“Oh, Fall to Shadows is next. They’re all right, but if you’re into more melodic stuff, I think you’ll dig Secret Keepers. They’re on second-to-last. I can see that Get Up Kids shirt peeking out there, no worries.”

“You are one on whom nothing is lost,” I said. I’d read about Henry James recently because a girl I thought I liked had told me that The Portrait of a Lady was her favorite novel. I’d taken The Golden Bowl out of the library, but it might as well have been in German for all the sense I could make of it.

“Fuck, yeah, dude,” she said. “And I’m Karen, thanks for asking. Kind of a scene queen.”

“Paul,” I said. “Straight-up wannabe.”

“It’s a glamorous life, for sure.”

The cigarette was going down easier now, though it still felt pretty terrible, and was making me light-headed.

“Is this Babyface stuff really as nuts as everyone says it is?” I said.

“I mean, it’s definitely violent,” Karen said. “As a putative member of the fairer sex, I prefer not to get in the middle of it, but it’s not much worse than the usual dumb hardcore shit. Unless you piss off one of the idiots. You shouldn’t wear your glasses.”

“I’m pretty blind without them.”

“Exactly. You wanna go in?”

She flicked her lit cigarette an impressive distance into the street. I dropped mine on the ground and put it out with my heel, then picked it up and tossed it underhand over the velvet rope.

“Aw, newbie,” Karen said.

“How old are you?” I said.

“Sixteen. Well, in a couple months. See you inside.”

I waited a polite ten seconds and then followed her. A big crowd was gathered for the next band, and I didn’t see Thomas among them, or against the wall. My record was still there, though, looking intact. Maybe punk was trust. Raw Power had gotten to “I Need Somebody,” which meant that a band had to be coming on soon; surely it was bad form to let an entire album play between sets? I saw the guy who’d crowd-surfed off of me and he gave me a curt nod. Then the lights went down and the crowd pushed forward. I let the people go around me and stood in front of the line of burly, self-appointed enforcers. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that Thomas was among them, almost right behind me, arms crossed, feet set.

“I thought you’d abandoned me,” I said.

“Naw, man, that nostalgic shit just gives me a headache,” he said. “I’m straight now, though. Smoking is bad for you.”

“Yeah, it makes you feel like shit, too,” I said.