Mike's younger brother Brandon, a thirty-five-year-old telephone repairman who had taken the day off, and his cousin and best friend, Peter McKay, currently between jobs, hadn't had any luck getting Mullen's widow, Paula, down to the Cavern. She'd had her fill of Irish wakes, the rites of burial, drinking. Mostly she was already sick of her grief, and what she wanted was to get back to her normal life with her children, which, she was beginning to suspect, was never going to happen.

Brandon Mullen and Peter McKay were depressed enough about Mike's senseless death, but Paula's refusal to accompany them to the Cavern's special memorial had put them into even blacker moods. Mike's own wife!

There was a huge head shot of Mike blown-up against the dart wall and this reinforced their loss – their brother and friend was gone. Goddamn, pour some whiskey.

The Cavern's oval-shaped bar ran the center of the room, and Jamie O'Toole wasn't letting any of the regulars buy a drink. This was the Cavern's wake, for its patrons, and the place was plannin' on losin' its ass tonight, thanks. It was the least they could do for Mikey.

By eight forty-five, close to sixty men had poured into the Cavern – ready to get half-tanked coming in after their wives and kids and supper, or hot and sweaty and thirsty from their daytime jobs on construction sites, body shops, road crews. Jamie O'Toole poured and they raised their glasses to the poster-sized photograph of Mike Mullen's smiling mug.

Neil Young's 'War of Man' was playing on the juke box, loud, throbbing and insistent. Somebody kept playing it over and over, and Jamie O'Toole kept the volume up. Guys were starting to sway, shoulder to shoulder, packed in, sweating, spilling their beers.