The living room is maroon. A color I chose because my brother’s first car was that color and seemed well-omened. The bedroom is a dead place. I can’t remember, when I’m not actually in there, what color it is. It stinks of me and there’s no room for anything except the bed and the opening of the closet door. I think, occasionally, of having a huge ant farm installed against the far wall to liven the place up, but I can never convince myself that the ants wouldn’t manage somehow to get out. As it is, I lie in there reading with the lamp next to me and go to sleep with the light on and wake with the light still on and the book collapsed against my chest. When it seems necessary to comment on that habit I declare blandly that I’m afraid of the dark. People always take something that denigrating as the truth. But I have no concern about the dark, one way or another. The reason I sleep with the light on is that I fall asleep while reading, so that if I wake in the night I only need to lift the book and focus my eyes. The thing I am afraid of is the weakness of my mind in that period of half-sleep, the vulnerability I feel in the process of sliding into unconsciousness. There are thoughts and events and people that would encroach on me then if I allowed them to. There are the shivers and quivers of my little sins lurking about the edge of my mind, you see. They are always waiting for me to slow down, and when I do, when the current relaxes for only a minute, they snatch me up and gobble away.

Sam’s joke: When is a failure not a failure? When it makes a good story.

It was a fine day a week or so after the party at Sam’s place. I’d been down to Karafotia’s Grocery for purple soda pop and a package of cookies. As I came back up the street I saw Sam sitting on my ragged porch talking to one of the other roomers. As I came up the steps the man went into the house and Sam gave me a big grin.

“That’s an interesting guy. He’s a teacher down on the coast and comes up here every summer to take courses in marine biology.”

“I know. When did you get back? Where’s Carlotta?”

“She’s shopping. We’re out of everything. We just got back last night.”

“Well?”

“You mean, how did it go?” He took a cookie and munched on it. “We’re married.”

“Not very nice, huh?”