A police car cruised slowly along Cabana Boulevard, the uniformed officer turning to stare at me as I passed. I took a left onto my street and found a parking place. I locked the car. The sky was velvety with clouds now, the stars completely obscured. Darkness hugged the ground, while the sky was tinged with eerie light, like dark gray construction paper smudged with white chalk. Behind me, I heard the low hum of air moving swiftly through the spokes of a bike. I turned in time to see the man on the bicycle passing. From the rear, his taillight and the strips of reflecting tape on his heels made him look like someone juggling three small points of light. The effect was oddly unsettling, a circus act of the spirits performed solely for me.

I went through the gate and let myself into my apartment, flipping on the light. Everything was orderly, just as I'd left it. The quiet was profound. I could feel a little nudge of anxiety, made up of weariness, the late hour, empty rooms around me. I wasn't going to be able to sleep at this point. It was like hunger—once the peak moment passed, the appetite diminished and you could simply do without. Food, sleep . . . what difference did it make? The metabolism shifts into overdrive, calling up energy from some other source. If I'd gone to bed at nine or even ten o'clock, I could have slept through the night. But now my sleep permit had reached its expiration point. Having stayed awake this long, I was consigned to further wakefulness.

My body was both fatigued and fired up. I dropped my handbag and jacket on the chair by the door. I glanced at the answering machine: no messages. Did I have any wine on the premises? No, I did not. I checked the contents of the refrigerator, which showed nothing of culinary interest. My pantry was typically barren: a few stray cans and dried items that, singly or in combination, would never constitute anything remotely edible, unless you favored uncooked lentils with maple syrup. The peanut-butter jar had concentric swirl marks in the bottom, as if the rest of it had drained away. I found a kitchen knife and scraped the sides of the jar, eating the accumulated peanut butter off the blade as I walked around. "This is really pitiful," I said, laughing, but actually I didn't mind a bit.

Idly I flipped on the TV set. Lorna's video was still in the VCR. I touched the remote control, and the tape began to run again. I had no intention of watching any late night sex, but I went through the credits twice. The night before, I'd tried directory assistance in San Francisco, hoping for a telephone number for the production company Cyrenaic Cinema. In the credits, the producer, director, and film editor were all listed by name: Joseph Ayers, Morton Kasselbaum, and Chester Ellis respectively. What the hell, telephone operators are awake all night.