The room we were in was the tavern part, with a dining room off the rear. The room next door was the grocery store, among other things, all of the rooms having the same low ceiling and rough, gray wooden walls. It was one of those places that made no attempt to create an atmosphere and in so doing did.

“You’re making money tonight, Wilma.”

“Ain’t shittin’,” she said. She took some cigarettes out from somewhere in the flowered tent and didn’t bother to offer me. She knew I didn’t use them. She lit herself up and said, “See those crazy asses over there?”

She was pointing to a young couple in their early twenties, sitting in a booth across the room. I said I saw them.

“They drove down from Chicago for my chili. Can you beat it?”

I admitted I couldn’t. “Who’s helping you in the kitchen?”

“My niece. You saw her in here yesterday, didn’t you? Little dark-haired girl with the titties?”

“That does sound familiar.”

I rubbed the window again. Looked out. He wasn’t there. Car was, though, a recent model Chevy, medium price range, blue-gray. He was probably paying for his gas.

“My father owned this place,” she said.

Out of nowhere. She was like that, but this was some- thing new, in subject matter. We’d become friends, over the several years I’d been living nearby, and spoke of many things, but never this.

“I never met your father,” I said.

“I should hope to shout. He died in 1948.”

“How old were you then?”

“None of your goddamn business. Twenty something. I did the cooking since I was thirteen.”

“Who ran the place, after your father died?”

“I did. Who do you think? Took his name down and put mine up.”

The painted sign outside said Wilma’s Welcome Inn.

“What about your mother?”