Actually, come to think of it, Lester isn't really sure what a cheroot is. He knows cowboys smoke them on occasion, out on the prairie. Or out in the Badlands, wherever those are. Lester likes to think he had a pretty good life once, idle, sitting around in his rocking chair, reading westerns, sipping on coffee so bitter it would stain your socks. But he's never really ever read a western. Go up to him some time and say "just washed my hair with some Zane Grey" and he'd chalk that up to the fancy way those Madison avenue assholes advertise shampoo.

It's not dark in the den, but it soon will be. Lester decided, when his wife died, he'd stick it out in the house as long as there was one bulb still burning. Then he waited for that pop in each room of the house. The bedrooms went first. When the bathroom went, he barely noticed. When the bulbs in the kitchen went, there was some trouble, but then he started opening the refrigerator to see things if he needed to. Then he had a bad thought-- does the refrigerator bulb count? Cause those never go out. And then one day it did go out and he decided that was that and now, four years later, the only bulb left was here in the den. And so he waited.

He waits under the bulb, which now burns twenty-four hours a day, in his overstuffed chair, a gift from his wife. Anniversary. His gift to her was that damned baby, which she discovered was inside her a month or so later. Then they had another one. A girl, not much use to anyone. Then one more boy, a sickly thing, liked rock n’ roll and voted democrat and Lester sometimes forgot his name. He hadn't spoken to any of them since the wife died.

He waits under the bulb, pretends he’s in a rocking chair, pretends he’s on the porch, smoking a cheroot and sipping really bad coffee, waiting for his wife to come back from some damn charity thing or another. She was always doing that, volunteering down at the church or taking baked goods to the old folks in that home they had on Park. Well, sort of. She never actually volunteered for anything, was sort of a bitter woman, and a cynic, and died of heart failure one night in their bed. It had been years since he'd touched her, and when he did, and she was cold, he wasn't sure if that meant she was dead, or if that was just what old women felt like. But after he'd shouted in her ear a few times and threatened to burn his own toast if she didn't wake up, and she didn't wake up, he called the paramedics.

Sits in that chair and sometimes gets up to eat a cold can of soup or maybe some bread that those volunteer bitches bring over now and again. Real soup, not pretend soup this time. Real bread. He barely tastes it. Drinks water from a glass he never washes, never needs to, water right out of the tap. Did you know they sell bottled water to people these days? Small little bottles if you want them, even for people who have plumbing? Waste of space.

Sometimes he falls asleep in the chair, and every so often he wakes up and thinks about it and goes to clean himself and change his clothes. Somebody washes them every once in a while. He never turns on the TV. Sometimes, if he’s feeling frisky, he pretends to turn on the TV. But then he realizes it’s pretty stupid to keep a TV on the porch, so he pretends to turn it off and then unpretends it away.

Lester had led an unremarkable life, he knows it, and he also knows that he'll be dead soon, which is fine. Not that he’s looking forward to it, anticipating it. More like death is a Wednesday and who complains about Wednesdays? Just a day like any other. He’s pretty sure he'll be dead when this last bulb burns out. Knows it like he knows he doesn't know what a cheroot is.

Once, when he was asleep, that girl, his daughter, came over. She flipped the switch off so he could sleep in the dark, and the darn thing went pop, so she changed it. Climbed right up on top of him and changed it. Actually, that happened more than once. The bulbs he keeps in the garage are pretty damned cheap.