"I buried my father today". It was like a slow song turning into a litany: "today I buried my father". Across the weeks and months looking back on that night, I still hear those words. Words. That was a day and a night of words. She said: "When she spoke, everyone cried." A funeral on a hill. Words and a grave. All prelude to me. An introduction to that night, the jumbled action cuts reminding a television viewer of last week's action. It wasn't action, though. This was quiet and still.

"What did she say? Can you remember?" Remembering was very important to both of us. We were exact because life wasn't. It was a lie: even then we both knew that nothing existed outside the story. "My mom said 'I've lost the great love of my life', and everybody cried". Sitting there, hearing her tell it. I loved hearing her speak, hearing her words. The past doesn't matter, I thought, the funeral or the hill. Just her, just me, sitting in the old West Village bar, sipping drinks bought by other s on account of her father's death.

He was a famous man. Outside her house people had built a shrine, like a stoop sized version of St. Patricks, with candles and everything. We sat there for a time, that night. "It's wierd, being here, isn't it?" she whispered through a smile. "Sort o f like a New Orleans funeral" I said. And the game went on that night as it had the nights before, masks stripping away to reveal more masks, a dance.

In the bar she remembered the hill and the rock. A funeral without a body. I wondered while she spoke about the ashes. They come in a box, I think, marked "human remains". We were human remains, the two of us. Remains of a past made of words. She continued: "There was a rock cutter. Simeon." I smiled and laughed. We both loved names. Human symbols. "He was carving my fathers name on the rock." A name carving a name, and her speaking. Three levels, maybe more. I was dizzy from the drinks. I got up, stumbling. The bathroom was cramped and dirty. The lock on the door didn't work. Graffiti on the walls, more words. I closed my eyes and listened to the water hitting water, splashing, calming. There was another round on the table when I got back.

She said: "Simeon was carving the rock all afternoon. People would approach him, one by one, intrigued by the rock cutter working alone. To each person he would say 'this is the most beautiful rock i've ever seen.'" It was all making sense. The prelu de, these words. More masks. Simeon was a mask, a construction, a rock cutter carving himself. We both knew it. She went on: "I went up, with my camera. You know, to capture the archtype. He looked at me, totally straight, as if it was the most prof ound thing in the world, and said 'Sarah, this is the most beautiful rock i've ever seen.' I told him I knew he was going to say that, and went on taking pictures. When he took a break, half an hour later, I brought him a chocolate croissant. I wanted to see him eat it. To see the archtype eating a pastry. Beautiful. He looked at me, and looked at the rock, and looked around. Finally, he smiled, and said 'you think you understand, right? you think you see through me, but you know something? you do n't.'" He was wrong. She saw through him, and I saw through her. We were transparancies, one over the other, each layers thick. Too dense to pass light, impenatrable and dark.

Words. Simeon carving Simeon carving her father's name. Ashes on a hill. Another bar. Another round. The waiter, like the thousand others we saw that night, nods apologetically and says "i'm sorry. he was a good man". This kid was younger than us . I was dizzy, but she spoke to him and he left. "I don't know what to say, so i'm not going to say anything at all." Those were my words, when I found out. But it was different for me. To me they were just words, more words stacked against our histo ry, meaningless but comforting. They were the right words.

"How did you find out?" I wanted to know. I needed to know how it happened. I knew her words would be sweet. "I was sitting at my new place in New Haven. With this guy who lives downstairs. We were fighting and making up, this time on his floor. I called home, to my dad's office, I don't know why. He was sick, you know? Someone answered. They said hold on. Silence and then my mom. 'Is Steve there yet?' she asked. He was supposed to deliver a lamp. 'Daddy died.' He was supposed to deliver a lamp. Now he was coming to take me home." It was always the same with her. Flat and tense. God, I would give anything for her words.

She told me to leave a fat tip for the waiter, and I did. We had left ten bucks at the first place, for the free burger and double shots. This time I dropped five, because I knew we only had forty more and it was a long cab ride up to my place in Morn ingside. The boy waiter looked hurt. "You don't tip friends". Words, poses, masks. He wasn't my friend, she hardly knew him. I smiled, tossed back the rest of the shot, and said "You're very kind." Sarah laughed, because she knew it was out of an ol d movie, another book, more words. At least I knew I'd have enough to get home.

Three O'clock. Closing time. A new restaurant where the music wasn't so loud. More people with their hats in their hands and apologies on their lips. Her father was on the covers of all the newspapers. I thought about saying it was like we were bei ng followed, but I knew about stuff like that, and so did she, and neither of us was in the mood. Still, I wanted to say something. "I knew it was going to happen. I mean, I knew he was dead. Even before I heard in on Channel four." I was lying, in a way, but she smiled and nodded, maybe because she wanted to believe me,or maybe because she knew it was another game, another round. Simeon would've believed, I thought. Simeon would've known that words and masks aren't the same as lies.

I asked her if she had ever read "Wasteland" by Elliot. Book Three, 'A Game of Chess': "What shall we do tomorrow, what shall we ever do?". She made a face. I had used those words before. The trouble with words, I thought, was that they attach to ot her times, other places. Still, that's how I felt. Lost and without a home, blind and stumbling because of the whiskey, and tired of the game. I told her. She said "Whatever. I buried my father today. Let's go home."