Big smile. Hair flip. "You're a doll." Swinging the purse like a slingshot, she hurried out. I caught up with her in the waiting room, just as she whipped out her lighter.

Jamming the cigarette in her mouth, she shoved at the door. I watched her trot down the hall, a girl in a hurry, haloed by a cloud of smoke.

I thought about her a few times—the image of self-destructive escape. Then that faded too.

Six years later I was invited to a bachelor party the weekend before Halloween.

A forty-five-year-old radiation oncologist at Western Pediatrics was getting married to an O.K. nurse, and a consortium of hospital physicians and administrators had rented the presidential suite of the Beverly Monarch Hotel for the send-off.

Steaks, ribs, buffalo wings, assorted fried and grilled stuff on the buffet. Iced tubs of beer, serve-yourself bar, Cuban cigars, gooey desserts. My contact with the honoree—a mumbling loner lacking in social skills— had been a few stiff, unproductive discussions about patient care, and I wondered why I'd been included in the festivities. Perhaps every face helped.

There was no shortage effaces when I arrived late. The suite was vast, a string of mood-lit, black-carpeted rooms packed with sweaty men. Penthouse level—no doubt a great view—but the drapes were drawn and the air felt heavy. Suit jackets and neckties were heaped on a sofa near the door under a hand-lettered sign that said, GET CASUAL! I made my way through testosterone guffaws, random backslapping, blue cigar fog, the strained glee of boozy toasts.

A crowd swarmed the food. I finally got close enough to redeem a skewer of teriyaki beef and a Grolsch. Belched cheers and scattered applause from the next room drew me to a larger throng. I drifted over, found scores of eyes trained forward on the hundred-inch projection TV the hotel provided for presidents.

Skin flicks flashing larger than life. Bodies squishing and squirming and slapping in time to an asthmatic sax score. The men around me gaped and pretended to be food, stood to the side, chewing and wondering what the hell I was doing there, why I just didn't wipe my mouth and leave.

A pathologist I knew sauntered by with a whiskey in his hand.

"Hey," he said, eyeing the screen. "Aren't you the guy who's supposed to explain why we do this?"

"You've obviously mistaken me for an anthropologist."

He chuckled. "More like paleontologist. I'll bet cavemen painted dirty pictures. How about we videotape this and show it at Grand Rounds?"

"Better yet," I said, "at the next gala fund-raiser."

"Right. Ten-inch cocks and wet pussies—better have oxygen ready for Mrs. Prince and all the other biddies."

A roar from the wide-screen crowd made both our heads swivel. Then a sharp peal—flatware on glass, shouts for quiet, and the vocal buzz faded out, isolating the thump-thump of the porn soundtrack. Moans continued to thunder in stereo. A woman's voice urged, "Fuck it—-fuck me," and nervous laughter rose from the audience. Then a tight, abrasive silence.

A thickset, ruddy man holding a nearly full beer mug—a financial officer named Beckwith—stepped into the space between the two front rooms. His eyeglasses had slid down his meaty nose, and when he righted them beer splashed and foamed on the carpet.

"Go, Jim!" someone shouted.