On my way out of McDonald's I bump into a bum who's holding open the door with his right hand and a Starbucks cup filled with change in the other. He doesn't say anything to me, just smiles, and I appreciate the silence so I give him a dollar.

"Thank you sir," he says. He looks at the cup, then back at me and asks, "Do you know what my favorite nation is?"

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard this one, donation, I know."

He doesn't miss a beat. "No man, it's Luxembourg. You know why?"

"No," I say. Intrigued, I move out of the doorway and lean next to him on the Plexiglas windows advertising the new McVeggie burger.

"Because it's a country and a city, ya hear? Can't find that nowhere else. Not anywhere. And you know what else? They say there ain't no Mormons in Luxembourg, but they're wrong. Todd Alabaster, Mr. Saint Alabaster, used to sit right here next to me here, right here, right here, and then one day he's gone, poof, zapped to Luxembourg, curing the elderly and washing their feet. And you know what?" he whispers, motioning for me to come closer.

I oblige and ask, "What else?"

"Glad you asked. He's gonna be the patron saint of Luxembourg real soon, ya hear? You know why? Cause everyone needs a patron saint and a Rolex watch."

"John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence," I tell him, pleased that my semester abroad is finally coming in handy.

"Florence? Fuck Florence. I'm not talking about Florence, motherfucker. Shit, I'm trying to tell you about Luxembourg and Saint Alabaster and you're not even paying attention. Fuck you then." He shuffles away angrily, looking back a few times and then yelling at me as I cross the street, "You better watch out, ya hear? Mr. Saint Alabaster's gonna get you real soon, oh yes, you'll know The Alabaster, oh yes you will."

***

The doorman waves to me when he buzzes me in. "Your girl is here," he says. "She's very pretty, yes she is, a real cute one. You're a lucky lucky man." I begin to tell him that he must have me confused with some other resident, but instead I smile back at him and think how beautiful it would be to be senile. I check my cell phone for messages on my upstairs. The display tells me its 3:16 a.m. Wonderful. I have a hundred-dollar, two pound, five inches by five inches pocket watch. "You have: two saved messages," the computer lady says, "from six weeks ago, because nobody ever calls you, you pathetic social outcast." The hallway smells like latex and chlorine, and as I turn the key I hear rustling inside the apartment. Seth is probably jerking off again on the couch, so I give him a couple of seconds to pull a blanket over his lap before I open the door. I'm still holding out hope that the Mets made a miraculous comeback in the bottom of the ninth, so I quickly walk into the living room and flip on the lights to find the remote and that's when I see Lucy and Seth sitting on opposite ends of the couch with a blanket stretched across their laps.

"What the fuck?"

"John, it's not what you think, I swear," Lucy begins, before she follows my eyes staring at the condom wrapper on the coffee table and starts mumbling something about being tipsy and feeling alone.

Seth is trying hard not to smile. "I thought you said you weren't going to be back tonight," he says.

"Are you fucking kidding me? With Seth? For chrissakes, the kid has a fucking dildo! Are you fucking kidding me?"

Lucy begins fumbling beneath the blanket, and the sound her zipper makes as she wiggles into her pants infuriates me. "I think I should be going," she says. "We can talk about this more in the morning."

"Fuck no we can't talk about this shit in the morning. No, hold on, let me fucking show you," I say, and I run into Seth's room, and pull out all of the drawers in his dresser, flinging dozens of Playboys and Oui's onto the floor before I find what I'm looking for and hurry back into the living room and shove the grey and pink phallus into Lucy's face.

"Are you seeing this? Look at it. Just fucking look at it!" I scream. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Ok John. Ok. I'm leaving," she says, and I make no attempt to stop her.

Seth hasn't moved from the couch and he still looks slightly amused.

"John," he asks, "do you have any idea where that's been?"

"Oh, you motherfucker." I charge at Seth and grasp the dildo like a knife and try to stab him with it. Seth is no longer amused, and he stands up and tries to grab the weapon from my hands. We bounce off the couch and go crashing onto the floor, knocking over the coffee table and spilling the remnants of a Tasti-D-Lite sundae onto the rug. I kick him in the shins and try to swing my legs over his so I can gain leverage on him, but he resists and pushes me off. I stagger to my feet and out of the corner of my eye I see his turtle, floating idly, so I quickly turn and open the window and lift up the screen and grab Lysander with my left hand as Seth is still trying to stand up.

"You see this Seth?", I scream, "You see this? You reap what you sow, motherfucker!" and I slowly place the turtle outside of the window and open my palm. I don't want to watch Lysander fall, so I let my head fall down and to my horror I realize I'm still holding the dildo. I go to turn around and put it down when Seth blindsides me with a right, then a quick jab with his left, and when he hits me the third time in my chest I fall backwards. My right hand swings wildly through the open window, and as I fall to the floor my arm catches on the window sill and goes numb. I don't try to stand up until I hear Seth say "Holy shit." I'm happy that he's no longer punching me, so I stand up and see what Seth's looking at. Even from our sixth story vantage point it's easy to see why Seth is so amazed. The dildo somehow managed to land in exactly the same spot as Lysander, and the tip struck his shell with so much force that it's standing straight up like a wooden stake in a vampire B-movie.

"No shit," I say, and then add, "He was probably already dead before, uh, you know, that happened."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Seth says, and he's still staring down at the concrete when I turn off the lights and go to bed.