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party left the house and stumbled down the hillside steps, Mad Dog shushing them, until they reached the river. Half of them stood in a clump on Mad Dog’s dock, while the rest gathered in the weeds and high grass just behind a small patch of sand. Toby was standing at the end of the dock, complaining of friends who doubted one’s word, friends who had not taken his measure as a man and as vice-president of the Five Oaks teachers’ union.
    As he talked, Patsy nudged Saul in the ribs. “What about the current?” she whispered. “What about the current in the damn river?”
    Saul offered the bottle of Chablis to Patsy. She shook her head. “I asked you about the current.”
    Just as Toby jumped in, Saul said, “If he can survive the cold, he can survive the current.” Upon hitting the water, Toby’s bulk threw up a splash in all directions, wetting down those spectators on the dock. Patsy felt several drops of water in her eyes, and as she wiped them away, she said, “Where is he? Where’s Toby?”
    “He’s there.” Saul pointed. “Look.”
    Toby stood waist deep in the Tittebawasee River, bowing to a broken round of applause. The lower buttons of his shirt had loosened, and the rolls of fat around his midsection glowed porcelain white in the darkness. Someone threw him a dollar bill, which floated in front of him and then began drifting downstream.
    “I was worried,” Patsy said, turning back toward the hillside. “I thought he might drown or something.”
    Back in the house, someone had put on a band called The School of Velocity, and then someone else played Magnetic Fields. There was an argument about what time it was. Toby was stuffing his soaked trousers with dollar bills scattered on the floor near the kitchen, and then Saul was demonstrating how to do the tango with Patsy, and as they time-stepped across the living room, they knocked over an ashtray. People were applauding and laughing; someone—Mad Dog said it was Karla—was throwing up in the bathroom, and then the CD player was playing a rap artist, Dr. Dogg E.
    Then it was two o’clock, and Saul and Patsy were at the door, Patsy’s hand on Mad Dog’s shoulder.
    “Mad Dog,” Patsy said, “you are one hundred and seventy pounds of brain death.”
    Mad Dog held up his index finger. “One hundred seventy-five pounds.” He laughed. “Don’t knock brain death until you’ve tried it.”
    “I’ve tried it,” Saul said, searching the darkness for their car. “And I
love
it. Thanks, buddy. Tell Karla thanks, when she’s cooled down. Great hot dish. Great party. See you Monday.”
    The two of them staggered off toward the unappeasable dark. Mud stuck to the soles of their shoes. At the car, Saul fiddled with his keys, trying to get at least one of them into the door lock. “You know, Patsy,” he said, “I do love this place sometimes. I love these people.”
    “I know,” Patsy said, leaning against the car, waiting for him, her eyes already closed. “I know.”
    And then they were in the car, strapped in, and the car was heading south on State Highway 14, and Patsy was asleep beside Saul. Saul leaned back and pressed the cruise-control button. He did not even realize that he was shutting his eyes. How drowsy he suddenly felt! It was the effect of the insomnia. It turned waking life into a dream. He was dreaming of Patsy, sleeping within arm’s reach: Patsy, whom he loved all the way down to the root. If anything happened to her, he would surely die. He thought of his mother. Then he was dreaming of Mrs. O’Neill, carrying a gigantic plate of chocolate chip cookies. And Bart Connell and the barber, Harold, asleep on their feet. Then he thought of an aging African-American man with a goatee playing the guitar and singing the blues on an otherwise empty stage, in a single spotlight, to a sparse, unbluesy audience at Holbein College. He loved that man, the blues and the dignity. The two red taillights of Saul and Patsy’s car went