In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried

Although the narrator/protagonist is given neither a name nor identifying details, there are clues toward her anxiety and nervousness. Her collective fears have prevented her from visiting her dying friend. She fears earthquakes and “sleep[s] with a glass of water on the nightstand so [she] can see […] if the coastal earth is trembling” (9). She also fears flying, unlike her friend, who “trusts the laws of aerodynamics” (5). And, it can be inferred, she fears death. After she upsets the dying friend by telling her she is leaving, she observes, “I was supposed to offer something […] I felt weak and small and failed” (8).

The reader also knows the narrator is a writer, although it is unclear whether this is a hobby or an occupation. After her friend’s death, she arranges her memories, noting that she may not render the details faithfully: “It is just possible I will say I stayed the night. And who is there that can say that I did not?” (10). Her implied temptation to rewrite history evinces her shame and desire to conceal what she feels is her traitorousness—yet even in confessing that temptation, she displays an ironic honesty.