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After Ronald Reagan became president, hard times found me in West Allis, Wisconsin. They followed me around, then they got ahead of me, like my shadow. The kicked sun flew into the air every morning but crossed the sky low and to the south, like a wobbly punt that curves out of bounds. A wrecking ball was knocking down six blocks worth of Allis-Chalmers. Twenty-foot-tall dump trucks hauled off the rubble. Some debris went by train. Borden's still made milk and sherbert and ice cream at the plant on Highway 100, and Elsie the Cow's red and yellow face still smiled that sure-I'll-have-some-milk! smile from the side of the building, but I was laid off from Borden's — this time for good, it seemed — and trying to make it delivering pizzas two nights a week at Todd's Pizza Mountain.

Then something happened at a New Year's Eve party. It was at a fancy condo in Bishop's Woods. I barely knew the people. Dwayne knew them. Dwayne was my best friend. We worked in the ice-cream freezers together, lived together, chased women together, and got laid off the past September together. He'd met Stephanie at The Happy Tap last summer after a softball game. She was a softball groupie. "Bring the whole team," she said.

Dwayne insisted we go to two other parties first, so we didn't get to Stephanie's until 2 a.m. They had one of those blue siren lights going in the living room, and Prince's "1999" was shaking the place. The revolving light slipped over lamps and pictures and the couple making out on the couch. I turned to tell Dwayne that the light and sound were like two hands feeling the room, but he'd disappeared. I wandered around — the sun room, the kitchen — running into little groups of people I didn't know.

I caught up with Dwayne in one of the bedrooms. He had Stephanie against the wall and they were kissing like mad. They broke it off — or I should say, Stephanie broke it off — when I came into the room.

"Happy New Year!" she said. She gave me a weird, lewd, drunken smile, but like she knew she was doing it. I smiled back and winked for good measure. I'd talked to her once at The Happy Tap. She was sarcastic, but I liked her. "Happy New Year," she said and kissed me on the mouth, then deeper.

"Do you have a friend?" Dwayne asked her, coming up to us.

Beautiful Dwayne always got the good-looking one, I always got the friend, the "ugly" one. I didn't mind. She was usually nicer. She'd be real nervous and sweat through her perfume, and then you could smell what she was really like.

But there was no friend tonight, so I kept kissing Stephanie with my eyes half-closed. I could hear Dwayne's

hands moving across the fabric of her dress, her dress sliding against her slip. I thought I was touching her where I was touching her and where he was touching her. Sometimes we'd meet a pair of women and end up on opposite sides of the living room at the apartment, but we'd never been with the same girl before. Then Dwayne pulled on her and I let her go.

"See ya," Dwayne said to me, his fingers on the spaghetti straps of her dress. But she said, "I want him here."

"Come on, Steph."

"Let him stay — I want to do it this time." She talked in a pouty secret voice, but I could hear everything.

Dwayne said no way.

Stephanie slipped out of his arms and pulled her straps up. "Happy New Year," she said and wobbled for the door.

Old Dwayne cursed and shot her an icy, macho glare — the way he looked at the next batter after someone had just tagged a home run off him — but he was too horny to negotiate. "All right," he said to her, "come on. Let's go."

He pulled her to him, tipped her onto the bed, and lay on top of her. I shut the door and took off my shoes and jeans. I couldn't decide whether the lamp on the nightstand should be off or on. I turned it off, but then it seemed too dark, so I turned it back on. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Dwayne grunted. They had undressed quickly, and Dwayne entered her doggy-style, as if he wanted to keep her between us.

I laughed at myself, finished undressing, and crawled onto the bed. Stephanie's head was near the headboard, her hair hanging down. There was really no space for me to be in front of her, and I wondered if Dwayne had done this on purpose.

I kissed the side of her face through her hair. She turned to me and kissed me sloppily on the mouth and then trailed her lips up my cheek. "69," she whispered in my ear.

I couldn't tell if she was serious or joking, so I lay on my back across the top of the bed, perpendicular to Dwayne and Stephanie, and Stephanie kissed me from above, her hair falling down my cheeks and neck. We did this for a long time — it really got me going. I almost forgot about 69ing until she whispered a reminder. Then while I was twisting my hips over, right up onto the headboard, pivoting on my shoulders, trying to travel headfirst down Stephanie's body so as to sneak up on where the two of them were joined, my dick got surprisingly close to my own mouth. "Hey, that's not for you," she said.

"Sure, I know that."

"I bet he can suck his own dick," she giggled over her shoulder.

"He better not," Dwayne said, puffing a little. The bed was rocking.

"I never have," I said. "I never knew."

"If you suck your dick here, man, I'm going to kill you," Dwayne said. "As soon as I'm done."

The way it turned out, Dwayne and I were facing each other, kneeling at opposite ends of Stephanie. It was strange and exciting — with the power of a famous historical moment on TV. Dwayne closed his eyes or looked at Stephanie's hips the whole time. When she finished me with her hand, I shot clean over her shoulder and got some on Dwayne. It took him forever after that, and when he finally came his face looked like a bee was stinging him in the ass.

I thought Stephanie was maybe too drunk to come. As Dwayne and I were getting dressed, she was still lying face down on the bed, her right hand groping around like she'd lost something. She made me think of the difference between getting laid and getting laid off. I wanted to give her another chance.

I started to slide my jeans down again, but Dwayne grabbed my arm. "That's enough, Loverboy." He buckled his belt, and business was officially closed for the night.