Oscar had forgotten that Burningboy had once been a dentist. The man had earned a medical degree. Oscar was alarmed by this, not merely because the annihilation of the noble profession of dentistry was a stark barometer of America’s social damage. It bothered him because he was forgetting important things about important people. Was he too old now, at twenty-nine? Was he losing his grip? Had he taken on too much? Maybe it was the way Burningboy dressed and talked. He was a dropout, a prole, a marginal. It was just impossible to take him seriously for more than a few instants.