WHAT DO I REMEMBER after that? Since I was so happily in a daze, I went where I was led. I have to be careful here not to fill the night with details from later memories, for I was to follow this route many, many times with the girls, . . .

AFTER ANOTHER BLOCK, we were out of the business district. We walked another quarter mile or so, past a few houses that held the offices of lawyers and dentists, over a creek and past a canal, and came to a small piece of public land on the left side of the street. I hesitate to call it a park, . . .

     The car doors opened, and a couple got out, apparently on their way into the bar. I caught the surprised look on the face of the man, . . .

“THEY’RE GONE,” said Margot in an elaborate stage whisper. “Good,” said Martha.

I’m not posting today. It’s my birthday. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five are sending me birthday wishes in the form of the “Happy Birthday Boogie.”

IF THINGS HAD BEEN just a little different—if the Glynn twins had been younger, or if all of us had been several years older, if we had understood more, or less, of the world, we would have left the theater and walked along Main Street under the movie’s melancholy spell, . . .

     A shabby, shadowy garret. Rocky let himself in through the window, and once he was in the garret with the women, the whole tone of the movie changed.

     The rain-washed square. Of course, a car came around the corner. The girls stiffened when the light from its headlights washed over the wet cobblestones, but Rocky staggered on, laughing, and singing some song in French. 

     I’ll fast-forward now to a point near the end of the film, after everyone in the troupe but Rocky, Lulu, and Lola had been captured or killed.  . . .

     The stadium, inside. The size of the crowd strained belief. It seemed to be composed of thousands of identical men—lean, eager, easily led. A stage at one end of the stadium. A small man, tending to fat, mounted the podium and stepped up to the lectern, where several radio microphones were attached. . . .