Part 5 (1/2)

Katie thought Sam was being funny. She studied his face to make sure. Sam tried to look serious. Dinner had ended at some point while he talked, and he had paid, though he couldn't recall how, and they had wandered, almost automatically, into the Irish bar near the intersection of Cambridge and Beacon. Dinner, a bar, conversations about the s.e.x ritual, and a thirty-minute monologue on deodorant-if Sam was any sort of semiotician. . . . But he wasn't sure. Katie was so perfectly composed, and so much better dressed than he, it was hard to tell. They'd kissed once, on a porch in Jamaica Plain, having stepped outside a party for a smoke. They'd kissed and then she'd reminded Sam that she had a boyfriend and, more pointedly still, that he had a girlfriend, and, with autumn in their hearts, they'd stepped back inside. And then he'd failed to call. And then they'd seen each other a few times for coffee and not-kissed. So it was hard to say what exactly was going to happen, but for the moment, while they stood there at the bar, Sam knew he wanted nothing else.

”Look,” he said after ordering a gin and tonic for her and a beer for himself. ”What's the official Slip position on candles?”

”We're all for.” She laughed again.

”OK, how many?”

”We believe”-she cleared her throat-”we believe that anything more than three begins to feel a little spooky. Like human sacrifice, basically.”

”So, three. That's your official position.”

”Three's good.”

”Right. I just can't get over how programmed it all feels. It's like right now”-Sam looked at his watch, it was almost midnight, any minute now Katie would announce that she had an early flight; he needed to suggest that they go home, but he couldn't figure out how!-”all across America, diligent men who've been studying your s.e.x columns are lighting three candles in their little bedrooms and demanding of women, 'Does this feel good?' 'Does this?' 'Does that?' It's like three candles and twenty questions.”

”So what you're saying is”-Katie looked up and her eyes flashed at him-”you don't want to take me home?”

”Oh,” said Sam, losing his cool, ”I do. So much. You have no idea.”

They were leaning against the bar. The place was just crowded enough that they were pressed together but not so crowded that anyone would elbow Katie, forcing Sam to kill him. They had been locked for some time in a de facto embrace, and yet there was drama, there was drama and antic.i.p.ation, when he crossed over and kissed her. He had no idea what would happen, until she kissed him back.

”OK,” he allowed afterward. ”I'll take you home. But no twenty questions.”

”No questions is fine with me,” she said.

And then they were walking down the street, down interminable Beacon Street, to her house. Because of course they couldn't go to Sam's, it was too messy, and of course his car hadn't started that evening, and of course, of course. They hadn't been able to find a cab-they had begun to walk, thinking a cab would come, but it never came, it never came-and though it was a warm April evening, and though they occasionally stopped to make out against some fence, the walk was so long that he was beginning to lose his buzz. Why, he'd lost it. Two in the morning, a night of drinking behind him, six hours of it, $140, that would be $25 an hour, almost, more than he made at Fidelity, gone, all gone. He recalled now, nostalgically, the moments during the evening when he'd been pleasantly drunk-after the first two quick beers, before eating, his face already flus.h.i.+ng and his voice animated with indignation about his Google, and then again in the bar, oh the bar, where he'd gone to the bathroom after their kiss and returned to find her there, still at the bar. still at the bar. For a man who'd been to as many bars as Sam, had been to them alone and left alone, this was no small thing. He kissed her neck, then, in the bar. He kissed her lips, sloppily. Conscious of the stares, he had broken it off, had taken her hand, as if to say: We cannot be here any longer. Another minute and we'll be tearing our clothes off. We might get arrested. Let's go home and f.u.c.k. For a man who'd been to as many bars as Sam, had been to them alone and left alone, this was no small thing. He kissed her neck, then, in the bar. He kissed her lips, sloppily. Conscious of the stares, he had broken it off, had taken her hand, as if to say: We cannot be here any longer. Another minute and we'll be tearing our clothes off. We might get arrested. Let's go home and f.u.c.k.

But that was forever ago. Before the Long March down Beacon. Now it was two, it was past two, and soon it would be dawn and his p.e.n.i.s would turn into a pumpkin, and all was lost, all was darkness and loathsomeness, his buzz gone, his erection gone, and we are all so alone, surrounded by people so powerfully unlike us, and then she was kissing him again, and they were on her doorstep, they were on the little porch in front of her house, they were kissing-stumbling into her room, all was darkness, loathsomeness, but they were kissing and their lips described ovals around each other's, their tongues came out, bit by bit, they eased themselves into a kiss, standing next to her bed, and suddenly he wanted to kiss her shoulder, her arm, to press himself against her, and her throat, and then, kissing that throat as she threw back her head, he remembered her belly b.u.t.ton and descended, felt the cool of her silver studs, the futuristic metallic taste of them against his tongue, as if he were making out with a female robot, and who wouldn't want that?

He considered her s.e.x column. Would this be featured? s.e.x with the former future author of a Zionist epic? At the conference tomorrow-was he anecdotal material?

They had fallen into bed, her room was tidy but filled with knickknacks, things would have been knocked over, damage done, and so they were in bed, and taking off their clothes, and suddenly Sam realized with a start that he wasn't hard. He was betrayed! Full of l.u.s.tful thoughts, although also many other kinds of thoughts, but lacking l.u.s.tful deeds. Saint Augustine had written of this-impotence, rather than sinful pa.s.sion, was the crowning argument in his proof that l.u.s.t was evil, that it was not subject to the human will. And now behold poor Sam: It was one thing to go out with a woman and possibly sleep with her, knowing all the while that she would eventually tell her friends about Sam's various idiosyncrasies-that is to say, this was already bad enough-but to not-sleep with a woman who had access to a Web-based media outlet? That was a terrible idea! And it wouldn't even raise his Google, because obviously she'd use another name.

Here's how it was, in short: if in the next five minutes Sam failed to produce an erection robust enough to last while he located his jeans and extracted a condom from his right front pocket-tens of thousands of readers would know about it before the week was out.

Just then she said, as if to seal the contract of his humiliation: ”Relax.”

An hour later, it was over. There had been a few false starts, but Katie turned out to be an exquisite machine. It did not mean, as Sam had often thought it meant, a knowledge of s.e.xual arcana, but rather a sensitivity, an efficiency. Katie's body was, as Henry James would have said, one upon which nothing was lost. And Sam himself had been here and there, had certain interests, proclivities, higher math. In short, an hour after his panic they lay, pleasantly out of breath, and she had placed her head on his shoulder, trapping him underneath her.

”You know,” she said, sighing, ”I think Brown gave me an unrealistic idea of what life would be like.”

”Hmm?” Sam perked up. He was always anxious about s.e.x, about the physical mechanics of s.e.x-poor Saint Augustine!- but he loved talking after s.e.x, sometimes he wondered how people talked at any other time. ”What did you think it was going to be like?”

”I thought it was going to be, you know, Marx on Tuesday, naked copulation on Thursday, and then on the weekends I'd go out with guys kind of like you.”

”Like me?”

”Maybe not you exactly. But, you know, idealistic. Maybe a little crazy.”

”Ah.”

”I think you're sweet,” she concluded, and dozed off.

He lay there half trapped underneath her, the words ringing in his ears. Oh, Sam. You idiot. Katie was a s.e.x advice columnist but she didn't sleep with you because she wanted advice on s.e.x. She slept with you because you represented something, or the idea of something, even if it was just one of those gooey ideas they fed kids in the semiotics program at Brown: for all your problems you still read books, you were still a thumb in the eye of the way things were. You still thought, despite what you told Toby, that you had something new to say. Why should Sam of all people be famous, why should his words be disseminated via his Google count across the earth? Did he think Israel would pull out of the West Bank because of him? Did he think the Palestinians would finally relax? No, not exactly, but also, well-who knew? Secretly, quietly, he still believed this, and apparently so did Katie; believed that Sam wasn't like the guys she knew, the pretty boys with online movie reviews, big-Googled hipsters still showing up at the 1369 to read the first thirty pages of Infinite Jest. Infinite Jest. Not enough books in their apartments to cause a clutter if they'd combined them all together and thrown them in the doorway. Not enough books in their apartments to cause a clutter if they'd combined them all together and thrown them in the doorway.

Katie was different. She had books on shelves, lots of books, and books on her windowsill, neatly pressed together as if the windowsill were a shelf. This was surprising. There was some art on the walls, some photographs; the only thing Sam had on the wall was a PEACE NOW map of Israeli settlements of the West Bank and Gaza. Katie's apartment was less tidy than it at first appeared, it was pleasantly cluttered, a pile of DVDs lay next to the television in the corner-her mind was at work, by the looks of it, her mind was engaged. And her activity seemed suddenly to speak to his own lack of activity. What was he doing here? He should be working! All at once he felt the guilt descend, as it almost always did, the desire to be back in his apartment, to be out of this girl's life, which was not his life, and back into his own. He had a wish, an insane wish, to update his lists, to move Katie from the kissing to the sleeping column, he saw it in his mind as an Excel operation, the dragging of a cell.

His notebook was in the back pocket of his jeans, which lay in a puddle atop what seemed to be Katie's travel case, and now he slipped gently out of bed and picked them up-only to find, as in a mystery novel (was it the bit of moonlight beginning to slice through the window?), that something had caught his eye. Underneath the jeans, atop the suitcase, was a little red book, the kind sold at fancy airport stationery shops, the gift you typically give to people you don't know, and now it was, just as typically, oh Katie, a diary.

It went back an entire year. And what a canny, savvy young lady this Katie turned out to be! For all her s.e.x advice and Brown, for all her books and semiotics, there was a lot of career in here, and more career-Should she pitch this magazine? Should she e-mail this editor? Should she take a job in publis.h.i.+ng? Sam was a little puzzled. He flipped through for the graphic s.e.x descriptions, but they were absent. Maybe she kept them for the s.e.x column. Maybe Sam would be featured, after all.

At last he found some Sam in the diary. I've been interested in him for a while, I've been interested in him for a while, said Katie, said Katie, but I don't know if he's good for me. He's a little crazy and I'm just finally getting back on track with things. I wonder why he couldn't finish that book, though, or hold on to Talia. She was cute. but I don't know if he's good for me. He's a little crazy and I'm just finally getting back on track with things. I wonder why he couldn't finish that book, though, or hold on to Talia. She was cute.

He went through the rest, looking for himself. A little s.e.x here, more career, more editors, some clippings. No Sam. Then, two days ago, this: I think I'll sleep with Sam this time, I think there's a good chance. I don't expect too much, but it might be nice. He's funny. And he has I think I'll sleep with Sam this time, I think there's a good chance. I don't expect too much, but it might be nice. He's funny. And he has such beautiful eyebrows, I want to kiss them. I promise you this, though: if he starts talking about Israel, I'm out. It's over. A peck on the cheek and a see you later. such beautiful eyebrows, I want to kiss them. I promise you this, though: if he starts talking about Israel, I'm out. It's over. A peck on the cheek and a see you later.

Oh?

Really?

He set the journal down-he was sitting on the orange bean-bag in the corner of her room-and looked at Katie. She slept soundly, one thin sheet draped diagonally across her back, a thin long arm stretching out from beneath it. A beatific scene, and the anger that had flared up over the Israel comment subsided. So she didn't want to hear about the depredations of the IDF; and so she worried a bit more about her career than was strictly proper. So? Didn't he have enough integrity and self-denial for two people, for five, for all the good it did him, and enough Israel talk? And that bit about his eyebrows-how interesting, how strange. And wasn't she pretty, there, and sweet? And weren't they two very human people, on long lonely Beacon Street in Somerville, wasn't this all they ever wanted, really, wasn't it enough?

Meanwhile the journal had fallen open to its very last page. On the inside of the back cover, writing-in Katie's slightly loopy hand, in different-colored pens, at different times-a list. First names and initials.

Katie's List!

Sam glanced up nervously to make sure she was still sleeping. She was. So he counted. And counted. And counted.

It was longer than his by six.

And what was worse, after all that money spent, all that charm expended, all that panic and anxiety, he hadn't even gained on her.

He was still holding his jeans in his hand, poised in case she awoke and he needed them to cover the journal, and now he extracted his pen from its little niche in the rings of his own notebook. This practice of keeping the pen in the ring binding of his little notepads was bad for the notepads but it was good for the pen-his beautiful pen, the translucent Gel Ink Roller G7. He unsheathed it now and as the moonlight crept into the room, as it touched his bare back, a swimmer's b.u.t.terfly back, and as it kissed his gel-point pen, he flung himself defiantly in the face of all the Katie Rieslings in all the world. When he'd finished, he returned the diary to the suitcase, dressed, and let himself out of the house. It would be waiting for her next time she opened it, he thought as he inhaled the cool April predawn air, perhaps on the morning's Delta Shuttle, or perhaps on the way back from New York. Perhaps with another notch in her belt. It would be waiting for her in his best, his square and manly hand. ”Samuel Mitnick,” he said it aloud as if it mattered, Samuel Mitnick, Samuel Mitnick, as he made his way back home. as he made his way back home.

Sometimes Like Liebknecht

Just after the civil war in Russia, and just before Stalin started starving the peasants, there was NEP. NEP was nice, people liked NEP. But then Lenin died, and there was the struggle for power, and Stalin moved to consolidate his control of the Party. In response, Trotsky tried to organize a resistance. He gathered some of the old gang again (”We're getting the band back together!” ”The band?” ”To overthrow the government!”), and just as before they met in cramped apartments, agitated secretly among the workers, wrote intelligent a.n.a.lyses of the situation. But it was 1925 now, and things had changed: they were fighting their former comrades this time, and the working cla.s.s was exhausted. Some of their number defected, some gave up, one of their friends committed suicide. A follower wondered aloud what would become of them. Even Trotsky had to admit he didn't know. ”Sometimes you end up like Lenin,” he said. ”And sometimes like Liebknecht.” Karl Liebknecht was the German communist murdered in prison alongside Rosa Luxemburg after their bid for power failed in 1919.

So why was Mark always always ending up like Liebknecht? There was something about him-in his vicinity, women seemed constantly to decide to exercise their virtue, to try it on. They always emerged from relations.h.i.+ps for whose moral shortcomings and s.e.xual frenzy they wished to compensate, somehow, with Mark. ”Every guy I've dated since I got here turned out to be a major a.s.shole,” Leslie Devendorf told him just the other day as they drove home from a history department potluck, with Mark, fairly drunk, wondering if he should try to kiss her. ”Just f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king,” Leslie went on, of the guys. ”But that's over now.” She smiled sweetly at him. Mark shook his head, amazed, and did not try to kiss her. ending up like Liebknecht? There was something about him-in his vicinity, women seemed constantly to decide to exercise their virtue, to try it on. They always emerged from relations.h.i.+ps for whose moral shortcomings and s.e.xual frenzy they wished to compensate, somehow, with Mark. ”Every guy I've dated since I got here turned out to be a major a.s.shole,” Leslie Devendorf told him just the other day as they drove home from a history department potluck, with Mark, fairly drunk, wondering if he should try to kiss her. ”Just f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king,” Leslie went on, of the guys. ”But that's over now.” She smiled sweetly at him. Mark shook his head, amazed, and did not try to kiss her.

Half man, half Liebknecht, he drove home and called Celeste. It was still early. Maybe she'd invite him to New York?

”I cheated on my last boyfriend,” said Celeste, who now had a different boyfriend, ”and that turned out badly.”

”I'm not asking you to cheat on him,” said Mark, desperately. ”I'm asking you to leave him.”

”Mark,” said Celeste. ”Seriously. You live in Syracuse. What would we do, meet up on weekends in Scranton?”

This was painful to hear. ”I have a car,” Mark said with dignity. ”I have a fast car and I can drive it to New York.”