Neon beer signs diced shadows from the darkness, and clouds of smoke laced those shadows. Daniel smelled beer and sweat and some industrial-strength disinfectant meant to cover the aroma but only made it more prominent. He had never been in a strip joint before and he was afraid it showed somehow, though those present would hardly witness his self-consciousness: a bored greaser behind the bar who did not seem to notice nor care that the boys were underage, and a half-dozen early-morning drinkers, mostly enlisted men, seated at tables that came into focus only gradually, and down at the end of the bar a group of girls, obviously dancers, sipping Cokes and talking in a huddle. On the curved stage that ran behind the bar a lone girl dressed like a nurse danced to the O’Jays’ “Love Train.”

Pete sat right in front of her, of course. Daniel didn’t feel he could argue with him anymore. He was sure he knew what this was about and wanted only to get it over with so that they could leave this place, which did not offend him because he was above it, but rather because it seemed so desperate a place to spend your morning. He couldn’t look at the girl, who was inching her nurse’s uniform up to show the straps linking her white hose to her tiny panties.

“I’ll be back,” Daniel said, and he lingered in the bathroom as long as he could stand.

Back at the bar, Daniel felt uncomfortable, but at least he was dressed casually. Instead of his typical uniform of Lacoste or button-down Oxford shirt and khakis, he wore jeans and a VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS T-shirt he’d bought at the Methodist Women’s Thrift Shop down on Sycamore Street. Pete and his friends scoured the musty aisles of the thrift shop weekly – Pete’s entire wardrobe, their father once joked, was likely valued at seventeen dollars and some change – but Daniel had set foot in the shop only once, and only this T-shirt, black and a little too big for him, misshapen by someone’s wide shoulders and a larger gut, paint-stained and a little frayed at the collar, appealed to him. He liked the red lettering, the large red heart beneath the word Lovers. He liked the absurdity of the slogan; he liked to wear the shirt ironically, as opposed to others he spotted wearing them (for these shirts were popular a year or so earlier among teenagers, quickly replaced by BERT’S SURF SHOP or the official tour Tee of some flavor-of-the-month band) whom, he liked to believe, took literally the notion that there existed a place – a commonwealth! – wherein people might locate that most elusive of emotions. That the shirt could be more mistaken for earnestness, for gullibility, made the joke all the more delicious.

Pete had ordered beers with no trouble from the bartender. Daniel thought of remarking on this phenomenon but that might imply that he was interested in his surroundings.

“So what do you think of her?” Pete said when he sat.

“What are we doing here, Pete?”

Pete shrugged. “Mind if I watch?”

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think she’s pathetic.”

She was pathetic. She was so high on something her eyes were just liquid slants, and her movements were so fluid it was doubtful she was even boned. She had the skin of a forty-year-old; her breasts, once she exposed them, were sadly deflated. She kept her G-string on, so technically she was not naked, but aside from magazines passed among the Raleigh Road boys back when he used to hang around the black pipe, she was as nude a woman as Daniel had ever seen. He could not help but look, even if he was unaroused by what he saw.

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