“Half of them kept repeating my name, trying to get it right, while the other half laughed.But they were harmless. Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party: Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh.I remember those guys. Like the mascots of the party."Clay! Whatcha doon here? Bah-ha-ha-ha!”

“Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party. Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh.”

“And concentrating on the spot where the two spindles should be is the closest I get to looking Hannah's eyes as she tells my story.”

“But I need to wake up somehow. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s best to get through the day half-asleep. Maybe that’s the only way to get through today.”

“Watching those guys pummel each other so no one would suspect them of being weak was too much for me. Their reputations were more important than their faces.”

“If time was a string connecting all of your stories, that party would be the point where everything knots up. And that knot keeps growing and growing, getting more and more tangled, dragging the rest of your stories into it.”

“I tried getting my dad to buy me a beeper for my birthday,” he says, “but he thinks only doctors and drug dealers need them.”