He told me to come in. I reminded him about yelling up at the band while they were playing. That didn’t ring a bell. I mentioned falling over the equipment. I said, “At least I didn’t puke on you.” Then his memory of me came back and I handed him the flowers. He kind of laughingly went and showed them to somebody in bed in the other room. A woman came out with him and we were introduced. Her name was Barb. I’d never seen her before. John asked if I wanted coffee, and while he was making it Barb went behind him to toast some bread and placed her hand on the small of his back. He told me all the drunk stories of playing music in bars as she went from the toaster to the refrigerator, John’s eyes following. Barb poured some coffee for herself, he handed her a spoon, and she went back to bed.

The stories he told made what I did seem minuscule, or at least average. I told him you get sick of acting like that after a while. There’s no dignity in being a slob.

The conversation turned around, and I told him what I do, writing radio and TV ads for an advertising agency. I said the next time we needed a country band for something I’d call him, and he gave me a card for his painting company with the phone number on it. It had the address of this house, and in quotes it said, “Ask for John.”

I went home and cleaned more, ironed dress shirts for the week, and trimmed my nose hair. I turned on the TV and thought of John, images of him walking around his kitchen covering over the show on the screen. I switched it off, because in my mind John was doing this funny dance—similar to what he did with his hips onstage playing the fiddle—in his smart, well-fitting jeans. I got up out of my chair and started to do my own dance in response. I clapped my hands and spun around, put on a Stones album, and hopped across the rug. I found the silver bracelet my mom had given me for my birthday and slipped it on, combed my hair back with gel, and stared at myself in the mirror, holding my stomach in and flexing my flabby, skinny arms.

IN ADVERTISING YOU have hectic times with everybody running at a frenzy for weeks. It ends and you get horribly slow times, and management begins firing the less talented people. Account execs go out for lunch and don’t come back, secretaries fill the garbage cans with old files. I make pictures of Garfield using the X’s on my typewriter, my office mate calls telephone sex lines. I couldn’t stand it after a day and got John’s card out of my wallet.