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Roman Ash stood out on the hot sidewalk for a minute and he took a deep breath and rubbed his rough hands on the legs of his blue jeans. Then he pushed open the glass door and stepped into the darkened air conditioned tavern. His eyes adjusted to the light and he picked out his three friends sitting around a wooden table in the back corner near the men’s room, staring at each other. Roman walked to the table and his friends looked up and watched him approach.

“Hey stranger,” one of the men shouted, and the others joined in the chorus and waved their hands, urging him on. “Pull up a chair. Have a drink,” another said. “Been a long time. Let’s get us some nachos.”

    Roman grabbed an empty chair from another table and he joined the three men at the round table.

“Gimme a pint,” he told the waitress who had rushed to the table as soon as he sat down. “Just something cheap and American.”

She started to rattle off a list of names and prices but he interrupted her.

“Yes,  I don’t care. You pick it.”

“Okay,” she snapped, insulted.

“And bring us a order of nachos Darlene,” one of the men said.

“Extra guac?” she asked without looking down from her pad.

“Yep.”

The waitress walked away and Roman shifted and settled into his stiff chair and he looked up at the television hanging from the ceiling over the bar. The television was tuned to a car race. The sound was turned off and country music crooned out of speakers built into the ceiling.

“How you doin’ Roman?” one of the men asked. The questioner was a skinny man like the others, with dark leathery skin, a white shirt with pearl buttons and a black felt cowboy hat.

“Fine Purdy, how bout’ yourself?”

“Not so bad, not so bad.”

The waitress returned with Roman’s beer and he took a deep gulp. The other men also had pints of beer sitting in front of them.

“Be a few minutes for the nachos,” the waitress said, then walked away.

“My she’s testy,” one of the men said.

“Must be that time of month,” Purdy said, then looked up at the television. Roman sipped his beer and watched the racing cars round the track. A man crooned out of the speakers in the ceiling, “Darling, it won’t happen a-gain.”

“Say Horace,” Roman said. “How’s your corn doin’?”

“Old yeller,” Horace Bean said, then rubbed his thick rubbery nose. “Can’t even get to the fields, ground’s so wet. Ha bout you?”

“Same,” Roman said. “Don’t look good.”

“They say the sun’s commin’ out tomorrow,” the third man said.

“Hell Rufus,” Horace said. “They been sayin’ that all summer. And anyway it ain’t the sun we need. It’s nitrogen. I’m gonna dust with nitrogen Saturday, but I think it’s too late. Think it’s all a bust this year.”

They all looked up at the car race, lap 14, lap 15, lap 16.

“Miss any crashes?” Roman asked.

“Nope,” Purdy answered.

The waitress came with the nachos.

“Here you are fellas. Say Roman, how’s Lila?”

“Oh she’s fine, fine. Baking peach pie tonight. She said `Roman, you get out and meet the fellas tonight’ cause she knows what happens when I stick around in the kitchen licking things.”

The waitress and the other men laughed.

“Well it’s good to see you Roman,” the waitress said. “You say high to Lila for me. Tell her to call my mom some time. My mom says Lila never calls no more.”

“No, we been busy. All the rain, and Lila went to Kansas City last week to see Floraine.”

“Well how’s Floraine doin?” the waitress asked.

“Oh fine, just fine. Havin’ a baby. Lila just went to check up on her.”

“A baby! Well bless her heart. When’s it due?”

“End of October.”

“Well you give her my love,” the waitress said.

“I’ll do that,” Roman said, and the waitress walked back to the kitchen. Then Roman said to the others, “Can’t figure them women.”

Nobody answered. Purdy pulled some of the cheese-covered corn chips to his plate and the others dug in after him and then they turned back to the silent television screen.

It had been a long time since Roman had come to town to sit in the tavern with his old friends. Little had changed since his last visit. Darlene McCauley, the waitress, looked a little more grown up and a little heavier and Rufus McKee looked older, grayer, thinner, and he had nothing to say. Seemed he’d changed since his wife passed on.

A few other faces had changed. A new young man with a mustache stood behind the bar with two new waitresses and new younger faces lazed back around tables and at the bar.

But everything else in the tavern was exactly as it had always been, including the quiet gathering of the fellas on a Thursday evening after a day on the farm or, in the case of Rufus McKee, a day at Humble Feed and Seed. The neon and mirrored signs for beer hung above the bar like usual and the faded yellow sign from twenty years back for cigarettes still hung over the door to the men’s room. And the essential ingredients - the smell and taste of the tavern - still smelled and tasted exactly as they always had smelled and tasted even after so many years of sitting down for beers Thursday evenings and after so many years of not sitting down for beers. It felt as if all the years had simply vanished.

“How Œbout a cigar?” Roman said, and the others looked at him with shocked, disapproving faces.

“No thanks,” Purdy said.

“Gave it up,” Horace Bean said, then turned back to the television.

Rufus didn’t answer, didn’t even look at Roman, just kept his head locked on the cars going around the race oval. What was it she died of? Cancer of some sort. Of the lung or the breast, Roman thought, and he forgot about smoking a cigar and instead nibbled at the corn chips dripping with orange cheese and grease and black olives and guacamole and tomatoes and sour cream. He took a chip and slipped it through the sour cream and chewed the soggy mess and he washed it down with a big gulp of cold, watery beer. He looked at the men and waited for one of them to look back, but they were glued to the television screen that hung from the ceiling to Roman’s left. A commercial interrupted the race and the three men looked back to the table and at the nachos and at their beers and Horace said, “Been a long time Roman. Thought you was never coming back,” and the others nodded.

Roman took off his hat and placed it in his lap.

“Well fellas,” he said, “I know it as well as you do. Been working hard and keepin’ to myself these past few years.”

“Keepin’ the hell away from us,” Purdy grumbled into his beer.

“No, been keepin’ to myself Purdy,” Roman said loudly. “Anyways, thought I’d come by and say goodbye.”

“What’s that?” Rufus said. “You not coming back?”

“Not likely,” Roman said. “Me and Lila, we’re moving south. Retiring. Going where the weather’s warm and our bones don’t hurt so much.”

“You’re leaving?” Rufus asked in disbelief.

“‘Fraid so.”

“When you going?” Rufus asked.

“First week October. We already started packin’ up.”

Rufus looked at his old friend, unsure what to say. Horace scratched his head and Purdy turned and stared hard at Roman, then turned back to the television.

“What about the farm?” Rufus asked. “Who’s gonna run the farm?”

“Gonna sell,” Roman said.

“My,” Rufus said. “Land still good?”

“Good as any. Needs fertilizer n’ fumigant. But it’s  good.”

“And you’re just up and selling?”

“That’s right.”

“To who?”

“Maybe Franklin. He owns it all out there. Don’t matter. To anyone.”

Rufus and Horace Bean looked at one another and then at Roman. Their eyes were filled with silent amazement. Roman smiled slightly and looked from one to the other, waiting for one of them to say something. Purdy kept his eyes fixed on the television screen.  Without turning he said, “Say hello to Lila for me. Maybe you two come over before you go.”

“That would be nice,” Roman said, and then all the men looked up to the car race on the television screen.

Roman finished his beer quickly, before the car race was over. He tossed a few dollars on the table and left the tavern and drove the Ford pickup back to the farm, past the ŒFor Sale’ sign staked into the ground at the end of the dirt driveway, and he drove past his soggy  yellow corn fields and parked in front of the white farm house and he headed straight for the kitchen for some peach pie. The pies were still baking in the oven, so Roman sat down with Lila in the living room and they watched the July sun set in the screened windows behind the couch and he told her what happened at the tavern. Later, just before bed, Roman and Lila Ash ate warm peach pie and washed it down with milk.