Quincy's wife and my date smiled at each other's peace earrings. Then I took B.G. into the living room. We waited for somebody to approach us and start a conversation. It was a party and we didn't want to talk to each other. The whole point was to separate for the evening and find exciting people to talk to and then at the very end to meet again and tell each other how terrible it had been and how glad we were to be together again. This is the essence of Western civilization. But it didn't matter really because an hour later we were all bored It was one of those parties which are so boring that boredom itself soon becomes the main topic of conversation. One moves from group to group and hears the same sentence a dozen times. "It's like an Antonioni movie." But the faces were not quite as interesting.

I decided to go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. Six framed graffiti were hanging on the bathroom wall. The words were set in large bold type, about 60-point, on glossy paper; they were set in a scripted typeface to look real. Three of the graffiti were blasphemous and three were obscene. The frames looked expensive. I noticed some dandruff on my shoulders. I was about to brush it off when a girl named Pru Morrison came in. She was from somewhere in Bucks County, just beginning to get caught up in the whirl of urban monotony. She stood facing me, her body flat against the closed door. She was all of eighteen and I was both too old and too young to be interested in her. Nevertheless I didn't want her to know about the dandruff.

"Thought I'd wash my hands."

"Who's that nignog?"

"Pru, I understand Peck and Peck has a special on riding crops this week. Why don't you run on over?"

"I didn't know you went out with nignogs, David."