Hamilton was theorizing about work. "Well kids, in order for the system to work, there must be glittering prizes. Another card, Richard, and not from the bottom, I'm watching. A highly competitive society must have simple rules and terrible consequences for not obeying the rules. I fold. There must be losers on the edge to serve as cautionary tales for those in the center. Nobody likes to see the losers—Wendy's deal—losers are the dark side of society and they frighten people into submission. I must have more plonk. Linus? I must have more of that yellow swill! Now! Mush!"

Linus gave Hamilton a sneer. Pam said, "Hamilton, fetch it yourself, you one-legged pig. And once you're there, fetch me some, too." Cards remained on the table. Wendy arranged her chips into tiny Angkor Wat towers, the same way she'd arranged stones on grad night years before. The evening's theme continued: an intensescrutiny of everything we had become up until now—relentless self-criticism—adding, subtracting, looking at the lives of others. It reassured us to hear that other people's lives were proving to be as unstable as our own. I put forth the question, "Do animals have leisure time? I mean, do they ever go 'hang out'? Or is everything they do connected to food and shelter?"

"There are hawks," Linus said, "who ride the thermals in the mountains without moving a wing for hours. Not even dive-bombing for rodents—just riding the wind."

"Dogs have leisure," said Pam. "Chasing sticks. Having tussles on the carpet. Great fun."

"I don't know," said Wendy. "Hawks are always alert for food. Dogs chasing sticks is pack mentality reinforcement. Besides, animals don't even have time. Only humans have time. It's what makes us different." Wendy dealt like a croupier goddess, massaging the whole deck rather than shuffling—a treat to watch.

Linus sipped his drink and said, "You know, from what I've seen, at twenty you know you're not going to be a rock star. Three's are wild this round. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or a professional." Wendy pecked Linus on the cheek. "And by thirty, a darkness starts moving in—you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy or successful. Pam, are you folding? Wake up, girl. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing the rest of your life; you become resigned to your fate. God, do I have a shitty hand. My cards, I mean."

Pam said, "Hamilton, my plonk? Oink?"

Pam had at least accomplished her dream of being a model. Hamilton—what dream had he made real? He stumped to the table with the bottle. "Oinks to you, Pamela."

The game lapsed into banter, which is all we really wanted. If we'd been serious, we'd all have owed Linus ten million dollars long ago. Linus always won. Card-counting during his stint in Las Vegas?

"I read about this study," Wendy said. "The researchers learned that no matter how hard you tried, the most you could possibly change your personality—your self—was five percent.""God, how depressing," said Pam.

"Crap," said Hamilton. "No way."

Wendy's fact made me queasy. The news reminded me of how unhappy I was with who I was at that point. I wanted nothing more than to transform 100 percent.

A few minutes later, Linus interrupted his poker-faced silence: "What I notice," he said, "is that everybody's kind of accusing everybody else of acting these days. Know what I mean? Kind of, uh, not being genuine." He looked at his Kahlua coffee. ("A teenager's drink," Hamilton had heckled.) "Nobody believes the identities we've made for ourselves. I feel like everybody in the world is fake now—as though people had true cores once, but hucked them away and replaced them with something more attractive but also hollow. Play your card, Wendy—" We pokered for a while, all feeling odd at Linus's lengthy barrage of insight.

"Amen, Reverend," said Hamilton. "Three jacks and the kitty is mine. Richikins, your deal. Or are you really Richikins? Prove to me that you're you, you impostor."

"Hamilton, you talk funny," barked Linus in a voice so new it startled us. "You talk in little TV bits. You're never sincere. You're never nice. You used to be a little bit nice once. I don't think you've ever had a real conversation in your life." We were all still: "When you were young, you were funny, but now you're not young and you're not even boring. You're just kind of scary. When was the last time you had a real conversation with anybody?"

Hamilton scratched an itch beneath his leg plaster. "I don't need this shit."

"Well? When was the last time?"

Hamilton looked to Pam for backup, but Pam had placed her cards down on the table to investigate the elegant floor wax sheen of the Queen of Diamonds. "I…" Hamilton was off guard. "Pam and I have conversations all the time. Don't we, Pam?"

Pam kept looking at her cards. "I'm not in this particular pissing contest, fellas."

"Thanks a lot, honey. So what are you driving at, Linus—that I'ma phony because I enjoy 'light conversation'? You ought to look into a mirror at yourself sometime. A real lulu you are."

"I look in the mirror every day, Hamilton. I'm saying that you're shutting the last door that might save you—kindness and honesty. You have thirty-five more years to go; life's all downhill from now on."

"What the … ?" Hamilton lifted himself up and reached for his crutches that leaned over by a pile of boots and a kitty litter box in the corner.

"Cor fricking blimey. No one needs this." (Hamilton was in his phase of only renting British VHS tapes, thus Anglicizing his diction.) "I'm getting out of preacher-man's house, and then I'm gonna hobble home. Pam? Are you coming or are you going to stay here to be real with Jesus and our chums here?"

Pam looked him in the face. "Yes. I'm going to stay a while."

"Very well, luvvie. I'll toddle off now." Wendy helped Hamilton with his crutches. He walked out the door and into the rain, where he shouted "Feck off" to all of us and grunted back to Pam's house, then most likely into a Demerol fog. We sat around the table and quietly packed up the chips and cards.

"He'll forget all this ever happened," Pam said. "He's not the sort of person who changes." She picked up three glasses at once with her fingertips. "And would somebody please tell me why fucked-up guys are sexy? I'm lost."

I said, "Hey, Linus. What was all that about?"

He said, "I just don't know. I had to say it. I'm worried. I'm worried that we're never going to change. I'm worried that we might not even be able to change. Do you ever worry about that?"

I said, "Yes."

The next morning all was forgotten.

While walking over to Hamilton's, I bumped into Megan. She was with two other thirteen-year-old girlfriends and one boyfriend, all puffing away on ciggies, the boy wearing baggy pants and the girls wearing clones of each other's fashions, groomed to the point ofalmost biological sameness (just as Karen and Pam and Wendy had once been). I said, "Where you off to today, Meg?"

"Out."

""Whereabouts out?"

"Good deeds, Dad. We're delivering Easter baskets to crack babies." Her friends sniggered. I realized that for the first time Megan was embarrassed to be seen with me. I understood, but nevertheless the barb stung.

"Don't forget dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's tonight."

She rolled her eyes, her friends looked the other way, and she said, "Right, Dad."

Torturous teen. To think I once believed teen-rearing would be so easy; like most parents, I thought I had the "magic touch" that would make my own teenager be my pal instead of my enemy. No such luck.