"I heard," Hollis said. "I was sorry to hear it."
"Were you?"
"I was."
"He drank himself to death in a rented room in Ashtabula," Dale said. "So I don't know how sorry anybody was. Nobody came to the funeral but me and my aunt." He looked at the vest. "None of you."
"I'd been out of it a long time by then," Hollis said. "But I should have come. That's fair."
Dale looked at him a while longer. "Tug," he said finally. "They called you Tug."
"They did."
"You pulled me out of Presque Isle Bay once. The Fourth of July. I fell off the pier." Something complicated passed over Dale's face. "I'd forgotten that."
"You were a heavy kid for eight," Hollis said. "I about went under with you."
For a second, just a second, the two of them sat there on the stools in the yellow light with the radio playing low, two men from the same rough piece of the world, and something that was almost warmth passed between them. Then Dale picked up his coffee and drank it and set it down, and it was gone.
"What are you doing out here, Tug?" he said. "This is a long way from Erie."
"Just passing through," Hollis said. "Heading home. Stopped for pie."
"Then you ought to finish your pie," Dale said. "And head home. It's a bad night to be on the road. Lot of deer."