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ancient Rome, Nero or somebody.”
    “Why do you like biographies so much?”
    Mona shrugged. “How should I know? Why do I like annathin’? I dint ever think about it.”
    “Mona?” This was from the girl of the young couple. She and her mate hadn’t been listening to us. They’d kept their foreheads touching while they conversed in warm, lush whispers. “Can we have a couple more?”
    “Sure.” Mona went to prepare their drinks.
    Now the boy spoke to me. “We’re Kim.”
    “Come again?”
    The girl came again. “We’re Kim. We’re both named Kim. Pretty funny, eh?”
    “It’s a fucking laff riot,” muttered Little Bernie.
    “Nice to meet you, Kim,” I said, and they nodded and went back to their private world.
    Jonathon began to act strangely. He put his long fingers to his temples and pressed very firmly, as if he was afraid that his head might blow apart. Jonathon said, “Oh-oh,” and everyone else in the bar said “Oh-oh” too. And then he collapsed to the floor with a loud “boom.”
    I was pretty sure he was having an epileptic fit, so I frantically began to search through my pockets for something to ram in his mouth. The other people, Mona, the Kims and the Bernies, remained calm. Mona leaned across the bar so that she could peer at Jonathon; then, satisfied that he’d done himself no injury with the tumble, she went about her business. Mona remarked to Bernie, “Looks like a pretty big one.”
    Bernie nodded and said, “Encore ein martoony, Moaner.”
    “Shouldn’t we put something in his mouth so that he doesn’t bite his tongue off?” I almost shouted. My pockets had yielded nothing but a few crumpled dollar bills. I picked up an ashtray from the bar, but it was full of butts and anyway seemed much too large for Jonathon’s mouth.
    “He’ll be all right,” said Little Bernie.
    Big Bernie agreed. “Sure. But it looks like a pretty big one.”
    “Big what?” I demanded, but then Jonathon’s lids popped open and his eyes, strangely colored and moist, began to roll around in his head. “Sheesh,” said Jonathon, and he struggled to his feet.
    Mona had poured a shotglass full of whiskey, and Jonathon’sfirst act was to shoot it back. During the brief “attack” Jonathon had perspired heavily, and I saw with alarm that tears were streaming down his wrinkled face. “That was a big one,” he confirmed. Jonathon lit a cigarette with trembling hands, and after a few drags he was calmer. He wiped tears from his face and gestured for another drink. Then Jonathon turned and looked at me in a way that I’ve never been looked at before. His cats’ eyes seemed like knots in wood, dead and full of circles. “You, sir,” said Jonathon, “are an asshole.”
    “Well, I’m sorry!” I said indignantly. I had to admit that my search for something to place in the Indian’s mouth was a little foolish, but accusing me of being an asshole was, I thought, a bit much. “I was afraid you’d bite your tongue off.”
    “What?” said Jonathon, puzzled.
    “I wasn’t going to stick the ashtray in your mouth,” I added.
    Jonathon turned to Mona. “What’s he talking about?”
    Mona explained, after which Jonathon said to me, “I’m touched by your concern.”
    “Well then, what did you call me an asshole for?”
    “Because that is what you are,” explained Jonathon. “Please don’t take it personally.”
    “How else am I supposed to take it?”
    Jonathon shrugged, tapped a long ash off his cigarette artfully. “There are worse things than being an asshole.”
    “Like what?”
    Jonathon shrugged once more, not in a manner to suggest he didn’t know, more that he was unwilling to say.
    “Well,” said Little Bernie, “Big Bernie’s a jerk.”
    “Yeah!” said Big Bernie. “I’m a jerko! That’s at least just as bad.”
    “And me,” said Mona. “I’m sort of a, you know, slut.”
    “There!” said Jonathon. “Everyone is something. Bernard’s a jerk, Mona’s a