Reject and escapee of society, the poet maintained his sweet intercourse with the night, lover of her empty and abandoned embraces caught on the sly in shadows, around corners and in all the brightly hidden places of the mind.  There he kissed the dreams of all (wo)mankind and announced their most frightful nightmares, these anxieties and apprehensions finely tuned to lines of verse.  Apparitions greeted the weary lover from the strongly rushing stream of night, sweeping him on through their conclusion.  The poet was privileged to step behind the scenes, where life is given its freest meaning and all the secrets of existence are transcribed, mystifyingly encoded.  Tonight he would be reunited with the darkness around corners, crossing into the land of dreams.

 Here he walked through the cooling heat of summer, among the homes and buildings of town, seeking where that darkest shadow might be hid this night.  There to plunge through the churning currents of the shore-caste waves, seeking the more steady and tranquil depths beyond.  And he is riding...

 Riding on a bicycle, away from the farm of his parents, out and up along the spine of a wooded ridge thick with green.  He had returned from a life, but found at the farm--science, father of our culture--only a waiting station from which he must once again depart.

Pedaling across the countryside, the road ahead was transformed from a rural lane to a major thoroughfare.  And there, at the crossroads, on a balding sore rise of earth lay the infernal factory--like a large tick with its head buried deep within the ground.  The blood on which this tick engorged was thick and dark, the waste it generated was toxic and putrid.  And there were the fangs through which it injected its venom into the earth.  As this plume of venom spread through the ground, he could follow its progress by a subtle change in the surface, which appeared much the same as it did before infection, but where every plant and grain of sand carried within it the visage of death, soon to be released.

 As all roads led to this charnel house, the poet swerved to avoid the gaping maw of the beast, swerved onto a narrow trail through the fields, skirting the edge of the poisonous plume.  The trail took him along productive farmland, where the roots of desirable vegetables were now being licked by the evil that man had produced.  Farmers were busy harvesting the bounty, never guessing that every grain and vegetable bore the kiss of death for them and others.

 A residential neighborhood bordered the farmland, each house fenced off from the cropland but not from the under-riding pestilence.  The poet searched for some passage through the fencing, so that he might escape the aching grasp of death which spread through the land.  Through this dying landscape the poet was joined by a dog which ran along beside the bike with its tongue lolling out.  Brimming with vitality and vigor, the dog attached itself to the poet, seeking his expression for its life.

 Finally there appeared a gate in the fence, leading into the yard of a large old house.  the rider let himself and the dog through the gate, careful to latch it behind them, intending to quickly cross this yard and disappear down the road.  A young woman carrying a baby looked out at him through a window, motionless and half alive; yet in her eyes the poet saw love and desire, birth and growth--all the bitter harmony of life--there buried deep within and waiting to be released.

 Up on the front porch, the door opened and the dog left the poet to race into the house, carrying its spark within.  The house sprang to life; out of the door and across the porch rushed children who surrounded the poet, playing with his bicycle, swinging from his arms and clinging to his legs.  Close behind them was an older woman who cared for them all, and behind her the demure young woman carrying the baby.  And this was how the poet found a home and a cause, here on the edge of a spreading plume of corruption and evil.

 A young lady in black stepped around a corner, deliberately facing the poet.

 “Do you seek the darkest shadow?” she asked.

 “Yes, I know it is someplace near.”

 “Do you find it by scent or by track?”  Her face was tanned by the moon.  There was an odor of patchouli and cardamom about her.

 “It is the vacuum I seek to fill,” he replied.  Lightning in his eyes illuminated the way.  “Are you familiar with the night?”

 “In my dreams, we fly.”  She looked about apprehensively and urged him to move along.  “Don’t let’s stand here for too long.  There are fearful, ignorant eyes peering through window panes.”

 “And if there are, then let them witness this,” he wheeled about, proudly jutting out his chest while she clung to his arm and sought to lead him quietly away.

 “They will see only what they want to see, and they will likely see the worst.”  She directed him into an alley and afterward stayed away from well-lit streets and open areas.  “We already have too much trouble with them.  It has become dangerous to caress the night.”

 “There are others?” the poet allowed the dark and moon-tanned woman to lead him along.

 “Our numbers are few,” she told him as they strode through the darkness, “and we have found it best to prowl the night unseen.”

 “You are the only other I have met.”

 “And you would not have seen me, if I had not stepped out to rescue you from walking about so openly.”

 “And why have you intercepted me?”

 “The spell of the night flows strong within you; it surges through you with a brightness which illuminates the world.”  There was a rustle of feathers as a black cape materialized to enfold her.  “Ravens are attracted to bright objects.”

 He lost her for a moment, but then she reappeared at a basement stairway leading down from the street into a building.  “Here is the darkest shadow.”

She swooped down the stairwell and disappeared before he could reach the steps.  There were the gray concrete stairs, each darker than the last until the bottom steps laid ensconced in deepest shadow.

 Thinking to escape the prying eyes of the street, the poet veered across an expansive meadow which opened quite suddenly to his left.  This field was so immense that the other end was lost in darkness.  Here was his hope for escaping the critical view, stifling in its intensity; here the freedom to explore his muse, extracting riches which might be better appreciated by the public in the light of day.  Still the constriction had not
eased, but rather intensified.  Looking about, he could see a crowd advancing upon him from across the field.  He tried to run, only to discover that his feet were mired in the dark, rich mud.

 The spiteful crowd drew ever closer while every attempt to escape sank him deeper into the mire.  He floundered up to his armpits in the black wet muck, slapping his arms on the surface.  Each step the crowd took seemed to choke him further, until he would be smothered completely and trod underfoot.

 A shadow passed over his head as he sank to the neck.  Looking up, he saw a large raven fly overhead.  Then there was a shot in the night and the raven tumbled out of the sky.  The gun was cocked again, and now the poet could see it aimed at his head.  Reacting more by instinct than be thought, he sucked his head down into the mud and dove deep into the earth, inhaling the blackness, filling his lungs with the wet darkness, where he was cradled incubated, nursed and then sent forth.

 He was seated at a small round table draped with a blue clothe bearing golden stars and silver moons.  The room was curtained in cloudy white mesh.  A breeze puffed at the curtains, but inside the room was still.  In one corner an incense brazier perfumed
the air with sandalwood.  An old crone dressed in gypsy garb studied the arrangement of tarot cards on the table and spoke of death and conformity.

 Bored with her reading and drawn by a fluttering of wings and a cooing from beyond, the poet rose and stepped over to a corner where he drew apart the curtains.  A powerful wind swept through the room, picking up the tarot cards and scattering them about.  He plucked a card out of the air and glanced at it before the wind snatched it back; it was the high priestess.  It and all the other cards turned to falling red and yellow brown dried leaves, rustling on the floor and crunching under his feet as he returned to the table.  The irate fortuneteller loomed over a crystal ball, forcing him to look within where he could see himself captured by an angry mob and hung from the limb of a lone oak tree.

 “Ah, but this has already been.”  He drew down his collar to show her the rope marks.

 “Then you are dead?”  The crone had lost her confidence.

“No, the man hung from the tree is dead, but I am quite alive.” Before she could question him further, he directed her gaze back into the crystal ball.  It held her image, dressed in rags and begging for alms.

 “Noooo!”

 The crystal ball grew brighter and brighter, accompanied by a drumming which grew louder and louder until it shook the floor.  Dust rose to cloud the room as the crystal ball burst open, releasing a stampede of horses.  The poet stood on his chair, grabbed the lead horse by the mane, and swung himself onto its back, carried away at the head of the torrent.

 He taught sixth grade at a small school in Kentucky.  One spring day, near the end of the school year, he took his class hiking through the hills out beyond the edge of town.  He showed them a few different edible plants, some animal tracks, and led a discussion of sinkholes, caverns and karst topography.  The kids shared with him little scraps of folklore learned from their parents or grandparents.  When not engaged in teaching or fatherly duties, he collected and chronicled the lore of the Kentucky backwoods.

 In a clearing they espied a beautiful young lady--out on a foraging expedition of her own--as she busied herself gathering plants nearby the dilapidated stone and cement foundation where at some dim point in the past a house once stood.  As she picked and plucked, she seemed to be carrying on a conversation with the herbs for which she foraged.  One of the children told him that a witch lived in this place and was burned in her own home by the townspeople over a century ago.  This bit of history distracted the teacher’s attention from the young woman for the merest fraction of a second, and when he looked back she was gone.

 Investigation of the ruins showed that she had been harvesting a number of different--and dangerous--herbs: henbane, foxglove, nightshade, none of them native plants to the country here abouts.  Finding various other native and nonnative herbs noted for their medicinal properties, he realized this was once an herb garden where were cultivated the most potent and powerful of plants.  Other than a few fresh cut stems and a couple spots where roots had been dug, there was no sign that the young woman had ever been present.

 On the weekend, he and his daughter visited the elderly woman from whom he had learned most of his lore.  The old woman was like a grandmother to his daughter, she always had some treat waiting.  Today the treat was for both father and daughter.  Here they met the mysterious woman, and they both fell under the spell of her beauty, her quiet humor, her gentle touch and loving kindness.  The three of them quite naturally made a family, and in no time he and his daughter had moved into her house.

 She lived in an old farmhouse a little outside of town.  There she kept a cow, two goats, chickens, a dog and a house full of cats.  The river ran right behind her house, carrying its waters out to the big muddy and thence to the gulf.  Their home together was one of happiness and contentment.  His daughter received all the love and nurturing for which a child could ask.  To him, she laid open the depths of existence and the heights of passion.  And she was herself strengthened by their presence, fulfilled in the wholeness of their life together.

 One day the old woman called her in to heal a child beyond any other help.  Through inner, unseen avenues she sought the child out and brought her back to life.  At first the people spoke of a miracle but, noting her odd ways and hidden manners, the talk soon turned to witchcraft.  They were avoided in the town; shopkeepers refused to do business with them.  His daughter was taunted by other children, and a parents’ group petitioned to have him removed from the school faculty.  She was wrongfully blamed for the mysterious death of the sheriff and the drowning of a little boy.

 The townspeople, beside themselves with unreasonable fears, formed an angry mob and marched to the farmhouse.  The three of them prepared a boat in which to escape.  he returned to the house for his notes on folklore and, as he was digging them out of a closet, the mob stormed into the house.  Unable to reason with them, he retreated up the stairwell to a bedroom where his only way of escape was through a second-story window.  He looked out at she and his daughter in the boat below, on the river.  She urged him to jump.  The mob surged into the bedroom intent on his death.  He jumped.
 
 

 The poet looked out from an alleyway.  Across the street, in the lee of a large maple, was the darkest shadow of the night.  He had been casing the area for a quarter of an hour; no one was in sight but a harmless homeless drunk sitting back against a fence post twenty yards down from the tree.  Just as the poet made up his mind to cross the road, the drunkard pulled himself up along the fence and stumbled over to the tree.  He placed his left hand against the tree to hold himself steady and fumbled at his pants with his right hand, freeing his member to urinate on the tree trunk.  While he was attempting to pack himself away and zip up, he wavered on his legs and the toe of one foot crossed into the deepest shadow.  In a manner of seconds, two men stepped out of the building behind the drunkard and forced him into an unmarked police car which appeared as though out of nowhere.  The car drove away and the two men resumed their station in the building close by the tree.  Somewhat shaken, the poet hurried back through the alley, away from the stakeout and away from the darkest shadow.

 Later, he followed the sound of horns and sax’s blowing mournful jazz.  The music led him to a hazy nightclub, where there were gathered all the denizens of the night.  He ordered a double bourbon, slugged it down and called for another, then tried to lose himself in the bluesy improvisations of the jazz musicians.  There was one old, blind sax player, in particular, who seemed to pack emotion into every note he blew.

 “You another refugee of the night?” a man, dark as the night and seated at the barstool next to him, inquired.

 “Huh?”

 “C’mon man, what do you think we’re all doing here, now that the police are patrolling the shadows to prevent escape?”

 “I saw them haul away some poor drunk simply because he tripped over a spot of darkness,” the poet slammed away his second double-shot.

 “Hell,” said the man, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were even keeping an eye on the cats and the rats.”

 “The night isn’t safe anymore,” the poet concluded, “but the police must save us from it.”

 “Whatchu drinkin’, whiskey?” the man ordered him another bourbon and a tequila for himself.  “C’mon over,” he invited the poet, “and let me introduce you to a bunch of straight drinkers.”

 The poet took his replenished drink and followed the man over to a table where were seated two other men and a woman.  His newfound acquaintance sat down and drew over a chair for the poet.  “This guy says he saw them cart away some drunk who got too close.”

 The other three looked to the poet for confirmation.  One man was big and brawny with scars on his knuckles which indicated that he had done a lot of fighting.  The other man was about the poet’s size, emotionless and icy calculation.  The woman glanced at him with feverish eyes, then returned her attention to the jazz musicians.

 “They snatched him up before he even had a chance to catch his breath,” the poet attested.

 The woman spoke to no one in particular, “Had you ever known freedom, would you mourn its loss?”

 “Ask Joe Hill or Francis Farmer about freedom in Amerika,” the poet replied.  “Ask Karen Silkwood or any of the other countless victims of democracy.  Hell, ask any Indian you meet.”

 The table was silent for a moment.  Finally the poet spoke again, “Why are they doing this, are we in danger?”

 “Only from them,” spoke the man who introduced him.

 “They are society’s watchdogs,” the cool one said, “and society views us as a threat.”

 “Because we see in the darkness,” the poet posed.  “Because we seek our dreams.”

 “Because we bring back those dreams to the waking world,” the cool one pronounced, “and because these dreams might reveal the waking deceit.”

 They listened to the music for a while, then the cool one spoke again, “We cannot let them keep us from the deepest shadow.”

 The silent giant clenched his scarred and stony fists, “Just let them try and stop me.”

 “Do your fists turn bullets?” the dark man asked.

 “Relax,” the cool one calmed the giant.  “Have another drink.  We’ll come up with a way to get around them.”

 The blind saxophonist blew one last searing solo, and then the song ended and the band took a break.

 “Man, that is one hot sax player,” the poet exclaimed.

 “Would you like to meet him?” the woman asked.  She stood up and urged him to follow, “Come on.”

 The feverish woman led him backstage, to a large dressing room where all the musicians hung out between sets.  The blind saxophonist was sitting in a folding chair with his back to the far wall, nursing a beer and smoking a cigar.

 “Those were the hottest sounds this side of dreamland,” the feverish woman announced her presence.

 “Hey babe,” the sax player sat his drink on the makeup table and extended his arms, “come on over here and give me a hug.”

 She sat on his lap and they held each other playfully.

 “Why they’d want to lock up a fine young lady like you is beyond me,” the sax player told her.

 “Honey, they’re after all of us,” she said, “anyone who can dream.”

 “Don’t let them touch my sax; this would be a sad and solemn world without music.”

 “Don’t worry, daddy, we’ll keep you safe long as your chops hold up.  I brought a friend along,” she left his lap and brought the poet forward.  “He’s another refugee, and don’t you know he liked that sax of yours.”

 “You can really play,” the poet complimented him.  “The darkest shadow must bed down in your sax.”

 “Man, don’t be saying that,” the musician half-jested.  “The police will be all over me for sure if they get wind of that.”

 “I won’t repeat it,” the poet promised.

 “Babe, you got any of those dream sticks you like to carry around?  A little tea would taste great right now.”

 “Look, they may keep up out of the shadows,” she told him as she produced a joint out of her pocket, “but they’re gonna have to catch me if they want to take away my smoke.”

 The other musicians gathered around at sight of the joint.  She lit it up and passed it along the circle.  The poet smoked with them; it was a poor substitute for his dreams, but in this land it was all they had.  Stimulated by the joint, he speculated out loud, “There’s got to be some way into dreamland, other than through the darkest shadow.”

 “Well now, if you find it let us know,” said the sax player as he hit the joint again.

 If there is another way, the poet thought, I will find it--or it will find me.

 As the world spun around, the sun peeked over the horizon.  Where does the deepest shadow go during the day?  Does it not hide within, blanketing the subconscious and illuminating the soul?  Can I not find it there and, finding it, can I not plunge deep within?  How absurd then the attempt to police and cordon off all access.  Once the word is out, will they attempt to place roadblocks around the heart.  Should it be unlawful to look in a mirror?  Can we be arrested for introspection?

 Here is the deep forbidden lake, its waters cold and dark.  Here is the source of all shadow and of all illumination.  Breath deep and dive.
 
 

 Countless times through the millennia the cycle had been repeated--the cycle of birth and illumination of simple forms, and then of extinguishing, implosion, and the fusion of heavier forms.  A complex dust of being was scattered throughout the vacuum, accumulated to fill that vacuum, and finally coalesced into richly composed composites, one of which would individuate into the poet.  Yes, the poet had his beginning in the assemblage of many scattered fragments which, though they once held other identities, having such distant and circuitous histories that they could not realistically be viewed as alien, foreign, or imported, now bore his fingerprints and genes distinct, compounded into the gestalt from which would surface the expression of his fluid personality.  At this point, however, personality had not yet been derived, nor even consciousness from which personality could be fostered; there was here only mindless existence, chaos imposed into fractal order, communion in a burgeoning community which could be referred to as soul for lack of a better term, the batter or dough from which his bread should eventually rise.

 And so the poet stewed in a random fashion where his elements were left to align and disband as nature alone might dictate, stirred by convective currents until, through the passage of an incomprehensible length of time, every fraction of his being was allowed congress with every other fraction, when by inherent affinities the entire body of his existence differentiated into some semblance of order--the heaviest elements gravitating to the deepest portions of his psyche, while the lighter elements congregated closer to the surface.  And, as the heat energy (released from internal radiation and from external bombardment) dissipated, the currents of existence slowed to a viable pace, allowing the establishment of a crust to define the boundary between subconscious and conscious.  It was, in fact, outgassing from the becoming unconscious which gave rise to the waters and atmosphere of consciousness; it was the extrusion of crust and sediment which gave substance to the ego.  This dawning consciousness was yet a passive thing, merely a perception and a reflection of the surrounding universe accompanied by a subtle and unreasoned knowledge of a difference or separation between the perceiver and the universe perceived.

 And this consciousness was forever arising anew from the subconscious, and was forever being subducted back into the subconscious.  The actions of origination and subduction--and the subconscious convection which provided the motive force--insured an ever-changing mosaic of consciousness, where perceptions were variegated, compounded and eroded, colliding and rifting to keep the exterior (as the interior and the external) ever in a state of flux, bearing only the illusion of immobility and singular identity.

 And perhaps it was this very flux--simply the motion of existence itself--which allowed the conception, within the seas or tidal pools, of the first dim glimmers of personality.  It was the flotsam and jetsam of the subconscious, brought into the light of consciousness, which formed the first rich scum of personality.  Reacting to stimuli, metabolizing and reproducing, these primitive, microscopic elements of personality quickly spread throughout the seas, altering both the subconscious and the conscious so as to stabilize these environments and render them capable of sustaining more complex facets of personality.

 And this personality developed through interaction with the conscious and subconscious environments, banding together microscopic features into grander expressions of identity, until the basic elements had integrated into organs of specialized function for all the various emotions and feelings, intuitions and instincts, evolving into higher expressions of personality, stepping forth upon land, winging through the atmosphere, until the conscious being of the poet was entirely invested in personality.  Thought was born of the communication between kaleidoscopic experience, intuition and instinct, elicited by an infinite variety of stimuli.  And yet, in this particular individual--the poet--the connections between personality and subconscious remained (to some extent at least) conscious, allowing well-springs of creativity to flow between the depths of being and the most egocentric self.  Creativity was, indeed, the revitalizing force from which the poet drew all of his strength; creativity was the center-post of his existence.  Thus was the poet rejuvenated by drinking the waters of the deep forbidden lake, rejuvenated as are all people nightly in the deepest unremembered refuge of sleep.

 The night was very quiet; there was no jazz filtering down the street as he approached the club.  The poet was bringing news of his discovery to the other aficionados of the night, but now he began to wonder what was wrong.  The neon sign advertising live music was not lit up, one of the windows was broken.  The door stood ajar, but the club within appeared dark and silent.  Stepping inside, the poet found an empty scene of devastation.  Tables and chairs were overturned and broken; the posters which once festooned the walls were all torn down and ripped to pieces; the mirror behind the bar was shattered as were the glasses and the bottles.  The smell of spilled alcohol mixed with the smell of charred wood; one end of the bar was partially burnt.  It looked like someone had taken an ax to the piano up on the stage.  The drum kit, as well, was dismantled and smashed; a ruined trumpet was impaled on one of the cymbal stands.  The microphone stands were bent and bashed, strewn through the wreckage; one of them protruded from a torn amplifier.  What violence had swept through this building?  The poet almost expected to find bodies and blood amid the debris.

 Being careful of the broken glass, he began to search the rest of the building.  The bathrooms were also destroyed.  Toilets, sinks, and urinals were broken, spilling fecal water onto the floors.  The dressing room had been ransacked, the long mirror over the make-up counter was broken as had been the mirror behind the bar.  The storeroom was a clutter of smashed boxes and bottles, reeking of alcohol.  The pay phone in the hallway had been ripped right off the wall.  And not a sign of anyone.  Where was the bartender, the waitress, the owner?

 The poet opened a door leading to the back alley and stepped outside again, out of the disaster.  He should get away from here  before being discovered, but he could not leave without first puzzling out what had transpired.  He glanced around the alley littered with empty boxes, an overflowing dumpster.  There was something hidden in the shadows among the empty boxes.  Was that some homeless wino, or a dead body?  The poet cautiously stepped forward to investigate.

 It was the old blind sax player, huddled fearfully among the refuse, his face not yet dry from the tears he had shed.  Knowing that he had been discovered, he spoke in a voice at once timid and defiant, “Who is that?”

 “Don’t worry,” the poet told him, “it’s me.”

 The sax player breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed back into his grief.  “Doesn’t matter much anyway.”

 He produced a half-empty bottle of whiskey and took a long drink.  The poet eyed the saxophone on the old man’s lap, bent and broken.  The old man passed him the bottle and he took a healthy drink before passing it back.

 “What happened?”

 “The old man grimaced, one hand fell to his broken sax, then he shook his head remorsefully.

 “There just ain’t no place in this world for the likes of us, son.”  He took another pull off the bottle.  “The police came and took everybody away.  I was coming out of the bathroom when they stormed through the doors.  Don’t know how they didn’t see me in the hallway.  I hid in the storeroom till they were gone, then I came out to find my sax and beat it out of there.  But right after the police left, a mob came in through the front doors and destroyed the place.  I snuck out here and waited until it was quiet again.  At first, I thought they lit the place on fire, but I guess it didn’t catch.  Once they were all gone I went back in and found my sax.”  He bowed his head back over the broken saxophone.  “They broke it, they broke my sax.”

 “The police hauled everybody off,” the poet could not believe it.  “What for?”

 “For chasing dreams, boy,” the old man’s voice held a rough edge of grief.  “They knew this club was full of shadow chasers, and tonight the deepest shadow was here.”  He passed the bottle back to the poet.

 “It was always in this club.”  The poet sat down beside him and drank.  “Nobody ever had to go chasing after the deepest shadow, it’s here within all of us.”

 The old man chuckled cynically.  “That’s something few people know.”

 “That’s why I came here tonight, to tell them the police can’t keep us from our dreams.”  The poet told the old man of his discovery and of his dream.  “I have it now, and I will tell it so that the whole world will listen.”

 “Nobody will listen.”

 “What do you mean?” the poet asked.

 “They don’t want to hear that--they don’t want to know anything  about it.  Who the hell do you think ransacked this club?  It was our neighbors, the citizens of this fair city.  They don’t want to know where the deepest shadow resides, or what they might find within it.”

 “But they need to know,” the poet insisted, “and I aim to tell them.”

 “They’re not gonna listen to you,” the old man argued.  “And if you keep it up, they’ll break you just like they broke my sax.”

 “But I have to sing about it, just as you have to play your sax.”

 “No, they got me.”  The old man mourned over his broken instrument.  “I can’t play anymore, I’m beaten.”

 “You can’t give up,” the poet argued for life.  “Get your sax fixed or buy another one.”

 “You don’t understand,” the old man protested.  “I’m not up to the fight.  I’m getting old, and it’s too much of a struggle anymore just to face this world each day.  You’re young and naive; you’re full of life and eager for battle, you go out for a bit until you tire of having your head knocked.”

 “I have to keep trying,” the poet confirmed, “I’m not ready to give it up.”

 “Then here’s my advice:” the old man told him, “go to Europe.  They’re more receptive over there.”

 “No,” the poet disagreed, “this is where I’m needed most.”

 “Then give it all you’ve got,” the old man concluded, “and always watch your back.  Hide it in a good story and maybe they won’t realize what you’re up to.  Most likely, they’ll break you in the end; but till then, you give them a fight you can be proud of.”

 “Here’s to the fight,” the poet drank and passed the bottle to the old man.

 “Here’s to the night,” the old man drank in turn.