The present: twenty-three, a prostitute, eating soup at the Man o' War Grille

pivotal · 14 Nov YDAU (Matty's twenty-third birthday)

• When: 14 Nov YDAU, the Man o' War Grille on Prospect Street in Cambridge (between Inman and Central Squares); Matty's twenty-third birthday
• What: The novel's only present-tense look at Matty. On his twenty-third birthday he sits alone in the hot clatter of the Portuguese Man o' War Grille, hands in his lap, eating soup without slurping — "the neat eater in the family." He is now a prostitute (a "crewmate" in the same Inman Square street world as Poor Tony and Equus Reese; see event 6 and Dating notes) and a drinker. A big, balding, sharp-faced kid with a permanent involuntary smile — "His Da always formerly saying to Wipe it off." — he watches the squalid Little-Lisbon street theater through the window, a bag-lady defecating on the pavement, a brewing Brazilian street-fight, from a posture of blank, ruminating detachment.