The poems ended. Figarty told us how much he had enjoyed reading to us. He told us about the party at Omar’s house, which we probably all knew about. He left the podium, jingled his bells, and sang Hare Krishna softly.

Sam jumped up. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s too polite to be enlightened.”

“He’s very nice,” I said.

“He’s a pervert and a psychopath. In any other era he’d be chained to a wall.” So said Rennel, and then smacked his lips with satisfaction. We joined the stream of students leaving the lawn, and headed to Sam’s.

The sun slanted onto Sam’s house. Clancy had already made the rice by the time we arrived. Sam rushed in to fix the horsemeat. The party was in the yard; the smell inside the house was too bad. A bongo and a banjo plinked Japanese music. The drummer rocked, tossed his hair with his eyes closed. I watched a pretty girl wearing a suede jerkin as she danced, barefoot. She lifted her arms and swayed, nodded her head to the music. She was all high arches and soft pink heels. Her toes were rosy and clean. She bent a knee and swayed, lifted one foot at a right angle to the other and gently, precisely, set her glowing toes down on a tight little roll of dog shit. She lifted the foot casually, danced out of the dirt and into the long grass. She continued to sway her arms, although now she writhed and twisted as she scraped her toes through the grass.

Rennel sat on the ground with his black leather jacket unzipped to show his naked chest. A group of meditators sat in a circle next to the porch, legs crossed in the lotus position. Their eyes were closed, aspiring to inner focus. They breathed deeply, and on each exhale they muttered the holy syllable, “Om.”

Sam popped out the front door with a flaming skillet in each hand. He waved them slowly till the flames died down. I could smell the meat burning. He saw the growing crowd and grinned. He watched the dancing girl.

“Is that Carlotta? What’s she doing?”

“I don’t know what her name is, but she’s scraping shit off her foot,” I replied.

The droning “Om” drifted over the street and mingled with the ping of the banjo. Carlotta swayed dreamily and smiled at Sam. Everywhere there were colored scarves and beaded jackets, faded dungarees and army surplus clothes. Long, thin bodies bedded in jackboots. A fat intellectual argued macrobiotics. Sam watched it all, then ducked back into the house with his skillets.