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irresponsible—the shell of liberation. It was Patty’s belief that if she were to act less responsible now and then, she would find herself to be a freer, happier person. But being irresponsible seemed to strain her and the consequences of her irresponsibility always came down on her as if totally unexpected. “Why do I always have to be the responsible one?” she would ask. “Other people get by just fine.” She could never get used to the idea—she could never be convinced of it—that we irresponsible masses were constantly paying for our irresponsibility with additional heaping portions of stress, heartbreak, and bankruptcy. We did not lead the carefree lives she imagined for us.
    She took in the disorder of my office.
    “Jesus, Owen,” she said. “What happened?”
    Did she envy my devil-may-care attitude at that moment? She tiptoed across the archipelago of open carpet and pulled my head to her stomach.
    “Are you finished for the day?” she asked.
    “I could ditch, if that’s what you mean.”
    “And if you did, what would you want to do tonight?” she asked.
    “What do you want to do?”
    “You,” she said, “and Frisbee, and dinner.”
    “Three things that can happen in only one order.” She looked disappointed for a moment, then went to the front closet and retrieved the Frisbee. Sex first would have meant no Frisbee, and dinner first would have meant no sex or Frisbee. Even in our limited experience we had learned this. Our sex life was a disaster. We went through great droughts punctuated with spasms of activity, based on how Patty was feeling. In the beginning, she would break down and cry during sex, claiming an overflow of emotion. CJ’s ghost standing at the end of the bed.
    It was one block to the park in the cool night. I walked as naturally as I could.
    “You seem distracted,” she said.
    “I’m fine.” The panties were a vice. When we got there we threw the Frisbee back and forth a few times. As was inevitable, it ended up on the ground. I couldn’t bend to fetch it. I managed to flip it up with my foot, but could not get it high enough to retrieve it. I kicked it in a circle.
    “Owen, what are you doing?”
    I couldn’t bear to look at her. I left the Frisbee on the grass.
    “I should have gone to the bathroom before we left,” I said.
    “There’s one over there.”
    The public restroom at the park consisted of a cute outbuilding—more handsomely appointed than the concrete hellholes down by the beach—and appeared very clean from the outside. I went in expecting the worst possible odors, graffiti-covered metal “mirrors,” pooling fluids in the corners, but it was better maintained than I thought it would be, especially considering the half dozen or so homeless men who inhabited the parkwith their dogs, sleeping bags, malt liquor, and weed. The only thing I would have asked for, aside from a nice floormat, was a higher stall door. The city had equipped the toilets with thigh-high stall dividers and doors, just enough to provide a modicum of decency for the average sitting citizen while also not providing enough privacy for shooters to shoot, taggers to tag, lovers to love, or me to doff my wife’s underwear in privacy.
    I had removed my pants very carefully to avoid their touching the floor or the bottom of my shoes, and I had just slung said pants over my arm in order to pull off the panties when I heard a shuffling at the door. My first thought was Patty. The ball of guilt in my chest was being whacked back and forth by the twin paddles of justification and fear of discovery, and I had to remind myself that I was doing all of this for her, that she loved me, that I loved her, that I could explain everything and make everything okay again.
    I was on the verge of explaining myself to the invader when I realized it wasn’t her—it was a homeless man. We had seen him down at the corner coffee shop many times. He had a crew cut, a sharp square jaw, and his eyes were