Dog posts up sentry at the end of the restaurant’s outside, patio table. No one is allowed close to us, except the waitress and the manager both of whom dog is on speaking terms with. Dog diligently works the protective detail and no one else is allowed nearby.

We raise high the Irish Whiskey and slam empty shot glasses down, turned over on wooden table slats amidst sprinkles of passing teardrops. Moon is near full, the news from the morning sudden. Whiskey doesn’t speed processing, but somehow helps us dodge the hidden tidal waves forming.

The journey there is long and we pass from one house to the next, airports negotiated in the dark hours until two competent young women deliver us. Salt air and seagull cries filling noses and ears.

Windswept, cold grey sky that dovetails with the sea provides a backdrop for the hundreds gathered in semi-circle as final honors are rendered. Crisp honor guards affirm the adage that ‘smooth is fast’ as folded colors speak of a grateful nation.

We honor the horizontal man, confident we knew him, equally assured that he was made of too many facets and shadows to wholly know the vertical man complete.

We disperse home after storytelling, while neep tides slide past spartina grass, green so late in the season, waiting to die as the coming sea ice begins forming.