It didn’t take long to settle into the routine and I applied for everything I was halfway qualified for—a few technical writing positions, a few editorial, one in a factory in a suburb I’d never heard of, part-time jobs of varying duties from loading trucks to cleaning kennels. I didn’t really care what kind of work I did as long as it paid a wage. I felt an accomplished giddiness because of the effort and was smiling stupidly by the time I was done. I knew I’d do the same thing the next day, and every day after if that’s what it took.

3

I strode back to Jeff ’s and found him standing on the porch in much the same way as I had the day before.

“What’s going on?” I asked with cheerfulness. He glanced over his shoulder and inserted the key into the lock.

“How are you?” he asked in a strained voice that gave me pause.

“I’m okay. You?”

“Remember much of last night?” He unlocked the door and flung it behind him, then trod heavily up the stairs. I followed.

“No, not really. Why?”

“Don’t remember the fight you almost got into, don’t remember calling Frank a rich, pretentious fuck?”

I smiled, at first thinking he was shitting me, but when I noticed the mechanical way in which he unlocked the second door without turning around to look at me, I knew that he wasn’t.

“I said that?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

He shook his head.

“Shit, man, I’m really sorry,” I said. “I don’t remember any of that. Why did I say it?”

“How the hell should I know? They were kicking you out after you dropped your beer on the floor. You could hardly stand. Frank made an offhand comment about you being a lush and you flipped your shit.”