They arrived with the setting of the sun-the Smiths, Bradshaws, Morgans, Hills, Rayburns, Gossages, Peppers, Stevensons, Halidays, Torgesons, Bakers, Hunters, Taylors, Colliers, Barbers and Fishers. Andrew Alexander drove up in his claret-colored Packard, a vintage model which was said to have been owned at one time by Al Capone or F. Scott Fitzgerald, depending on who was telling the story. William Judge and his wife looked up and saw me. I returned their wave and snapped into a midshipman smile, properly wholesome and humble. August Riddle strolled across the lawn. He was the town's crusty old lawyer, reputed to know more about deeds and mortgages than any man in the county. He was a bachelor. His office was suitably cluttered and he was always drinking black coffee and smoking long thin cigars. Mary and I had decided some time ago that Lee J. Cobb or Paul Muni would star in his film biography. He poked his cigar in my direction. The evening was warm and still. I saw a hawk. No sign of rain.

I put on a suit, white shirt and tie. I went downstairs and into the kitchen. The maid, Justina Simpson, who came in four days a week, had been joined for the party by her daughter Mae and her son-in-law Buford Long, who would be serving as bartender. I watched Buford set things up and I decided that tending bar might be a pretty good way to spend one's life. Spanking down big foaming steins of beer to be encircled by the huge skeet-shooting hands of virile novelists. Rattling the cocktail shaker and doing a little samba step for the amusement of the ladies. To be an expert at something. I asked Buford how he liked tending bar and he said the ice made his knuckles cold and sent weird shooting pains up to his head. My mother looked in then and urged me to make an appearance. I stayed for a moment longer and watched Mae carving turkey. She wore a white uniform. She wasn't wearing a slip and I could see the shadow of the inside of her thighs through the sheer white cotton. I went into the living room.

"Why, you're taller than Clyde," Mrs. Hunter said.

The Gossages felt me up, Henry and Lucy, and I spoke with Justin Hill about the Southeast Conference versus the Big Ten. My father had his arm around me for a few minutes. We were talking with Claire Collier, a tall good-looking woman. We were all talking simultaneously. I went over to the Rayburns and Taylors and said all the same things I had just said to Mrs. Collier. My mother usually referred to Mrs. Collier as "the Collier woman." This seemed to imply some distant scandal. I was aware that Amy Loomis and I, who had been at opposite ends of the room, were slowly approaching a confrontation. It was as though all the energies broadcast from the bodies of those forty adults were impelling us toward each other. Amy was tiny. She was talking with Andrew Alexander, who kept patting his own head. My mother had my elbow in her hand and then she was introducing me to Amy, pinching my elbow during the brief silences and letting up as soon as I said something. Amy and I were alone.

"Do you know Jim Gibson?" she said.

"No, I don't think so."

"He's got a green catamaran called Belleweather?"

"What's his name again?"

"Jim Gibson."

"I don't know him."

"That cat really flies."

"I'd like to get one myself. They really go."

"Do you know Marty Hammer?" she said.

"It sounds familiar."

"His father's got a yawl? He gave Marty carte blanche with the yawl for his sixteenth birthday? It's something like fifty-five feet?"

"No, that's not the one I'm thinking of. Does he have a brother named Frank?"

"No."

"Then that's not the one," I said.

"Do you know Tim Lerner?"

"Didn't he drown in Peconic Bay last summer?"

"That's the one."

"Do you know Billy Shaw?"

"I know two Billy Shaws," she said.

People were filling plates with sliced ham and turkey and trying to eat standing up. It was very warm in the room. The Gossages joined us. Henry rubbed my shoulder. Lucy Gossage held my hand as she talked to Amy. Mrs. Loomis came over with Tod Morgan and asked how we were doing. Lucy Gossage held my hand up near her breast and kept caressing it with her other hand. Ray Smith came over and went into the boxing routine he always used when we met. Head tucked down on his left shoulder, he threw some mock lefts and rights at my belly, snorting with each punch. Then there was a brief lull and we heard Mrs. Loomis telling Amy to smile once in a while. Then we all started talking. Jane stopped by and introduced her boyfriend to everyone. Tod Morgan handed me what he called a real drink. It was scotch and water. It made me very warm and I didn't like the taste much. But I seemed to be having a good time. They were nice people.

They had no scars or broken noses. They dressed more or less the same. They talked the same way and said the same things and I didn't know how dull they were or that they were more or less interchangeable. I was one of them, after all. I was not a stranger among them and I liked their hands on my body.

"Did anyone see those motorcycles today?" Tod Morgan said.

The Collier woman and I stood by the fireplace drinking. I assumed a clubby slouch. Then Lucy Gossage had her arm around me and her husband, Henry, was whispering a dirty joke in my ear. I had trouble picking up his words. Soon he started laughing and I knew the joke was over. We both stood there laughing. Henry looked right into my face, searching for genuine appreciation, wanting to be sure I understood the point of the story. I kept nodding and laughing. When he was satisfied he went away.

August Riddle had a teardrop of flesh on each sagging jowl. I watched him. Amy was talking to me about somebody named Bobby Springer's Austin Healey. Mr. Riddle was talking with the Stevensons. He lit his cigar and then waved out the match with a circular flourish. He dropped the match on the floor. Mae carried a platter of pineapple rings into the room. I tried to catch her eye so I could smile at her. Amy was talking into my chest. It was all settled as far as she was concerned. It was between Wellesley and Bryn Mawr. She had red hair and big green eyes. I imagined being in bed with her and her mother. Amy was drinking the champagne punch. Nobody seemed drunk yet. I asked her if she wanted to go out on the porch where it would be cooler and she said no. Just plain no. There was a terrible silence then which made me nervous and I found myself asking her if she knew by any chance how the Yankees had made out in the second game. My father came over and shook my hand for some reason. Then he was gone. Andrew Alexander was talking to Amy. You young people, he kept saying. You young people. He patted his own head. He couldn't have been trying to keep his hair in place, for it was cut short and it was thick and firm. Every time he patted, his eyeballs rolled up. He and Amy were discussing the color beige. I watched his eyeballs slide up and down. He asked if Amy and I were engaged. I excused myself then and went into the kitchen to watch Buford Long mix drinks. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. Pouring club soda with his right hand, he took a matchbook out of his breast pocket with the other hand, flipped up the cover with his thumb and, using his index finger and his thumb again, bent a match at its middle and struck it. I liked the way he did that. I had never seen anyone do that before. I also liked the fact that he was left-handed. Left-handed people seem to do things with more style. I've always envied them. Warren Spahn the stylish southpaw.

"Where do you normally work, Buford? Tend bar in some bar or something?"

"I'm a maintenance man. Mae and I, we live down Manhattan in the West Twenties. I maintain six buildings. I collect garbage from outside their doors and bring it downstairs. I fix things need fixing. I shine things up."