Chapter 6 Summary

Hung over, Otto awakens in his apartment and surveys the damage from the night before: a large smudge on his white linen suit and less money in his wallet. He swats angrily at a fly that dances around the room. Looking at his pale face and puffy eyes in the mirror, Otto cringes when a pneumatic jackhammer opens up its rat-a-tat-tat inferno on the sidewalk below. He rides the bus to Esmé's apartment and knocks. She shouts through the door for him to come back in an hour after she's had a bath. Otto eats breakfast at a lunch counter then passes his friend Stanley on the street without stopping to speak. When he returns he asks Esmé how she is feeling and whether she remembers anything from the party the night before. She doesn't remember that Otto brought her home. There...