9

Air-conditioning is the governing principle inside the lobby. The walls hum sixty-eight degrees, and coolness drops down like confetti, at first thrilling, but then annoying, sticking to Billy's skin and leaving him goose-bumped. Dead ahead is the reception desk—an atoll on a sea of black marble—monitored by a woman on the phone. She glances up, sees Corker, hangs up, takes a deep BTU-infused breath, and smiles. Barely, Billy thinks.

For some reason Corker greets her with a Cockney accent. "Hallo, luv."

"She's on her way."

Corker leans on the desk. "Two hours and five minutes. Not bad for a Friday."

The woman nods. She has the long neck and ellipsoidal head of a Modigliani, her almond eyes embittered by an unpainted life of answering phones.

"We left a little bit late so that's why we're a little bit late," Corker explains.

"Okay."

"Traffic wasn't too bad."

"Okay."

"You know, if you ever need me to get you something, anything, in the city, don't hesitate to ask, because I can, no problemo. I can even give you a lift, maybe on a day off. We could get lunch then grab a new batch of norms and head on back."

The woman tilts her head as if she's just heard a pile of shit fall from a very great height. "You have a pickup at the train station," she says.

Corker flinches. "I know that. Christ, I know that." He hands over the clipboard. "The seven-oh-two from Boston. Thirty-seven minutes from now, twenty minutes from here, so in ten minutes I'll leave and still be early, so don't worry about my end, okay, missy." Missy. He actually called her missy. Billy's shocked, pleased, embarrassed—the sort of reaction he usually has when watching afternoon talk shows. It's the trifecta of guilty pleasure.

"Relax," the woman says. "I was just reminding you."

"Well, I don't need reminding. Or relaxing."

Her "Sorry" has been trained in jujitsu.

Corker is incapacitated. "I was just, maybe, yeah."

There's a pause, the audience of eight wondering what will happen next, where this will lead. Corker can only look away for a few seconds at a time as if he's still driving and she's the road, and she seems to understand this and spreads her lips like the endless unreachable destination, and when Billy sees Corker stare into those flat blue eyes he thinks he can see Corker's whole story: Corker as an infant, a boy, a teenager, a young man, the entire physical evolution of Corker in four progressive steps, and in the gross Corker, Billy glimpses the mitigating circumstances of the person, the insecurities of the reptilian brain surrounded by millenniums of gray. Nothing worse than jerks with sudden souls.

"I'm gone." Corker waves good-bye with his nose.

He's answered with eyebrows.

The receptionist says, "Strange, strange man." Her face loosens. Disdain suits her better. "Anyway, welcome. Your study coordinator will be here—" just then, stage right, a woman scurries in holding a stack of manila envelopes like freshly baked pies. She seems a generation removed from the family orchard, picking Post-its instead of produce.

"Hello," she says. "I'm Carol Longley, your study coordinator."

Billy's tempted to sing back, "Hello, Mrs. Longley," for she reminds him of his favorite grade school teacher: black curly hair, heart-shaped face, pair of glasses practically drawn on with a Magic Marker. She's the dream gal of eight-year-olds before their idea of beauty changes in high school. "Okay, we're in a bit of a rush, so if you'll grab your bags and follow me, we'll get you checked in as quickly as possible and settled before dinner, which, egads, is fast approaching." She even sounds like his teacher—enthusiastically high-pitched and able to shatter the most cynical of glass.

"Quick like a bunny," she says.

They follow her into a hallway where a dozen chairs are lined up against the wall, their scooped plastic shell assuming their asses. Mrs. Longley reads names and hands out the corresponding envelopes. "Inside you'll find copies of the informed consent, the drug protocol, the two-week schedule, so refresh your memory while waiting and prepare any questions you might have, because you'll be asked to sign the informed consent in the next few minutes. Those of you who've done this before—Mr. Letts, I think you're the only one who fits that bill—will find their ID necklace inside. The rest will have theirs done in the first station. Now, there are four stations in all. Enter the station, give the person your envelope, and do what they tell you. Once done, wait outside the next door until you're called inside. When you're done with the last station, return to your seat and wait for the rest. Okay." She claps her hands. "Let's go." Billy half expects her to pull out a stopwatch and stretch a yellow ribbon across the finish.

Peter Swain is up.

Brad Lannigan is on deck, stretching.

Billy is last in line. He watches Rodney as he retrieves his ID from the envelope—under laminate, the man is six years younger, which must be like decades in drunk years. His nose was unmarked then. His eyes were clearer, if a bit more sour. Rodney regards the photo like it's an old friend long believed dead. He cups his hands over himself and whispers, "Please pass, please pass, please pass," his eyes closed, his body swaying, breaking your heart if you're the slightest bit pessimistic toward someone who wants something so badly.

In the first station a woman steers Billy against a green backdrop and adjusts the mounted digital camera so his head and shoulders are officially framed. Composition seems to cross her mind briefly before she realizes she's wasting her time and steps toward the computer.

"It's all done digitally?" Billy asks.

"Uh-huh."

"Cool."

The woman might as well be typing Like I care.

Billy, nervous, runs his fingers through his hair and wipes the layer of travel from his face. While he pretends to be casual about his looks, no big deal, rarely shaving, letting Sally cut his hair, trumpeting the occasional pimple and taking odd pride in dandruff, the truth is, he's terribly vain. Mirrors are a continual source of fascination—a staring contest follows every piss—and most shiny surfaces catch his attention. Car windows, storefronts, elevator doors, silverware. But often their reflection feels two-way, as if on the other side stands the victim of false impressions who leans against the glass and shouts, Who the hell do you think you are? And cameras slay him. Whenever one is pointed in his direction, Billy puts on a jokey face and hams things up. He's rarely caught candid. Afterward he regrets these little displays—they seem so desperate, so phony, even if he's mocking the whole convention of the party pic, the group photo, the tourist snapshot. Still, you'd think he could be himself once in a while. Just smile. Just be. But no. Even worse, when he's presented with a sleeve of photos, he will speed-thumb through the Billyless images and only alight on himself—laughing broadly, gesturing slickly, winking cheesily, beaming bogusly, slouching sadly, gawking insanely—and wince. Focus a lens on him and he turns into an adverb.

Billy stands there, smiles. Guilelessly.

"Don't bother," the woman tells him. "You're already laminating."

"Laminating? No 'smile' or 'on the count of three'?"

"You looked fine. Now come over here." She asks for his left arm and wraps around his wrist a green plastic bracelet, unbreakable, the kind used in clubs to distinguish the legal drinkers from the illegal. A bar code is printed across the front. She shoots it with an optical scanning gun. The computer registers him like a can of beans. "Keep this on for the entire study," she tells him. Then she punches a hole in the upper-right-hand corner of his freshly laminated ID and slips through a cheapo chain. "And wear this at all times, outside your shirt, always in full view. For meals you swipe the magnetic strip before entering the cafeteria. If you lose it, it's a ten-dollar fine for a replacement." She dangles the ID in front of him like car keys for her son.

The laminate is still warm and smells of toxic clean. The Billy Schine it contains is far from flattering; he looks bruised, bloated, drowned. "I think you've captured my corpse."

"It's not that bad."

"A suspected boating accident."

"You look fine."

"It's like I'm wearing my own memento mod."

She's suddenly sensitive to her art. "It's how you look," she says, guiding him to the door and the next station, where, she adds rather cryptically, joy awaits.

Joy comes in the form of a two-hundred-pound black woman. Better yet, sea-glass brown, her skin battered smooth and frosty when dry. She sits on a stool in the middle of the room, not so much inhabiting the space but wearing it like an antebellum hoopskirt.

"Okay, Mr. Schine, have a seat and roll up—are, you left- or right-handed?"

"Right, but I throw lefty and play guitar lefty, though I don't play guitar much."

"So, right?"

"Mostly, I'd say. And pool. I don't know why, but I play pool lefty."

Her droopy eyes droop further. "Your left sleeve, up to the shoulder."

The chair Billy plops into resembles a clinical Barcalounger. It's menacingly comfortable, as if TV might be watched intravenously. The slightest squirm unleashes vinyl farts the color of teal.

Joy snaps on surgical gloves. Fingers are wiggled expectantly like the order of the day might be criminal. "So, I'm the phlebotomist for your study, meaning I'll be drawing your blood over the next two weeks. Twice a day. Twenty times next Saturday. That's your PK day, 'PK' for pharmacokinetics, which is the main point of this study. That'll give us the internal life of the drug, a half-hour-by-half-hour analysis for ten hours. It's a long day for the both of us, so feel sorry for me as well. I'll never take too much blood, only a little more than a thimbleful, not enough to have any effect on you. But instead of needle-sticking you all those times and leaving your arm looking like a pincushion, what I'm going to do is insert this cannula"—she picks up a small needle-nosed tube from the instrument tray—"so when we need blood, all we have to do is connect a test tube. What that means is you'll have a medical device in your arm and you should treat it with respect and leave it alone. Don't play with it, don't pull at it, don't pick at it. No joke. Best pretend it isn't even there. You can shower, you can do whatever you normally do. The cannula will be changed every four days, and if there's ever any discomfort, let me know. We can always go to the needle. Clear?"

Billy nods. How old is she? Twenty-five? Thirty-five? Forty-five? Her age seems hidden under a layer of timeless weight. Billy likes her instantly and for no good reason. She seems nice. Sweet. Maybe it's the warm and fuzzy undertones of a large black woman, a nurse, possibly racist in nature, or nurture, at least stereotypical (the Aunt Jemima factor) and totally undeniable. You jerk. Who do you think she is, Butterfly McQueen? Hattie McDaniel? Because guaranteed if she were a large white woman, she'd simply be fat.

Joy ties a rubber cord around his biceps. "Pump your hand."

"So how'd you get the name 'Joy'?"

"How'd you get your name?"

"My parents."

"Imagine that."

"Is it a family name?"

"My mother died in labor so my father tried putting on a happy face."

"Jesus, I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago." Joy rips open an antiseptic swab and wipes clean the peachy underside of his arm. "You've got good ropes. A five on the phlebometer."

"What's that?"

"Thickness and definition of the vein."

"Oh."

"These are bodybuilder veins."

"Inside weakling arms. Must be my inner Charles Atlas."

"Aren't we quick."

"Huh?"

"Clever."

"You make it sound like a diagnosis."

"Either way, it makes my job easier."

"Cleverness?"

"No, your veins. Nothing worse than chicken veins." Joy leans over Billy; her cleavage is viselike. "Okay, here we go," she says, holding the cannula by the neck like a viscious species of worm. The needle pushes against the skin and the skin bends and briefly withstands before the needle breaks the surface and slips in. Two strips of medical tape secure the parasite to his arm.

Joy reaches for a test tube. "You're a watcher," she says.

"Excuse me?"

"Most people turn away." She marries the test tube to the cannula, and blood begins to flow, its rich red hue flummoxing even the best colorist.

"But you're a watcher."

"Yeah, I don't mind."

"Some people faint." Joy unknots the rubber cord. "And the ex-junkies drool."

"Am I drooling?"

"Are you an ex-junkie?"

"No."

"Then you're just salivating."

"I sort of find it relaxing," Billy says, like a vitrine filling with his blood, he imagines, filling and filling and Billy slowly fading as his fluid self drains into glass until every last drop of what lies beneath skin is exposed.

Joy detaches the test tube, shakes it, labels it, racks it with the seven other samples. "You're all set," she says.

Billy asks, "Which one belongs to the woman?"

"Why?"

"I want to see Snow White."

In station three Dr. Paul Honeysack wears the prerequisite white lab coat and sits behind a desk. He's in his gaunt thirties, overworked, underpaid, on the threshold of the cynical forties where age will be added to the growing list of disappointments. By the looks of him, Billy figures his twenties were without much humor (only podiatry would've made him laugh). His cheeks are pictographed with acne scars that tell the story of brutal teen years underscored with shy obsessive eyes that remind Billy of a boy who never had a doubt of what he wanted to do in his life. Even as friends played in the dirt, little Paul Honeysack probably dreamed of today—and here it is, you schlub. "You're the last one?" he asks.

Billy nods.

The doctor thumbs through a file. "William A. Schine, date of birth 7/11/72, Cincinnati, Ohio, screened and approved, New York, 8/14/99." His eyes alternate between the papers on his desk and the man in front of him; he could be sketching a portrait in vital statistics. "What year Harvard?"

"Ninety-three."

"So I'm older."

"Harvard?"

"No, Cornell, then Emory, but I had a lot of friends at Harvard."

"Oh."

"Almost went."

"Oh."

"Are you an artist, writer, filmmaker, actor?" he says as if saying blah-blah-blah.

"None of the above."

"We don't get many Ivy Leaguers here unless they're the creative type."

"So I hear."

"Are you working on a Ph.D.?"

"No."

"You a reporter?" he asks warily.

"Nope, I'm nothing."

Honeysack rechecks his paperwork as if somewhere in the documentation, in the height and weight, is the verbal and math of an SAT score, the verification of his intelligence. The goddamn SAT. Reach back and remember that fateful day when Billy received the notice from the ETS. His first piece of official mail—Mr. William A. Schine in the cellophane rearview mirror—he hesitated before discovering his crass cognitive worth. Where would he fall in the world? He used a kitchen knife as a letter opener (the envelope begged for such respect) and sensed he was slicing through skin. Inside was a sixteen hundred combined. You asshole. No studying, no preparation. You fucking asshole. He simply enjoyed the process: the desk with the ripple grain of wood, the number-two pencils forming a river raft, the eraser barge, the clock moon, the calculator as your only friend—it was like Huck and Jim floating toward Princeton, New Jersey. Then there was the drama of broken seals and multiple-choice ovals, the strange pleasure in shading the answers and creating a design and transforming a blank sheet into a mental punch card. His public school was glad for the statistical bump, though his teachers considered themselves the butt of an inside joke (their beloved wunderkind, Vanessa Freen, totaled a measly twelve sixty) and his classmates treated him like the lucky winner of the standardized lottery. Of course his parents cooed nonstop about what their combined DNA scored. "You're proof of the properness of our choice," his father told him, as if hydrogen had bonded with oxygen and produced a brilliant life-giving sea. Fucking asshole, who do you think you are?

Honeysack steeples his fingers down to business. "I'm the doctor-in-residence for your study, the acting physician, a liaison between the nurses and the researchers. I'm a disinterested participant. A neutral party." He smiles like Switzerland. "I have no relationship whatsoever with this particular study, no conflict of interest, so feel free to tell me anything about your day-to-day status. How you're feeling. How you're holding up. Tell me about any adverse events you might be having, big and small, because nothing's too small for us. Think of me as your friend here. Even if you have issues with the politics of the place, the people, the food, let me know and maybe I can help." He quietly claps his fingers. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"How's your health been recently? Any colds, any illness whatsoever?"

"No."

"Have you taken any drugs in the last month? Over-the-counter? Prescription? Um, other, less legal substances?"

"No."

"Drinking heavily?"

"No."

"Allergies?"

"No."

"Would you say, right now, at this particular moment, you're feeling fine."

Billy considers this. "Sure," he says.

"Nervous?"

"A bit."

"Of course. That's perfectly natural. Anxious or nervous?"

"More nervous than anxious, I'd say."

"Okay, okay." Dr. Honeysack ruffles some papers. "Now Mr. Schine—'Schine,' is that a Jewish name by any chance?"

Billy startles, as if thrown into another unfamiliar time. "My father's Jewish."

"Eastern European?" asks Honeysack.

"German," Billy says.

"Me too. German, that is, not Jewish. 'Honigsack' before we came over."

Billy wonders what the proper response should be, what with the history involved, and decides on a what-do-you-know shrug.

"But that was ages ago," Honeysack says, then he tongues the corner of his mouth as if investigating a hidden canker. "I ask that question because if you were Romanian or Lithuanian and a Jew, we might be concerned. Genetically speaking, there'd be a much higher risk of developing agranulocytosis.

'' "Is that serious?"

"It can kill you."

"I'm pretty sure German," Billy says, remembering how his father would get teary over The Sound of Music, perhaps fancying himself a Baron Von Trapp type, or possibly a Christopher Plummer type. "Maybe Austrian," he says.

"That's fine, too." Dr. Honeysack hands him a ten-page document. "Now let's go over your informed consent. It's very important that you understand everything in this form. Now you've signed a primary consent form, but this is the conclusive form. As you know from the packet we sent you, you'll be testing Allevatrox, an experiment atypical antipsychotic for the treatment of schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder." He glances up from his copy of the form. "Of course you know what schizophrenia is. Sorry. Some of our volunteers are, well, less knowledgeable. Anyway. We'll go over the purpose, the protocol, the research procedure, the risks, the payment to volunteers, the confidentiality, the right to question, the subject's rights, the IRB contact, and the voluntary participation clause for Phase I research." Dr. Honeysack takes a deep, well-deserved breath.

"First, the purpose—"

"Can I just sign now?" Billy asks.

"You've read everything, understood everything?"

Billy lies. "Yeah."

"And you have no questions?"

"Just where do I sign?"

"Well, just to be sure, I'd like to go over some of the possible adverse events that you might experience during the study, just so you know what to expect from an atypical antipsychotic. Since this is what we call a load-up bioavailability study and not a long-range treatment program, a lot of these AEs simply won't happen. You'd need the added element of time. Over time, maybe, but in this short period, not likely. That said, there is a chance of having dystonic reactions, which means sudden muscle tightening, normally in the neck and or jaw area. These are more disconcerting than dangerous. Nothing to worry about. There's also a chance of something called an oculogyric crisis where your eyes involuntarily look toward a certain direction, often upwards. The glories, we call it. This generally happens when you're tired or in front of the television or not really engaged in the world, your eyes just sort of roll upwards. Another potential reaction is akinesia, and it's the most common of the extra-pyramidal symptoms. It's characterized by a decrease in spontaneous movement, meaning less flamboyant limb movement and facial expression. You'd get a wooden appearance, a shuffle instead of a trot. Akinesia can also have psychological repercussions such as lack of motivation and spontaneity, a diminished range of affect. On the other side of the extrapyramidal spectrum is akathisia. With akathisia you'd experience motor restlessness, fidgeting, purposeless movements, like obsessive leg crossing or skin rubbing. As you might expect, psychologically it might make you nervous and jittery. Okay, now we come to the bane of neuroleptics, and hopefully something Allevatrox has done away with, and that's tardive dyskinesia. This is the most worrisome adverse event because it can be, potentially, irreversible. Once again, you really need the added element of time for the symptoms to develop. It manifests itself by way of extreme facial behavior, like tongue thrusting, mouth chewing, lip smacking, eye blinking. A disturbed facial appearance. It can also effect your fingers, give them a constant wiggle and snap. It can impinge on your respiratory muscles and cause grunting and odd breathing patterns. It can turn into something called truncal dyskinesia, causing your torso to move in sharp thrusting motions which, to the passerby, can be unsettling." Dr. Honeysack stretches his shoulders in what Billy first assumes is an example but in fact is just a yawn. "That's about it," the doctor tells him.

"That's all," Billy says.

"Sounds worse than it is."

"Sounds just about right. Where do I sign?"

"Last page, above 'human research volunteer.'"

Billy gives his celebrity autograph, large and loopy and entirely illegible. Honeysack hands him the countersigned duplicate; his signature could be razor wire over a Dunkin' Donuts. "Keep this copy for your records," he tells Billy.

Your records almost makes Billy laugh.

Business completed, Honeysack leans back as if reclining into Billy's wavelength. "Do you have any questions before you leave, anything at all?"

Billy thinks for a moment then asks, "What do you do here besides this?" hoping he might ingratiate himself with this man, that afterward Honeysack will say to himself, Billy Schine, nice guy, a perfect normal.

"Like my real job? I'm a researcher here, but every year we're put on a random study as medical supervisor. It's our version of jury duty."

"So, what are you working on?"

"What am I working on?" Honeysack hums a sigh then smiles. Billy can see the ten-year-old in that smile, before the onslaught of zits and school, before precociousness went stale. "You're not a spy, are you?" he jokes. "No, I don't think so. I'm working on, um, this fairly radical preservation technique in trauma care. The basic concept is to take a severely injured person, say a car-wreck victim, and slip them into a state of cryobiostasis by flushing the aorta with a saline solution we've developed. We chill this solution to forty degrees, in effect putting the heart rate on the edge of no pulse. This keeps the trauma patient viable for a couple of hours so that the ER can determine the best course of action visa-vis the injuries. It's not as crazy as it might sound. It's as crazy as freezing sperm. It's a temporary measure, a few hours of life-saving stasis. The doctor I'm working with, he's a genius in the field. He developed the technique. So far it's worked beautifully, at least on dogs."

"Dogs?"

"Yes, and pigs." Enthusiasm lights Honeysack's face, except for the acne scars; they stay in shadow, a rawboned chiaroscuro.

"How about using humans?" Billy asks.

"Well, they're trickier," Honeysack says. "Not so much physiologically but legally. After eight years we're ready to move up to the next phase but we're still shooting sows in the stomach and miraculously saving their lives. All we need is our Anne Miller."

"The leggy entertainer?"

"No, the first American who received penicillin."

"I had another Ann Miller in mind."

"My Anne Miller developed severe strep after a miscarriage."

"My Ann Miller was a dancer, singer, actress, a triple threat." Billy remembers her from On the Town. It was—or is—one of his parents' favorite musicals. It always seemed to play on a Sunday on a channel without sports, and his mother and father would transform the living room couch into a pew, the television into an altar, and they'd sit and gaze upon the famous montage—the sailors on shore leave—and grow giddy with every vista, every landmark, every street and avenue and storefront from 1949, the stained glass of the old days, the old stomping grounds, the old haunts of Times Square, like a life flashing before their exiled-in-Cincinnati eyes. His mother was crazy about Gene Kelly while his father wondered whatever happened to Jules Munshin anyway?

"Must be different Ann Millers," Billy says.

"Must be." Dr. Honeysack gets up for good-bye. Billy mirrors him and starts for the door when Honeysack calls him back. "Oh, who should we contact in case of an emergency?" he asks. "I forgot about that. It's on page five, name, address, phone number, a next-of-kin kind of thing."

Billy thinks about his parents, his mother in Whispering Pines, his father by her side filling her head with memories of how things once were, stroking her left hand and lifting her ring finger into the sunlight, that small diamond breaking shards of light onto plain white walls. The phone would beckon like a telegram. Your son, William Schine, he's in the hospital. Billy imagined himself on his back, waiting for his father, waiting and waiting, half of him moaning don't come, the other half screaming please.

Billy writes down Ragnar.

The fourth and final station is a bathroom where a urine sample is required. Billy arrives to find the door closed. A nurse, unhappy in her chore, waits outside with what can only be described as a urine cart with six cups of pee. Billy grins an awkward hello.

"We still have somebody in there," she says.

"Oh."

"And he's been in there forever."

From behind the door: "I heard that." It's Rodney Letts and he sounds petrified.

"Turn on the faucet or something," the nurse tells him.

"What do you think I've been doing all this time, cleaning the sink?"

"Well, people are getting impatient."

"Pressure does not help. I needed to go. Or I did. I was really ready to go. But I've lost it. It's disappeared. I know my bladder, it's stubborn, and it's not going to give me a single drop." Rodney talks near tears. "Is it really so essential? How about I give you my sample in an hour or two? How about if I take the cup with me?"

"We don't do it to go."

Ms. Longley walks over from down the hall. "You all right in there, Mr. Letts?"

"Who's that?"

"Ms. Longley."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Longley, but I can't go."

"Yes, you can, just relax."

"No, I can't. I can't go. And now all this pressure, this urinalysis. But I want to go, I want fill a bathtub for you people, but I can't. I'm sorry."

"Okay, Mr. Letts," Ms. Longley soothes professionally. "Why don't you come out and regroup and have a glass of water, maybe walk around a bit, and then give it another go? In the meantime, Mr. Schine can scoot in and do his business."

"It's just that I'm"—the door unlocks—"intimidated." Rodney stands in the doorway, ridiculously crooked on his head. "Give me an hour," he begs. "Two hours, maybe tomorrow morning. Yeah, tomorrow morning would be great. Tomorrow morning, no problem."

"You have all the time you want. It's just that we can't clear you from admissions until we have a urine sample. It's regulations." Ms. Longley reaches for him though she has no intention of touching the man, only prompting him forward. "You'll have to wait down here until you can tinkle."

"But I can't." A surprising chuckle comes over Rodney. "I'm fucked—sorry," he says. "Language. Poor language. No excuse." He grins. "Tinkle, right, I should just tinkle, just get it over with and"—he humphs—"just let it happen, let it flow, right."

"How about a drink first and then we'll see what happens."

"Yeah, okay, a drink." Rodney, resigned, passes Billy.

"Mr. Schine, all yours."

The urine attendant hands him his cup. "Please, just halfway up."

A small sign hangs near the bathroom sink: PLEASE URINATE OVER TOILET. Billy prompts his bladder with a soft tickle under the glans helmet and its oh-so-sensitive chinstrap. Here we go. There's something strange about peeing in a cup, he thinks, something oddly circular, something, well, all too potable and self-absorbed, as if you're pouring yourself a warm glass of chardonnay. Cheers. The piss rises in a hurry, a deep yellow. Urinalysis will find five bowls of sugar-encrusted cereal for breakfast. Billy resumes into the bowl but then spots the sad empty cup of Rodney Letts resting on the sink. Inspired, he grabs it and gives it two inches of well-earned relief.

Back in the hallway, he tells Rodney, "All yours."

Hearing this, Rodney crushes his water-cooler cone and steps into the bathroom with a sense of bravery, not of a hero, but of a man who accepts his own demise. Ears strain in the hallway, acoustics wrapped within Rodney's urethra. Finally, the tension is eliminated by the telltale splash of piss on water followed by a triumphant groan behind the door.

Rodney reappears, glorious.

Brad Lannigan is the first to applaud.