No one follows us out of the club, for which I am grateful. I pay a taxi to take Yvonne home. Maybe it's a testament to her quiet intelligence that it doesn't occur to me, until she's already airborne, how perfectly ridiculous it was for me to pay for her to get a taxi.

I hail a taxi for myself and tell him to take me to 105th. Again. Maybe I'll have better luck this time. I pay special attention to the driver, and I silently pray that picking me up won't turn out to be the biggest ...