They sat at a small table by the front window. Marty faced inside the restaurant and Dan was seated so he could see the parade of people walking by. He started in again with his “How did you get here?” questions. Maybe it was a sense of comfort or maybe Marty just figured that if he gave up and answered the questions, Dan would at least move on to another topic. Whatever the reason, as they were sitting over dinner, Marty finally opened up.

“One day, a few months after my father died, my mother came home and said, ‘We’re goin’ to Grandma Rosie’s house.’ She packed up my two brothers and me; we rode the train and then the subway, to Lincoln Place. Grandma was a retired nurse. She lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a building right on the square. It was the most godforsaken place in the universe, burned out buildings, addicts sleeping on the streets, and what was incredible, as I look back on it now, is that there were gangs actually fighting over it. Even as a kid, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to stay there one second longer than they had to.”

“Anyway, right after we got there, my mother looked me straight in the face and said, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. Grandma will take care of you and your brothers until then.’ Not a tear in her eyes, she just turned and walked away. I knew she’d never come back and she never did. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Wow,” said Dan, “so I guess you were like an orphan.”

“I don’t know. It depends on what you mean by orphan, but you know, my grandmother found me one day, wailing in my room. She gave me the best advice I ever got from anyone. ‘Crying won’t bring that selfish woman back, so wipe your tears and be strong. You only got yourself in this world.’ From then on, I told myself that I would never depend on anyone or ask another living soul for a thing.”

“Didn’t you have your brothers, I mean, didn’t you guys help each other out?”

“My brothers are fuckups. The oldest one’s a dealer. I hear he’s back in Brooklyn. Last time I saw him was ten years ago, just before he got sent up to Attica. My middle brother is an addict, at least he was five years ago when I found him sleeping in the stairwell of my grandmother’s building.”

“Your grandmother must have done something right. You seem pretty together.”

“She did the best she could. I guess my brothers were too old to pay attention to her, but man, I worshipped that woman. When I was a kid, no one dared to go out at night, so she and I would be holed up in her place. She told me stories of growing up in Baltimore. She was a singer.”

“So that’s how you got into singing.”

“Sort of. I guess you could say she inspired me. She sure as hell didn’t encourage me, but once… She was a jazz singer. During the Depression, she made it big, singing in clubs in Baltimore and Washington. Her name was Rosie B. She met this older guy who became her manager. He told her he was going to marry her and make her a star. Anyway, she gets booked at the Cotton Club, you know, the whole thing, thirty-two-piece orchestra, red roses on all the tables. She was in her dressing room, getting ready for the show, and there’s a knock at the door. She’s thinking it’s gonna be her man with a ring. But it wasn’t. It was his wife with a gun. She sticks the gun in my grandmother’s face and says she’s gonna kill her. The guy comes in. His wife shoots him straight through the heart and then she blows her brains out, all over my grandmother’s evening gown.”

“Jesus Christ, Marty. That’s incredible. How did your grandmother get over that?”

“She didn’t. She never sang another note. They put her in Bellevue for a while. Then, on account of her being pregnant with the guy’s daughter, who happened to be my mother, they let her out to go live with her sister in Brooklyn. She didn’t ever sing again, but she had all those old jazz records, a few she recorded and lots of others, you know, Billie Holiday, Ella. I used to sing along with them about as soon as I learned how to work the record player.” Marty was chewing his food and humming as if he had just put on one of her records.

“Anyway,” Marty continued, “when I was at the School for the Performing Arts, I was rummaging around in her closet, looking for a fan, and I found a trunk with some of her old evening gowns from when she used to sing. I put one on and turned up one of her records real loud. I was singin’ my head off. I never heard her come in. Boy was she mad. She didn’t speak to me for I don’t know how long. But that’s when I knew I was going to be a singer.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

“’Bout five years ago, I went out to visit her. That’s when I saw my middle brother lyin' in the stairwell. Grandma was eighty years old. She knew I was trying to get my own act together. Anyway, she told me to go in the trunk and get out her red gown. She had one of those full-length three-way mirrors. She told me which one of her records to put on and where to sit. Then she went over in front of the mirror. And she said, ‘If you’re gonna be a singer, you oughta know what it’s supposed to sound like… Man, it was incredible! It was like, I don’t know, like she took sixty years off her life. She was beamin’. She sang the whole record, both sides. Then she said she was gonna lay down for a while. I helped her get in bed. She asked me to wake her in an hour. I remember she kissed me.”

Marty stopped. He took a sip of water. “When I came back she was dead. I buried her next to her sister.” He put his glass down. “So you see, bwana, you ain’t the only one alone. And even after you get yourself someone, you’re still gonna be alone. They’ll just be keeping you company for a while. Speaking of which,” Marty said, as he wiped his mouth and put his napkin down on the table, “we gotta get going. I’m countin’ on you to pay for dinner.”