An older man was walking down the empty street, taking his time. The man was drunk, but it didn’t show much. The street was devoid of people. After the bar closed and he, the last customer, was kicked out of it, he didn’t meet anyone on his way home. Rarely did a car pass him by. The man chose to walk down the street close to the sidewalk. He didn’t know exactly why he did, it was just an impulse, he liked it that way. Sometimes he came across a parked automobile, which he had to go around. With lazy, curious, and searching fingers, the man was feeling the contours of the cars, brushing the dust off of them.

Finally, he stopped in front of an old three-story house where he lived on the top floor. His niece’s bedroom window emanated soft, pale illumination. The older man wondered if she was waiting for him to come back home. He doubted it. She was most likely with her lover. Who would wait for him, anyway? What for? What could he say or do to deserve anyone to wait for him so late at night? The man stopped under a street lamp post. A light breeze blew down the street. The warm, humid air let go for a moment, then enveloped the man again. Clouds covered the sky. On nights like that, either the wind would get stronger and clear the sky, or it would stop altogether, and then it would rain. It was just so in that town.

A black cat appeared from a yard up the street, paced down the sidewalk in short, quick steps, stopped, startled, when it saw the man, hesitated whether to continue, then walked around him and went her way. The man watched the cat for a long time, stopping here and there to listen to something hidden in the bushes along the sidewalk, until she finally melted into the darkness. After the cat disappeared down the street, the man slowly broke away from the lamp post on which he was leaning and walked to the building on the other side of the street.

In the living room of the apartment where he lived, the man slowly felt his way in the darkness. He didn’t want to turn on the lamp and have the light under his niece’s door tell her he was back home. He didn’t feel like explaining why and where he had been. He just wanted to go to sleep. Then he tripped over something and fell on the floor. “Someone’s shoes”, decided the man after he felt around with his hand. Man’s shoes. His niece had a guest.

“What the heck was that?” jerked the man lying in the bed, raising himself on his elbow and staring towards the door of the room, connecting to the living room. The man was smoking a cigarette, which he dropped on the bed. He hastily picked it up, ashamed he had shown fear, and put it back between his lips.

“My uncle must have gotten home. He must have knocked over a chair,” the woman lying next to him said. She was young and pretty, with long, thick black hair, an attractive face, and beautiful brown eyes. She and the man had made love not long before, and their bodies were still sweaty from the exertion in the warmth and humid night. The man lay on his back again. He was tall and bearded. He scratched it now, wondering if he could go or he should stay instead. He didn’t feel like waiting. He preferred to go to sleep in his own bed. The next day would be a busy one for him. He needed a good night's sleep.

“The old fool,” the man responded, “He must have gotten drunk again.”

“Maybe he did,” the niece said softly.

“Why does he have to go to the bar and get drunk there? He only wastes money in that way. Can’t he just get drunk at home and get the drinks worth of his money at least?”

“Maybe he likes the company. It’s not the same getting drunk at home. Maybe he goes to the bar to be around people, not as much to get drunk.”

“Even so, he is just wasting his money. Doesn’t he have any friends?” the man asked. He definitely would rather go home, but he didn’t know how to tell the woman next to him he wanted to leave now without upsetting her. That made him angry, and he was taking it out on the uncle.

“I don’t think so. He doesn’t have any friends. Just me. He is very lonely.

The man gave it a thought. He finished his cigarette and extinguished it in the ashtray on the nightstand. “A man should be able to say that he wants to sleep alone and go without getting anyone upset, right?” the man thought, but instead he continued the conversation,

“He is better off finding a friend. Lots of old folks at the Senior Center downtown. Why doesn’t he go there and meet someone?”

“He is almost deaf. Even with his hearing aids, he is practically deaf. Maybe it is hard to make friends when you are like that?

The man thought about it. He thought about the older man going to bed in the other room across the living room and his loneliness. It made him sad to think about that, and when he realized it, he felt even deeper resentment for the uncle.

“What does he have left to live for? At this age? Alone and deaf, he can’t make friends... If I were him, I would hang myself.

The woman glanced at him and laughed strangely. The man looked at her, surprised.

“He tried…hanging himself on a rope tied to the hanger in the hallway. I came home just in time. I had to cut the rope with a knife.”

The woman stopped speaking. She looked at the ceiling like the man had done. They fell silent.

The building was old and creaking, and the crickets sang outside. For the older man, lying in his clothes on his back in bed, those noises didn’t exist. It was completely quiet, except for the beating of his heart. It was more of a feeling than a sound, but he perceived it as such. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. He was lying for a while with his eyes closed, but the sleep wasn’t coming. At last, he opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. The street lamp was casting a yellow light there. He felt a desire to be outside in the light. He got up slowly out of bed, trying to make as little noise as possible, and sneaked out of the apartment.

In the niece’s room, the young man at last mustered the courage to leave. He got up and started dressing up in a hurry. The woman watched him from where she lay in bed. She didn’t do or say anything to stop him. She couldn't care less and felt a little amused as she had sensed the man’s wish to leave and his fear not to upset her. What was there to get upset over, she thought to herself? She was perfectly capable of amusing herself. She wouldn’t feel lonely if the man left. She would rather welcome it as she would have a good sleep. It would be better for both of them if the man left, so what was all that fuss about?

After he finished dressing up, the man went to the bed and kissed the woman on the mouth. Then he left the room, closing the door quietly, not to wake the uncle, without having the slightest idea that the last one wasn’t in the apartment, or even if he was, he wouldn’t have heard a thing, anyway. The man found his sneakers, put them on, and descended the stairs. Once outside, he was startled by the person standing under the street light.

“For God’s sake!” exclaimed the young man. The uncle saw that the man coming out of the house said something, but he couldn’t hear, and in the darkness beyond what was well-lit, he couldn’t read the other’s lips. He took what’s been said for a greeting and politely nodded in response. The young man nodded and hurried into his car. He drove away. The older man looked long after the car until the red of its rear light disappeared in the night. Then he sat on the sidewalk with his back against the lamp post and closed his eyes.

The young woman in the room upstairs turned off the night light and looked through the open window, hidden in the darkness. She saw her uncle sitting under the street light. The same black cat from before came out from behind a shrub, trying to cross to the other side of the street. She saw the man, stopped, and went to the center of the street in the middle of the cone of light of the street light. The man smiled and stretched out his hand to invite the cat to come closer. She hesitantly approached, and the man petted it. For a moment, both of them were happy. Their happiness, however, was short-lived. A drop fell on the man’s head, and another one. He realized that the slight breeze had died out a long time ago. It was starting to rain.