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said, though he did not.
    â€œWhat do you think, Charles?” Fat Michael said at the sink, scrubbing his hands like a surgeon.
    â€œHey, Charles,” Vince said, knocking on the door of the stall.
    â€œDoesn’t he work with young girls?” Gary said.
    â€œSettle this one, Charles,” Fat Michael said. “Was Gary’s dog judging him?”
    â€œCharles, do Danish men sit?” Vince said. He knocked again, harder, pushing the door open and revealing an empty stall and a comprehensively vandalized partition. Vince entered the stall, followed by Gary and Fat Michael.
    â€œHoly crap,” Gary said, facing the wall.
    â€œWow,” Vince said.
    This happened a long time ago. In high school i used to go out drinking with my friends and then late at night i would sneak over to this girl’s house to have sex. She wasn’t even my girlfriend. I would throw gravel at her window to wake her up then she would come downstairs to let me in. She would close the door and then lie down on the rug in the foyer. She was so tired. Why would she let me in? Do not write slut. Imagine being woken up for sex by a drunk boy who doesn’t love you. What i’m trying to one night i was throwing rocks at the window and then another window opened in the back of the house and her father stuck his face out and said oh for god’s sake just come in! I went back home instead. The night was ruined. Do not write faggot. I told myself i would never go back there again but i went back several more times. Do not write hell yes. Do not draw a vulva. Someone should have put me in a kennel. All ofus. Her name was stacy demps and i’m sorry. Do not write pussy .
    Gary laughed, patting his front pockets, his back pockets.
    IN THE LOBBY, the model of the atom had collapsed into a tight cluster of men that moved gradually, and without the volition of its constituents, toward the front desk. Tommy’s mustache made Robert uncomfortable—it was a statement in a language that he did not understand—and so Robert broke from the cluster, and retreated to the locked door of the conference room. There was, he recalled, the year that Chad tried to break-dance atop the long, gleaming table. Once again Robert checked the foam board schedule on the easel beside the door. The room was still booked for the entire weekend. The repaired chinstrap dangled from his long flannel cuff like a chrysalis. He did not like change, which he experienced nearly always as loss. He felt forlorn about the conference room, and exasperated at Randy, and bitterly envious of Prestige Vista Solutions.
    Jerry, the director of transportation for Prestige Vista Solutions, checked the schedule on the easel beside the door, but he saw only a scribbled sketch of a fish. He askedRobert if Robert was one of the football players that he had seen in the lobby. Yes, Robert said quietly. He did not want to talk, or to explain, particularly to this man with a laminated name tag. The name the Redskins had given the flea flicker play was the Throwback Special, and thus some of the men, never Robert, referred to the group as “specialists.” Neither did Robert care for the term reenactor , which made him think of the freaks with hardtack and muskets, running through the woods and endeavoring to keep their powder dry. There was not a good way to talk about what he was doing here.
    â€œIt’s an annual thing,” Robert offered. Jerry stood beside him, facing the locked conference room. From the lobby behind them came the waves of masculine sound, the toneless song of regret and exclamation. Then, like a child handling an item he has been forbidden to touch, Robert said, “But this is the last year.” He rubbed the inside of the chinstrap with his thumb, stared at the honeycomb carpet in the conference room. “Last year,” he repeated, rubbing the strap. There, he had said it, though he did not know why. He had no idea if