Tenth of December

Al Roosten waits nervously behind a screen while a “cheerleaderish blonde” pumps up a crowd at a charity bachelor auction for an organization called LaffKidsOffCrack, which uses clowns to promote an anti-drug message in schools. Al looks at Larry Donfrey, a realtor wearing a swimsuit, and considers his attractiveness, then recalls his teenage questioning of his own sexuality, which confirmed that he’s straight.

Donfrey heads on stage and is greeted by cheers. When Al walks down the runway, it is silent until someone gives him a “pity whoop” which becomes “a wave of mercy cheers” (91)/ Al interprets these as genuine—he thinks he has outperformed Donfrey, since he didn’t need to wear a swimsuit to get this level of applause.

Al is put in a cardboard jail cell with Donfrey, who he now feels affection for. Donfrey tries to comfort Al for his poor showing, which causes Al’s feelings about Donfrey to shift toward anger at his phoniness. Internally, Al mocks Donfrey’s wife and children as pale and waif-like. Al doesn’t have children, but he lives with his sister Meg and his three nephews, who are “[…] all-boy. And how. Possibly too much so” (95). He briefly thinks of his nephews as Nazis before empathizing with them because of their parents’ divorce.