He stands on the far side of the cemetery with hands jammed in pockets. The coffin is covered with roses, but one falls off as she is lifted into the darkness of the crypt--a black screen at the end of a film. Dudley picks up the trampled rose, holds it to his lips, stares at the vase that Joe DiMaggio arranged for a half dozen rosebuds in perpetuity. Dudley imagines that when the world ends, when human life has passed from this planet, Marilyn's rose supply will cease--an outfielder's concept of immortality. The crypt above Marilyn is still vacant. A salesman rides a Lawn Boy and turns down the engine for Dudley, who writes the phone number on a trembling wrist. The padded elevator makes him feel right at home. On Lillian Way a woman and a couch make love in the glow of television. Framed by a shade, a window, and a kitchen door, a pair of hands revolve on the breakfast table, fingers spread, palms flat, clockwise in timeless motion. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs surround a newspaper on the narrow lawn. Cinema General is peeling like early summer skin. Hogan's Heroes and Mary Tyler Moore are fading stencils caged in concrete. Through these doors celebrities passed to have their lives sprung at them like a lady or a tiger.



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