Angry and armed with a pencil



Sometime around midnight, I stumbled over to the couch, looked down at him, and said, "Give me a cigarette."



He stared back at me, and I realized this was our first conversation in more than two years.



"Would you deny me a cigarette?" I asked.



"I wouldn't deny you anything," he said.



Later, around three a.m., as I stared across the table at the Romanian, I realized the absolute improbability of the whole situation. Who would have thought my whole life was leading up to this moment, here, in this place, with these people? I never would have believed it myself, if it hadn't happened to be happening right then. The whole of Friday night was like a strangely scripted dream involving jukeboxes and vodka tonics and a Frenchman named for Lyndon B. Johnson. The next morning, when CV and I awoke, we could hardly believe there were pencil scribbles on the walls, like an angry three-year-old had been at the party the night before, angry because we were distracted by grown-up things, angry because we hadn't given him the proper attention. Angry, and armed with a pencil.

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