, sometimes the bottom. And now, when it’s possible, top or bottom or even sideways if I wanted to, I’m sure, or like two dogs, it’s impossible for me to.” “Oh, come on,” she says. “Sure you can.” She unzips his fly and sticks her hand in and searches around for his penis. “Don’t,” he says. “I said I can’t, and I can’t.” …He wakes up and thinks Just like always when he’s making love with her in a dream, except this time it was he who stopped it from completing, and it ended long before where he usually gets. Why couldn’t he have done what she wanted, stuck it in at least, moved around a bit, taken it as far as it would go? Maybe he would have come. She looked just like she did when he last saw her some thirty years ago, and her thighs were slim and strong again once she took off her jeans, and what did she mean about acne? In real life she might have had a few scars, but her face was perfectly smooth in the dream. If she hadn’t broken off the engagement he might still be married to her, if she hasn’t died, and their kids would probably be in their forties. Strange to think. But what a body she had. Best of any woman he knew. Grabs his penis. Surprise, no hard-on, not even the start of one. Jerks it for about a minute, rubs the tip against the top sheet, then pulls the covers off and gets on his back and jerks it some more, but it stays limp. Give it up, he thinks, and sex again with anybody? — forget it — and gets on his side and pulls the covers up over his shoulder and holds his penis and shuts his eyes. …His older daughter yells through the bedroom door “Dad, Mom needs you.” “Where is she?” he says, and she says “On the hospital bed in my old bedroom.” He goes there. She’s not there. He goes through the house looking for her, yells down to the basement “Gwen, you there?” Opens the kitchen door and yells outside “Gwen, Gwen, you out there?” Runs to the mailbox and back, walks around the house, goes into his daughter’s room — she’s lying in bed, listening to music and reading a book — and says “You sure Mommy wanted me?” She says “She said so, but maybe she no longer does.” …Gwen holds up a big square rubber eraser and says “How much do you think I can get for this?” “One dollar, tops,” he says. “Could you sell it for me, then? I haven’t the energy to and we can use the