Michael Timmeris opened the door to his apartment excitedly but feeling empty and lonely. The week of working was over. He had done well at his sales job, making more than usual. He felt like cutting loose and spending some of his sedulously earned money. He called a couple friends and planned to meet them at a spot they all knew well: a place they had gathered many times to begin nights of debauchery.

Michael Timmeris had recently separated from a virago with whom he had lived, and he was in the mood to meet women. He longed for the lucid feeling he would have later that evening, after his quota of libations. He decided not to change from his suit and instead reluctantly removed his well-tied tie. He unbuttoned the top of his white dress-shirt, adorned with gold cufflinks, messed his hair enough to look less business-like and freshened himself with a spray of cologne.

Purposely, he arrived at the rendezvous point later than he and his friends had agreed to meet. He entered the dark nightclub. It was fairly early, before 10 pm., on this Friday night. Inside, various shapes of humanity filled the room. Michael Timmeris put on a veil of superiority.

- Foredoomed fainéants, he thought, as he scanned the crowd. He sauntered over to his friend, David Asherd, as soon as he saw him seated at the bar.

David Asherd, confabbing with a beautiful bartender, smiled at Michael Timmeris as he approached. The bartender laughed and went to attend to other drinkers. David Asherd, with slicked back black hair, and Michael Timmeris, with shaggy brown hair, shook hands, and each kindly slapped the other’s back.

- She’s new, David said. What are you drinking?

- You going to stand the first, Davey? I’ll get the next one.

- No worries, said David. I’ve already had three.

David Asherd lifted the vitreous container from the bar, filled with a bright, red liquid that Michael Timmeris knew to be cranberry juice and top-shelf vodka, and shook it a bit: an indication of his intoxication. Solidifying his meaning even more, he glared at Michael Timmeris with one eyebrow raised higher than the other. There was a wanting inside Michael Timmeris to catch up.

Upon request, David Asherd ordered Michael Timmeris a shot and a beer. Michael Timmeris was one who deemed it necessary to drink in order to engender in him the type of cocksure attitude it took to talk to women. As these drinks were ordered, Harry Umble ambled in the front door. The club was beginning to fill.