the disco ball throwing squares of light on the floor.

‘In the midst of success we are in failure,’ I said. ‘Is that in the Bible?’ ‘No, but it should be.’

(The same.)

Then he sniggered, snorted, huffed, and swayed,

Tibbs handed me a Rolling Rock.

a kind of therapeutic belief in the value of being extravagantly yourself,

who saw they could also be victimisers. Tully understood that difficult things did not cancel out other difficult things. He had a taste for ambivalence, and I’d never met anybody before who possessed that so naturally.

‘Every honest man and woman is a juvenile, too,’ he said, ‘and the old humour is always at your elbow. Some people in life are just stars, and this geezer is responsible for some of the biggest laughs I’ve enjoyed in my life. I know that might sound like a small thing to say, but think about it.’

He said he supposed he was now in a version of the film Stand By Me.