Copacabana Beach Café

The Copacabana Beach café is one of the short story's primary settings. This is the location where the narrator initially encounters Scranton. While drinking a brandy here one day, the narrator observes groups of tourists approaching the shabby looking man, buying him drinks, and asking for photographs with him. The narrator soon discovers that "this impoverished American" is Scranton, the fraudulent astronaut he read about in the paper two years prior (1107). Over the course of the following days and weeks, the narrator begins to spend more and more time at the café because of his growing interest in Scranton. The men will sit and talk in this setting, drinking brandy and beer and discussing Scranton's stories. After Scranton dies, the narrator continues to visit the café, but always by himself. He assumes Scranton's former station at the location, and greets tourists as if he is in...