From chapter one:

December 26 Tonight a man found Dad's pants in a tree lit with Christmas lights. The stranger called and said, "I have some pants? Belonging to a Howard Young?" "Well, shit," I said. I put the phone down to verify that Dad was home and had pants on. He was, and did. Yesterday, on Mom's orders, I'd written his name and our number in permanent marker onto the tags of all his clothes. Apparently what he's done, in protest, is pitched the numbered clothing into trees. Up and down Euclid, his slacks and shirts hang from branches. The downtown trees have their holiday lights in them, and this man who called had, while driving, noticed the clothes, illuminated.

December 27 In the morning, when I go to fetch them, city workers are removing the lights from the trees and the decorative bows from the lampposts. One man unties a bow and tosses it to his partner on the ground. All the great bright gold bows are piled in the bed of an enormous pickup truck parked in the plaza. In that same plaza, a frustrated man is saying to his dog, "Why are you being this way?" A baby in a stroller is wearing sunglasses. "Dad, all my hard work," I say, later at home. I've collected a pair of pants, two shirts, a few knotted-up ties. "Now that's unnecessary," Dad says, angrily, when I return them.