There was a party at a house up a long wooded driveway. I went up there and I saw it was Hells Angels, so I thought better of it and turned around. There was an interesting song playing though, something about getting your kicks, over four chords and a shaggy beat.

We’d bought a new home in Westchester somewhere. The apartment was still furnished with the seller’s things and I contemplated what to throw away, what to keep. Then there were other people there, visiting us. There were mannequin heads arrayed on top of the kitchen cabinets. The fridge was painted a dull pink.

Two French travelers had come through town and stayed at the band house. After they left C. D. said, “I should have taken them to the French River.” This was a picturesque landmark near us, apparently. I told him, “And on the way, you should have gone on incessantly about how they’re French and the name of the river is the French River.” This seemed very funny to me. I couldn’t pronounce “incessantly” properly.

A dayslong party on a property with multiple houses of different sizes. J. L. got extremely drunk. I was scrounging around for food. In one cottage I found some eggs in the fridge and wondered if anyone would care if I cooked them. People began to congregate there. Two guys wore identical print button-down shirts and I pointed it out, saying how funny. No one seemed to think anything of it.

Bob Dylan was a dog who quoted dark warnings from the Bible.

We were saying goodbye to some relatives, after a visit. D. and S., and B. Then we took a train for the long journey home. In it my dad held forth about the privations of World War II in Europe. He described how restaurants would pick the icy snow off of customers’ hats and coats and serve it to them as sorbet. After eating the customers played cruel games with each other, one of them involving singling people out for whipping with napkins. I had a sense of Nazism infecting the spirit of the people.

I was like the walking dead at work, knowing I’d get laid off soon. I wandered over to where the French programmers sat—we were all in one big room. F. H. caught my attention to say he wouldn’t last long either, by way of comforting me. I asked him what were his plans. He and his girlfriend would go on a trip, he said. He asked me if I’d ever been to Pelouse. (“Pelouse” is French for “lawn.”) I told him I thought I had as a child. Then the office turned into a bar and a soccer game was on TV.

I was hanging out in a bar downtown with G. C. and my old hometown friend B. S., who grew testy and obnoxious. At one point he grabbed my arm and examined the crook of my elbow, claiming to see needle tracks. There were indeed little holes there that seemed to go past the sinew and all the way to the other side. I protested angrily, saying maybe at one time that was true, but not anymore. B. had a second mouth at the level of his chin, a wide, grimacing maw full of sharp little teeth.

The bar was one of those old ones that claims to be the first in New York City. G. C. said it’s funny, there’s a different address on the door than the actual address. I said it’s because 170 years ago—I thought carefully before choosing this number—no one gave a fuck what number they were at or what street they were on.

I rode a centrifuge that was meant to replicate zero gravity. Someone I knew was driving it, like a car, and someone else I knew was another passenger. I waited to feel it. But I didn’t, really. I lifted up my hand, thinking it would seem to float away. Nothing was too different, except I kind of wanted to puke. Maybe it would work if I had a spacesuit on, I thought.

I was near Donald Trump—he was getting out of a limo—and I imagined running up and calling him a pig. The praise I would get, the vilification, depending.