“Why didn’t he get it?”

“He’s managed to stick his head up his ass,” Honey said, “and the only thing he sees up there are swastikas.”

This sweet girl talking like that. Kevin said, “I’m never sure what you’re gonna say next.”

“I tried one more joke on Walter,” Honey said. “I told him the one, the guy comes home, walks into the kitchen with a sheep in his arms. His wife turns from the sink and he says, ‘This is the pig I’ve been sleeping with when I’m not with you.’ His wife says, ‘You dummy, that’s not a pig, it’s a sheep.’ And the guy says, ‘I wasn’t speaking to you.’”

Kevin laughed out loud again and looked at Honey smoking her cigarette. “You like to tell jokes?”

“To Walter, trying to loosen him up.”

“Did he laugh?”

“He said, ‘The man is not talking to his wife, he’s talking to the sheep?’ I said yeah, it’s his wife he’s calling a pig. Walter said, ‘But how does a sheep understand what he’s saying?’ That was it,” Honey said. “There was no way in the world I’d ever turn Walter around. It was a dumb idea to begin with, really arrogant of me to think I could change him. But you know, I realized even if he did lighten up the marriage would never last.”

“There must’ve been something about him you liked,” Kevin said, “I mean as a person.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Honey in the black beret nodding her head. “Something more than his accent and his stuck-on glasses, but I can’t think of anything it might be. I was young and I was dumb.” She smoked her cigarette, quiet for a time before saying, “That year with Walter did have some weird moments I’ll never forget. Like when he’d aim his finger at me, pretending it was a gun and cut one.”