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Anybody sitting here? he said.
    You, Harold said. Set down.
    Schramm pulled out a chair and sat and took off his black hat and placed it crownside down on the vacant chair and put a finger to each ear and turned up the plastic dials in his hearing aids, then smoothed the hair on the top of his head. He looked around the crowded room. Well, I just heard old John Torres died.
    When was this? Harold said.
    Last night. Over to the hospital. Cancer, I guess. You knew him, didn’t you.
    Yeah.
    He was something, old John was. Schramm looked at them, watching them eat. Here he was, what, about eighty-five, he said, and the last time I seen him he’s bent over so bad his chin about catches on his belt buckle and I says how you doing, John, and he says oh, pretty good for a old fucker. That’s good, I say, at least you’re still fuckin, and he says yeah, but I been having trouble splitting this cottonwood, it’s soft in the middle, kind of spongy and you can’t get it to split right. You shove the wedge in and it’s like sticking a fork in a pan of this caliche mud. Well, you can see where I’m going with this, Schramm said. Here’s old John still trying to split firewood at his age of life.
    Sounds about like him. Harold reached for a piece of bread and buttered and folded it and bit a large half moon out of the middle.
    Well, he smoked two packs of Lucky Strikes every day, Bob Schramm said, and he never mistreated a human being in this world. I always set down with him and when I poured my coffee I poured him one too. This one time he come in and he says how you doing, and I says oh not too good, I got something on my mind, some people upsetting me. And he says who is it, you want me to take care of them, and I says oh no, that’s all right, I’ll take care of things, because I knew what he’d do or have somebody else do for him. They’d wake up with their throats cut, is what I’m talking about. Well, he come out of San Luis Valley. You didn’t want to fool with him. Even if he never hurt nobody before, it don’t mean he couldn’t arrange for it to happen this time, even if he wasn’t going to be the one doing it himself.
    The waitress arrived at the table carrying two big platters of ham steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans and apple sauce. She placed them in front of the McPherons and turned to Schramm. What about you, what are you going to have?
    I haven’t even give it any thought yet.
    I’ll have to come back, she said.
    Schramm watched her leave and looked around, gazing over at the next table. Don’t they give you menus here no more?
    It’s above the counter, Raymond said. On the wall there.
    I thought they used to give you menus.
    It’s up there now.
    Is menus that expensive?
    I don’t know how expensive menus are, Raymond said. You mind if we go ahead and eat?
    No. Hell. Don’t wait on me. He studied the menu printed on pasteboard above the counter while the McPheron brothers leaned forward over their plates and began to eat. He reached in the hip pocket of his pants and withdrew a blue handkerchief and blew his nose, shutting his eyes all the while, then folded the handkerchief and put it away.
    The waitress came back and refilled the coffee cups. Schramm said: Oh, just bring me a hamburger and fries and some coffee, why don’t you.
    If you want any dessert you better say so now.
    I don’t guess so.
    She walked off to another table and poured coffee there and went on.
    When’s the funeral going to be? Harold said.
    I don’t know. I don’t even know if they was able to locate his kinfolk yet, Schramm said, to tell them he died. But there’ll be a lot that wants to attend.
    People liked him, Raymond said.
    Yeah, they did. But here you go. I wonder if you ever heard this one. There was this time old John was carrying on with Lloyd Bailey’s wife. I seen them myself once, they was in her new Buick hid out down in the bar ditch alongside the tracks out at the Diamond T crossing, the