Rudy's a small, square Irishman with a kindly, handsome face; an elfin version of Ernest Hemingway who pads around in moccasins and is never seen without his straw cap. At least once a night he comes into the store to bum a smoke and charm the customers with tales of stickball in Cicero, the bar he owned in Berwyn, the woman he loved who was killed in a plane crash, his wife who's dead now, how he knows Joe Montagna, the actor, knew him before he ever set foot on a stage or gave acting a passing thought.

Rudy's drunk as always, but he is never without his manners or his deadpan homilies: Take care of the man above you. Don't bring the street into the home of your mother and sister. You can't sober up anybody by yelling at em. He's impossible not to like, at least to some extent that varies from person to person. Lately Rudy's drinking has been worse and he's been talking about it in the small hours between 1 and 3.

"Can't sleep. Damn foot. So swollen up can barely get on my moccasins." It's true. His moccasins are like pancakes, one-sixth on, five-sixths off. Over the last week his feet have gradually doubled in size. He lifts his pant leg, his shins are like thighs. "It's goat. I'm too old for gout."

It's hard to laugh the fortieth time you've heard it, but you do anyway, because it saves time. He'll eventually deliver his cleanup line, but it never quite works; either it's too late or it's just plain unintelligible, but it goes something like: "Za trouble w'all you people no sense of humor!" Finally, if you still don't laugh, he laughs, which cues you he's kidding, and then you really do laugh. So the effect is the same as if he were funny.

Rudy made the decision to go to the VA Hospital to get checked out. A friend said he'd drive him up this morning. Last time he went into the VA he didn't come out for nine months. He's nervous, doesn't want to go, he's figuring a way out of it, but what? He's stuck. He won't sit down, not that there's anywhere to sit anyway, and he won't sleep because he can't — the apnea. But the longer he stays awake, the more purple he gets and the less sense he makes.