After the dinner party a fight breaks out—or it might be an epidemic. I stay inside waiting for casualty reports. After, R doesn't want to talk and leaves angry, with the flash of a smile. On the bed I find L splayed out, pale and visibly in shock, with a severed penis between his legs on the bedspread. He says he is giving it to charity because what doctor would perform a reattachment on the Friday night before New Year's? I can hear his mother in the kitchen, starting up the phone tree.