I couldn’t imagine being “announced,” and if I had a theme song, it was news to me. But he looked elated. “I crept in the back way,” I said as he rose to his feet and hugged me. “Check out your hair.”

“Yeah. They’ve been calling me Simon. Remember that game where you had to knock out those color patterns? People keep mashing their hands down on my head.”

“I thought they were calling you Little Frank.”

“Yeah, that too.” He introduced me to a half dozen people, and pointed out and named countless more. I got the impression there wasn’t anyone at the party he didn’t know. The guy on the milk crate next to him stormed off toward the bathroom (“That was Brian—trashed”) and another one took his place (“This is Chip—the trasher”). Chip was blond and much thinner than Frankie. He laid one spindly calf across a knee, then reached up and pulled Frankie down beside him by a belt loop. They kissed for an entire verse of whatever was playing on the stereo. When their mouths separated, Chip looked up and said, “So you’re Little Frank’s brother.”

“I am.”

“ ‘I am,’ ” Chip repeated in a voice deeper than the one I had used. He mugged at Frankie. “So serious.”

“Drinks,” Frankie said. He got back up and turned around dramatically. To Chip: “Behave, and keep your hands off him.” To me: “Don’t worry, Chip’s a nice one. And it’s a mixed party, by the way. AC and DC. Just so you know it isn’t all scary.”

He darted off. I glanced down at Chip. “I’m a nice one,” Chip said, smiling.

A few minutes later, the crowd pushed back to allow for a handful of people who had started dancing, and through this gap I saw Frankie emerge from the kitchen. He was holding three plastic cups of beer. He hesitated in the doorway as another guy stepped up in front of him and held something under his nose. When the guy stepped away, the Talking Heads song “And She Was” began to punch out of the speakers, and Frankie perked up. “Yes,” he mouthed to no one in particular. “I love this song!” Some of the beer spilled from the cups and he grinned and closed his eyes. His face turned blood red. For a few moments, he just stood there, flushed, between the kitchen and the living room. Then he made his way back to the corner. “Intense,” he said, handing me a cup.